LINKcat News

Koha & Firefox

Koha is a web-based ILS software application.  This is great news because it means you will be able to access it from virtually any PC on the Internet.  This will give you a lot more freedom.  Also, there will be no software to download or update on your PC. All updates are done on the host server.

Because Koha is a web-based application, you will need to use a web browser to access it.  As Greg Barniskis pointed out in a Tech Bits  post last week "It's been said before but bears repeating: Firefox will be the preferred Web browser for library staff access to Koha."  If you didn't catch the two Tech Bits posts on Firefox last week, now would be a great time to take a look at them.

Greg wrote about "Library Staff, Koha and Firefox."

Jon Mark Bolthouse wrote about "5 Quick Tips for New Firefox Users."

SCLS migration to Koha is postponed until the end of 2010

The Go Live date for the SCLS migration to Koha is postponed until the end of 2010.

As many of you are aware, PTFS recently acquired LibLime—the vendor that is supporting our Koha ILS.  Patrick Jones of LibLime/PTFS met with SCLS staff last week and provided an update on the status of the SCLS development project. The good news is that there are around 50 out of our 110 active development features that are in some stage of completed development.  The not-so-good news is that all of the rest have little or no work done on them at all.  It is pretty certain that the core functionality determined by member libraries would not be completed in time for our projected Go Live date of September 7, 2010.

Given the two options of going live with less than our full slate of core development projects or postponing the migration to the end of 2010, SCLS has decided, based on feedback received from member libraries both at a meeting with libraries and Patrick on May 13^th and throughout the migration process, that it is important to have the system functioning as we need it on Go Live. 

There are other benefits to delaying the migration.  The summer training program was proving problematic due to staff vacations and summer reading program.  Postponing to the end of year means that the cataloging and acquisitions cutoff will be at a time when this activity declines naturally.  There will be one year-end process (on Dynix only) which means that libraries will have just one set of reports to work with for the state annual report.  Acquisitions libraries will be able to begin on a new fiscal year, instead of in the middle of a year in progress.  Migrating over one of the December holidays will mean that more libraries are closed for more days than if we migrated over the Labor Day holiday. 

Given that the end of the year seems a more ideal time to migrate, you may wonder why we picked Labor Day to begin with.  The reason was that we expected that we would need to be off of our Dynix Classic system by the end of November, 2010.  However, when the 2010 budget was set, it was decided to extend the Dynix maintenance agreement to the end of February, 2011.  The end of the year migration still gives us breathing room between the migration and the end of the Dynix maintenance agreement.  We have not selected an actual migration date, but here is a rough timeline based on the postponement:

• May-July: Migration committees continue development testing, data migration testing and setup
• August: Staff Koha “sandbox” with SCLS library data made available for training
• August-September: Provide webinars and online tutorials to introduce staff to Koha
• October-November: SCLS staff conduct regional hands on train-the-trainer workshops
• October-December: In-library training (done by library trainers)
• Late November/Early December: Acquisitions and cataloging cutoff
• December: SCLS staff conduct online refresher workshops
• End of December: Migration

It's Spring! - time for some Weeding (Reports)

Actually, Weeding Reports are valuable at any time of the year; I could not resist the gardening allusion.

Weeding Reports can be requested at any time using the online report request form.  We request that you allow us three weeks to get your report back to you, so keep that in mind when you are torturing, ahem, assigning weeding projects to your staff. 

Why is this on the Koha blog, you might ask?  For two reasons; the first is that database clean-up prior to a migration is an essential task.  Weeding your collection of "dead-wood", so to speak, helps keep your collection and our database in very good shape.  Migrating a clean, trim database reduces the amount of post-migration clean-up.  The second reason is that the deadline for requesting a weeding report is three weeks before migration.  If you have weeding projects planned, please request the reports as soon as possible.  You can spread out the report return date if that helps with planning out the projects.

I promise, there will be weeding reports in Koha, I just can't say for certain right now when we will be able to start running them for you again.