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How Catalyst helped Islamic School of Canberra prepare its library for 200 new students
02 Mar 2026, 3:46 PMExplore how the Islamic School of Canberra upskilled its team and future-proofed its processes while preparing its its library for 200 new secondary students.
Background
Islamic School of Canberra (ISC) in Australia incorporates both academic and religious studies into its curriculum. As the school prepares to expand from Year 10 to Year 12 in 2026, the school’s library needs to scale effectively to welcome hundreds of new students while ensuring access for current students.
ISC has used Koha library management system since 2020 and is hosted by Rōpū kohinga, Catalyst’s dedicated library services team.
Opportunity
With the school expanding in 2026, ISC needed to:
- onboard and train a new secondary school librarian, Asna Hasan, on Koha
- catalogue hundreds of new resources
- import hundreds of new students into Koha
- create physical library cards for all new students
- improve existing manual and time-consuming processes.
Opening a new secondary school library means not only sorting the digital systems but also organising the physical collection. ISC needed to get the technology sorted first so the library team could shift their attention to the physical work of printing labels for each new book, shelving, creating displays, printing library cards, and preparing the space for students. In July 2025, ISC contacted Rōpū kohinga for training support.
Solution
Alex Buckley, Rōpū kohinga Developer, delivered six training sessions over two months to support ISC. Instead of ‘out-of-the-box’ training, the sessions were responsive, evolving as new requirements emerged, so Asna was equipped with the skills needed, ensuring the library was ready for the new school year.
The Koha training sessions have been very beneficial, providing me with a clear understanding of the system from the ground up. The step-by-step guidance helped me develop confidence in using Koha for library management.
The training covered:
Koha fundamentals: circulation, patron management, and core administration.
Bulk operations: importing hundreds of students from Excel and generating library cards at scale.
Cataloguing workflows: efficient processes for hundreds of new resources, including spine label printing with the Brother PTD610BT printer.
Ongoing Q&A sessions: addressing specific challenges as ISC prepared for its 2026 expansion.
Rōpū kohinga also helped redesign ISC's student card numbering system. The previous system included students' year levels in their card numbers, which required manual updates. The new system uses randomly generated, permanent card numbers that stay with students throughout their time at school.
Overall, the training has been a valuable experience that will support my work in the school library.
Results
The Islamic School of Canberra's secondary library was ready to welcome hundreds of new students in 2026:
- the library team has the skills and confidence to manage Koha independently
- efficient workflows are established for cataloguing and patron management
- hundreds of student accounts can now be imported in bulk rather than manually entered
- the card numbering redesign has eliminated ongoing annual admin work.
Need Koha team training?
Our training sessions are tailored to your team's needs, so you gain the practical skills that you need straight away. Whether it’s customising your OPAC, using Koha reports, or an introduction to what Koha can do, we can help.
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