7 of the best ways to automate your library tasks in 2026

There are many automated tasks that librarians can set up in Koha library management system to streamline daily work. In this blog post, we share seven of our favourite library automation software tips to reduce manual and repetitive tasks.

Note, some of these tips require IT support from the team that looks after your servers to get you started.

7 ways to automate your library tasks

1. Clear old data

Koha can store an abundance of useful information that doesn’t need to be kept forever. Regularly deleting data that you no longer need is one of the best ways to use disk space more effectively and keep ongoing storage costs down. Plus, your library system will run faster as there’s less data to filter through. Here are a few areas you could set up automated tasks to delete data:

• Backups of data that you already deleted, such as old patrons and records.
• Action logs are over a year old.
• MARC files that have been staged and imported into the catalogue.
• Notices sent to patrons.

Your Koha vendor or IT support can configure these as nightly jobs to clean up the database. For more ideas on what you can delete safely, check out this video from KohaCon2025. 

2. Back up your database and server

Ensure you’re protecting what matters by regularly backing up your database and server. Talk to your Koha support vendor to confirm if you're getting daily database backups. This may be an important part of your business continuity strategy and something that your vendor can automate for you. You may also want to ask where the back-ups are stored and how long they are kept.

3. Mark overdue items as lost

Rather than marking overdue items as lost each time something reaches the lost duration, you can automate this in your library system. The Koha manual provides instructions on which system preferences to configure, including how long an item must be overdue before it’s considered lost, and whether to automatically apply a replacement fee to the patron’s account. Once you’ve set this up, reach out to your Koha support vendor to schedule the daily job on the server. 

4. Streamline your uploads to a Union catalogue

New Zealand libraries often share their catalogue holdings with Te Puna Search to ensure their collections are accessible and up to date in the search hub. Koha offers a range of features to automate this process. You can start with Koha reports, written to retrieve changes made to the catalogue. From here, your IT support can set up jobs to regularly run the report, generate the resultant MARC file, and upload it to the union catalogue server– all on behalf of the library.

5. Display cover images on your homepage

To keep your library website fresh and make popular content accessible, you can use a carousel or slider on your homepage. Slider content can display covers from your catalogue, and can be based on staff-curated lists, or you can automatically generate lists with Koha reports. Reports enable you to dynamically update slider covers based on dates, like recently added records, or statistics, such as books with the most reserves. 

To get this sorted, your IT support needs to enable Koha plugins on the server. Then, you can upload the Koha Coverflow Plugin and configure it as needed. An example you can refer to is the John Kinder Theological Library. They used a homepage slider to bring attention to their new books.

6. Send emails to your library users

Automating emails to library users saves time without impacting service quality. For instance, if you have library announcements such as upcoming events or new releases, you can use the Koha Patron Emailer cron job. Using the Patron Emailer, you can ensure relevant information is sent to the right people at the right time. For example, academic libraries can send emails to undergraduate and postgraduate students at the start of the semester to highlight library resources. A follow-up email can also be sent, for example, at assessment time to promote how library resources can support student learning.

Plus, the Patron Emailer can interact with other Koha tasks and reports, such as the daily job for long overdues mentioned in tip three. For example, you could automate sending a replacement cost invoice email.

7. Run upgrades outside business hours

If you have the in-house expertise, you can automate unattended upgrades. This is handy for relatively low-risk updates such as minor point versions, which can be set to run automatically on your server overnight. This means your technical team doesn’t need to work outside business hours to deploy changes, and your patrons aren’t disrupted when they’re likely to be accessing your services.

Whenever automating a task such as an upgrade, it’s best to run quick checks in the morning to ensure the major functions are running as expected.