Every six months the Koha community does a major release, such as Koha 23.05. Major releases are when most new features and enhancements are added to Koha, so it’s always interesting to see what’s going to be available to libraries in their next upgrade.
The Catalyst Koha team has highlighted some of the new functionality and fixes available to libraries upon upgrading to Koha 23.05.
For the full Koha release notes see https://koha-community.org/koha-23-05-released/(external link)
If you would like to check out the new version as you read along, see https://demo.mykoha.co.nz/(external link)
Acquisitions
Receiving multiple order lines at once [8179(external link)]
When receiving basket orders from vendors, Koha libraries now have the ability to select and process multiple at once.
Selected orders can be browsed using the added 'Next order' and 'Previous order' buttons.
‘Previous order’ and ‘Next order’ buttons show in the bottom-right of the screen when editing received orders
After editing each order, without reloading the page or having to search for them again, a convenient 'Confirm' button allows us to receive all orders at once.
This opens the door for new enhancements like adding default actions on all selected orders and more.
Revert suggestion status to ‘Accepted’ when orders made from a suggestion are cancelled [33098(external link)]
This enhancement was sponsored by Waikato Institute of Technology. When a library user makes a suggestion for the library to purchase, the status of the suggestion may be changed to ‘ORDERED’ once an order is placed for that item.
With this enhancement, cancelling an order will automatically change the status of the suggestion back to ‘ACCEPTED’ from ‘ORDERED’.
Suggestions with a status of ORDERED are reverted to ACCEPTED if the associated order is cancelled, as shown in the suggestions management interface.
Cataloguing
Add a simple way to add ‘Harmful content warnings’ to catalogue records [31123(external link)]
This new feature allows librarians to pick a note field to use to store 'Content warnings' about bibliographic records.
The feature depends on the new `ContentWarningField` system preference to be set to a MARC field. For Koha libraries using MARC21, it is recommended to use a 59x field.
MARC fields configured to hold content warnings will display on the record in both the OPAC and staff interface.
Strip leading/trailing whitespace characters from input fields when cataloguing [30358(external link)]
This is a feature that may be of interest to those who use Koha with a special interest in cataloguing. Sponsored by Educational Services Australia SCIS, this feature adds a new system preference `StripWhitespaceChars` which, when enabled, will strip leading and trailing whitespace characters from all fields when cataloguing both bibliographic records and authority records. Whitespace characters that will be stripped are spaces, newlines, carriage returns, and tabs
This feature depends on a new StripWhitespaceChars system preference, which is disabled by default.
Ability to change authority type while editing record [30930(external link)]
This feature, sponsored by Educational Services Australia SCIS, provides the ability to easily change the MARC authority type used while editing an authority record. This means you can easily switch the framework being used, including tags, default values, mandatory fields, and more.
The authority type can be changed from within the Settings menu while editing an authority record.
Lists
Add permission and setting for public lists to allow staff with permission to edit contents [30418(external link)]
Many Koha libraries were experiencing a problem when staff in control of public lists moved on from the library, and they could no longer make changes to the list. Koha now has an option to allow changes to lists from ‘permitted staff only’.
Lists can now allow changes from permitted staff.
A permitted staff member requires the ‘catalogue’ permission enabled and the new ‘edit_public_list_contents’ sub-permission enabled. With both of these permissions they will be able to edit all lists that allow changes from ‘permitted staff only’.
The ‘catalogue’ permission is required to log into the staff interface, and the ‘edit_public_list_contents’ sub-permission is required to make changes to staff-permitted lists.
Notices
Move emails for sending cart and list contents into notices tool [3150(external link)]
This enhancement creates notices using Template Toolkit syntax for sending emails containing cart (named CART) and list (named LIST) contents. This provides libraries more flexibility around what the emails contain and means they can be more translatable.
The CART notice is now available to customise under Tools -> Notices and slips.
OPAC
Add ‘Report a concern’ feature for patrons to report concerns about catalog records [31028(external link)]
This brings a new catalogue concerns feature to the OPAC and staff interface, allowing non-cataloguers to report issues with catalogue records from the record details pages.
Reported concerns will be visible in the dashboard on the staff interface and available from the cataloguing home page.
The feature can be independently enabled for OPAC and staff interface using the `OpacCatalogConcerns` and `CatalogConcerns` system preferences.
If the OpacCatalogConcerns system preference is enabled, a button will show on a record detail page to ‘Report a concern’.
Staff members can view and manage pending concerns via the staff interface.
Show patron’s ‘savings’ on the OPAC [31051(external link)]
This is an exciting new feature, sponsored by Horowhenua Libraries Trust, that allows library users to see how much money they have saved by using the library instead of purchasing new books.
This feature can be enabled using the OPACShowSavings system preference, which sets where on the OPAC a user may be shown their savings.
Select where on the OPAC a user may be shown their savings with the OPACShowSavings system preference.
Savings may be shown in the OPACUserSummary.
Savings may be shown on the user’s summary page.
Savings may be shown on the user’s circulation history page.
Patrons should be able to delete their patron messages [12029(external link)]
This enhancement adds the ability for users to dismiss an OPAC message, marking it as read to remove it from their summary page.
Users can ‘dismiss’ messages to remove them from their summary page.
Reports
Add auto-completion to our SQL reports editor [32613(external link)]
Auto-complete is now available when writing reports using SQL. This makes accessing the database values easier, therefore simplifying the report writing process.
In order to achieve auto-complete for columns when writing SQL reports, prepend the column name with the table name, followed by a period. For example: 'borrowers.surname'
Tools
More visibly highlight records that cannot be batch deleted/modified [31611(external link)]
When batch deleting or modifying, sometimes items or records will not qualify for deletion or modification. For example, items that are currently issued to a user will not be safe to delete.
With this enhancement sponsored by Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology, Koha libraries can easily see which items are not going to be deleted. Hovering over the ‘X’ in the highlighted row will provide details about why it will not be deleted.
Items that are not safe to delete are clearly highlighted with an ‘X’ holding more details about why it cannot be deleted.
Command-line utilities
Specify action of action_logs entries to purge [32686(external link)]
Koha comes with a script that can be run daily to ‘cleanup the database’. It can clear out logged in sessions, sent messages, and old action logs, for example. Many libraries use specific action logs in their daily operations and do not want to clear them out, but may be happy to delete other logs.
With this enhancement sponsored by Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology, Koha administrators can now configure the cleanup_database.pl script to purge logs based on the action, allowing libraries to be more intentional about which logs they store.
For example, libraries may be interested in user modification logs but not need to store logs about when a user is added to their system. Koha administrators can now implement this for the cleanup script.
./cleanup_database.pl --logs 365 --log-module=MEMBERS --log-action=CREATE --confirm
Read more about the 872 features, enhancements, and security and bug fixes of the 23.05 Release on the Koha Community website(external link).
Written by Wainui Witika-Park, Catalyst Koha Developer and Aleisha Amohia, Catalyst Koha Technical Lead.
Catalyst Koha
If you have any questions or comments about this News item, or would like some support with your Koha instance, you are welcome to contact us (New Zealand) or [email protected] (Australia).