Koha is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

integrated library system An integrated library system (ILS), also known as a library management system (LMS), is an enterprise resource planning system for a library, used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and patrons who have borrowed. An ILS usually is co ...

(ILS), used world-wide by

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

and special libraries. The name comes from a

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

term for a gift or donation.

Features

Koha is a web-based ILS, with a SQL database (

MariaDB MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Development is led by some of the ori ...

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...

preferred) back end with cataloguing data stored in

MARC Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system o ...

and accessible via Z39.50 or

SRU SRU may refer to: Organizations * Salve Regina University, Newport, Rhode Island, US * Scottish Rugby Union * Shri Rawatpura Sarkar University, Chhattisgarh, India * Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, US * Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai ...

. The

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

is very configurable and adaptable and has been translated into many languages. Koha has most of the features that would be expected in an ILS, including: * Various

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

facilities like tagging, comment, social sharing and RSS feeds * Union catalog facility * Customizable search * Online circulation * Bar code printing * Patron card creation * Report generation * Patron self registration form through OPAC

History

Koha was created in 1999 by Katipo Communications for the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand, and the first installation went live in January 2000. From 2000, companies started providing commercial support for Koha, building to more than 50 today. In 2001, Paul Poulain (of Marseille, France) began adding many new features to Koha, most significantly support for multiple languages. By 2010, Koha has been translated from its original English into French, Chinese, Arabic and several other languages. Support for the cataloguing and search standards

and Z39.50 was added in 2002 and later sponsored by the

Athens County Public Libraries The Athens County Public Libraries are a consortium of seven public libraries located in Athens County, Ohio. The library system was originally known as the Nelsonville Public Library. The original facility in Nelsonville was created in 1935 as ...

. Poulain co-founded BibLibre in 2007. In 2005, an Ohio-based company, Metavore, Inc., trading as LibLime, was established to support Koha and added many new features, including support for Zebra sponsored by the Crawford County Federated Library System. Zebra support increased the speed of searches as well as improving scalability to support tens of millions of bibliographic records. In 2007 a group of libraries in

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

began testing the use of Koha for Vermont libraries. At first a separate implementation was created for each library. Then the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL) was organized to create one database to be used by libraries. This database was rolled out in 2011. Fifty-seven libraries have chosen to adopt Koha and moved to the shared production environment hosted and supported by

ByWater Solutions ByWater Solutions is a privately owned and funded company founded in California in March 2009 by CEO Brendan A. Gallagher and EVP Nathan A. Curulla, which provides implementation, hosting, support, consultation, and development services for the K ...

. Another consortium of libraries in Vermont, the

Catamount Library Network The Catamount Library Network (CLN) is a consortium of public libraries in the U.S. State of Vermont. It provides a unified library catalog using the open source, Koha integrated library system. Organization The Catamount Library Network is ...

has also adopted Koha (also hosted by ByWater Solutions). Previously automated Vermont libraries used software from Follett, or other commercial software vendors. In 2010 the

King's Fund The King's Fund is an independent think tank, which is involved with work relating to the health system in England. It organises conferences and other events. Since 1997, they have jointly funded a yearly award system with GlaxoSmithKline. Th ...

, supported by PTFS Europe, completed their migration to Koha after an extensive feasibility study. In 2011 the

Spanish Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture and Sport (MCD) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for the promotion, protection and dissemination of the Spanish historical heritage, national museums, art, books, reading and literary creation, ...

maintains KOBLI, a tailored version of Koha based on an earlier report. In 2014 the

Ministry of Culture (Turkey) The Ministry of Culture and Tourism ( tr, Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı) is a government ministry of the Republic of Turkey, responsible for culture and tourism affairs in Turkey. Revolving fund management of the ministry is carried by DÖSİ ...

started to use Koha–Devinim in 1,136 public libraries with more than 17 million items and around 2 million active users. Specialized libraries such as music libraries have adopted Koha because its open-source nature offers easier customization for their particular use cases. A 2017 ''Library Technology Reports'' article claimed that Koha "holds the position as the most widely implemented open source integrated library system (ILS) in the world". According to

ohloh Black Duck Open Hub, formerly Ohloh, is a website which provides a web services suite and online community platform that aims to index the open-source software development community. It was founded by former Microsoft managers Jason Allen and Sc ...

(now OpenHub), in 2019 Koha had a " ry large, active development team" and a " ture, well-established codebase", with hundreds of contributors and over 20 monthly contributors each month from 2011 to 2019.

Dispute with LibLime / PTFS

In 2009 a dispute arose between LibLime and other members of the Koha community. The dispute centred on LibLime's apparent reluctance to be inclusive with the content of the sites and the non-contribution of software patches back to the community. A number of participants declared that they believed that LibLime had forked the software and the community. A separate web presence, source code repository and community was established. The fork continued after March 2010, when LibLime was purchased by PTFS. In November, 2011, LibLime announced they had been granted a provisional trademark on the use of the name ''koha'' in New Zealand by

Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) is a New Zealand government agency responsible for the granting and registration of intellectual property rights, specifically patent, trade mark, design and plant variety rights. It is par ...

. The Koha community and Catalyst IT Ltd (NZ) successfully appealed against the provisional trademark grant, with a decision handed down in December 2013 and with LibLime to pay costs.

Releases

Koha releases follow a regular, calendar based, pattern with monthly maintenance releases and bi-annual feature releases. Each Koha release has a

version number Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique ''version names'' or unique ''version numbers'' to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category (e.g., major or minor), these numbers are generally assig ...

that consists of the year and month number of the release.

Awards

* 2000 winner of the ''Not for Profit'' section of the 2000 Interactive New Zealand Awards * 2000 winner of the LIANZA / 3M Award for ''Innovation in Libraries'' * 2003 winner of the public organisation section of the

Les Trophées du Libre The ''Les Trophées du Libre'' contest was a free software contest whose goal was to promote innovative software projects by giving those projects recognition and media coverage as well as rewarding participating students and academic institutions ...

* 2004 winner ''Use of IT in a Not-for-Profit Organisation'' Computerworld Excellence Awards * 2014 Finalist ''Open Source Software Project'' New Zealand Open Source Awards

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koha Library automation Servers (computing) Free library and information science software Information technology in New Zealand Perl software Software forks