KohaCon13/Roundtable Notes

Notes from the KohaCon13 Roundtables

 This page has transcriptions of all of the comments and wishlist items from the various roundtables held at KohaCon.  Duplicate items have been removed.

OPAC

• Stop calling it the OPAC -- call it the catalog(ue)
• Document how search works
  • Need explanations for keyword, facets, relevance
  • User-defined facets
• Then expose search functions
• Would like to improve searching/indexing
  • Elasticsearch
• Displaying book covers
  • Owen uses iframe + Drupal nodes
  • would like something more integrated (using public reports?)
• Co-op star ratings (macro+micro, live+cached)
• What do I read next + suggestions
• Exportable reading history
  • email plain text file
• Trouble with misspelling, accented words
• Did you mean API?
• Use dictionaries to search a translated term

Cataloging

• Joy Nelson's notes for the non-MARC breakout group
• Nicole Engard's notes for the breakout group on on Frameworks, RDA, and Misc.

Circulation

• Ability to alter due dates specifically (item by item)
• Display subtitles
• Customizing or limiting number of paid or completed notifications sent
• Malfunctions when holds are scanned and then not clicked "confirmed" -- "ignore is the default"
  • Could add system preferences to adjust behavior: automatically send holds or necessarily require a click
  • Automatically choosing "ignore" is a bug
• Already-triggered holds checked out to a different patron, it needs to become an item-level hold, not an item-specific hold. (Galen asks: was bib-level meant)?
• Batch item checkin
• Fine receipt not showing what's paid for
• Way to make print overdues more formattable
• Need bill notice that is printable, not just email
• Transfer slips bug: not printing titles
• Way to choose default tab of lists (public or private first)
• Customization for assigning notices (by branch)
• Group libraries for notification purposes
• Make overdue notices take calendar (e.g., closed dates) into account, e.g., to not send notices on holidays or regularly closed days
• Patron privacy - how long we keep data on holds and fines and lost-and-paid items
• Make it possible to change the hold pickup location from inside patron record
• Alter due dates after checkout
• Ability to save certain previously-resolved histories
• Can selfcheck automatically checkin, waive fines for previous patrons, and check out to patron who has it in their hands?
• Can we get rid of patron's name attached to items they have lost and paid for?
• For adult patrons with linked cards (e.g., juveniles), display any fines or notes from linked records
• Family card - one card, many users with one general
• Needs to be a better way to discover documentation for existing tools and processes
  • E.g., example was somebody requesting ability to import patrons from CSV file -- which already exists in Koha

Serials

Upcoming release

• Pattern info stored separately from record
• Improvement in pattern validation

Problems

• Holdings records standardized
• Ease of use
• Twice-monthly patterns
• Supplements
• Analytics

Wishlist

• Acquisitions/serials integration
• Getting prediction pattern for centralized source
• Multiple subscription receiving
• Collapsing display in OPAC -- summary of holdings

Reports

• Galen Charlton's notes on the admin and reports roundtable
• Cancel button on reports
• Last run date on reports
• Last edited date on reports
• Report page not staying - jumping to top
• Report group permissions
  • who can see
  • who can run
  • who can create
• Print button on reports output page
• Printable version of inventory report with options for number of pages
• Delivery of reports via FTP
• Tabbing with pulldowns
• Update schema docs; schema doc versioning
• HTML output option for public reports

Acquisitions

• EDI -- some developments in process, need testing
• Fund rollovers/fund tracking
• Figuring out terminology differences
• Better ISBN matching
• Baker and Taylor Title Source integration (in progress)
• Batch order load
• Item record overlay during batch load
• Automatically creating items -- allow items to be created on order-by-order basis rather than all or nothing
• Bibs can be deleted without canceling orders, leading to orphan order records
• More flexibility to record acquisitions activities without having to go through the entire order/receive/etc. process
  • standing orders, gifts, etc.
• Ability to change vendor for an order (coming in 3.14)
• Order history
• Ability to view all order titles (either open or closed) by vendor
• More flexibility for order reports
• Cursor default options

Administration

• Galen Charlton's notes on the acquisitions roundtable
• Total holds limit per patron type
• Easy to ready way to see all circ policies
• Way to test circ rules
• Circ rules cumbersome
• Circ rules based on library groups
• Clone ability for circ rule defaults
• Delete notice permission
• Way to not edit other's notices
• Cacheable public reports -- ALREADY IN KOHA
• Separate permissions/interfaces for slips and notices and library-level slips and notices
• Use Template Toolkit for notices
• Duplicate all notices for a new library
• Add fine receipt to notices

Tools

• Better way to discover existing documentation for existing tools and processes
• Better links to tools/manual pages
• Label and patron batches not assigning ID until "add to batch"

General interface

• Single sign-on Koha + Google + Moodle (e.g., using Mozilla Persona, Shibboleth Support)
• Timeouts -- make it possible to have different for staff (longer) and public (shorter)
• Being able to return to search results after placing a hold
• Syspref to require SSL login