Quantcast
Channel: Koha Geek
Viewing all 155 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Install MarcEdit on Ubuntu

March 21, 2022, 1:45 am
$
0
0


MARCEdit was originally developed on the .NET development platform for Windows operating system. MARCEdit developers offer a Linux version, it requires a Windows-like environment in Linux. We need to install Mono to prepare the Linux-based operating system for the installation of MARCEdit. Following are the steps to install Mono and MARCEdit software on Ubuntu. I tried this method to install MARCEdit on Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04.

Add the Mono repository to your system

Apply the following commands one by one,

sudo apt install gnupg ca-certificates

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF

echo "deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-focal main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list

sudo apt update

Install Mono

No need to install the full Mono package to run MARCEdit.

The following package mono-xsp4 is enough for running ASP.NET applications.

sudo apt install mono-xsp4

Installation of MarcEdit

Download the MarcEdit package suitable for Linux based OS from here, https://marcedit.reeset.net/downloads

The filename would be marcedit7.run

Give permission to MarcEdit package,

sudo chmod +x marcedit7.run

Apply the following command to install the package,

sudo ./marcedit7.run --target ~/Documents/marcedit

If the installation succeeds, the MarcEdit icon will appear on the desktop. Don't worry if the icon does not appear on the screen. We can run the MarcEdit software from the folder. The MarcEdit folder appeared on the Document folder. Change the permission of the marceditor folder.

cd Documents
sudo chmod -R 777 marcedit

Open the marcedit folder and find the MarcEdit.exe, double click on it. 

MarcEdit starts.

↧
Search

ByWater Solutions Announces the Open to Everyone Webinar Series

June 8, 2022, 9:16 am
$
0
0

The Koha Staff Experience July 14, 2022

In this 30 minute, The Koha Staff Experience, we will cover the basics of the Koha Staff interface and how staff can intuitively navigate through the models

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BN0k0VrSSm6ykhwHLSgRpQ?timezone_id=Asia%2FKolkata

Discover the Koha OPAC on August 9, 2022

In this 30-minute webinar, Discover the Koha OPAC, we will cover how patrons can intuitively navigate through the Koha OPAC, access their account information, and browse all materials!

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VtjLAB1pTGO7kQn0inK9lA?timezone_id=Asia%2FKolkata

Technical Services Overview September 15, 2022

In this 30-minute webinar, Technical Services Overview, we will cover the basics of cataloging, acquisitions, serials, and the tools for technical services workflows in Koha!

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9P5y1AWFQQ-4et1v2UqChQ?timezone_id=Asia%2FKolkata

The Koha Staff Experience October 18, 2022

In this 30-minute, The Koha Staff Experience, we will cover the basics of the Koha Staff interface and how staff can intuitively navigate through the models.

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MHW5H9DCQbm1jOuF1JV-gw?timezone_id=Asia%2FCalcutta

The Basics of Circulation November 16, 2022

In this 30-minute webinar, The basics of circulation, we will cover how staff can utilize the circulation functionality and integrate it into their daily workflows for a successful customer experience.

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qAxK67LATByqxRulY9ZBQQ?timezone_id=Asia%2FCalcutta

An Administrators Overview December 8, 2022

In this 30-minute webinar, An Administrators Overview, we will cover how Koha’s administration functionality can help users easily perform their day-to-day jobs at the library.

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cRK3MarjQny_ZuJlKye3qA?timezone_id=Asia%2FKolkata

↧
↧

The Koha Staff Experience

October 2, 2022, 9:30 am
$
0
0

This webinar covers the basics of the Koha Staff interface and how staff can intuitively navigate the models.

↧

Discover the Koha OPAC

October 2, 2022, 9:45 am
$
0
0

How patrons can intuitively navigate through the Koha OPAC, access their account information, and browse all materials.

↧

Technical Services Overview

October 2, 2022, 9:52 am
$
0
0
This tutorial covers the basics of cataloguing, acquisitions, serials, and the tools for technical services workflows in Koha.
↧
↧

National workshop on Koha

October 27, 2022, 10:33 am
$
0
0
Venue: BCM College, Kottayam, Kerala State-686 001 
Online registration Link: https://rzp.io/l/dakf-bcm 
Target audience: Library Science students and professionals. 
Intake Capacity: 30 Registration 

Fees: Rs. 1100 (Includes Lunch and Tea) 

Accommodation: The conference fee does not include your accommodation. Organisers will help you to find accommodation in Kottayam town. 

Resource Persons for the Workshop 
1. Dr Vimal Kumar V, Reference Assistant, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala State, India.
2. Subeesh Gopinathan, Librarian, St. Mary's Women's College for Teacher Education, Thiruvalla.
3. Mahesh Palamuttath, Librarian, East Campus, Sacred Heart College, Kochi. 

Organising Secretary: Jincy Philip ( Sr. Gracena ), Librarian (UGC), BCM College, Kottayam. 
Contact Person: Dr. Vimal Kumar V., Secretary, DAKF, Kottayam. Mobile: 9846496323
↧

Library clearance/Discharge certificate

November 8, 2022, 6:30 pm
$
0
0

A library Clearance/Discharge certificate certifies that the user has no holds, no active checkouts, and no outstanding debt. Here are the steps to generate a clearance certificate;

1. Enable useDischarge from Koha Administration > Global System Preferences. Search and find the useDischarge settings. Turn it into Allow.

2. Customize the Discharge notice at Tools> Notices and slips. Search and find the Discharge notice,  edit and save it.


3. Open the Patron account to generate Discharge. Find the Discharge button at the end of the Patron account.


4. Click on the Generate discharge button.

The discharge certificate in PDF format will save on the computer.
↧

Blood group list using patron attribute types

November 12, 2022, 10:08 am
$
0
0

Patron attributes help define custom fields (e.g. blood group, Course name (BSc, BA) etc.) with patron details.

1. Enable Patron Attributes from Global System Preferences

Administration  System preferences > Patrons > ExtendedPatronAttributes > Enable

2. Create an Authorized Value for the blood group

Administration> Authorized values> New category


Give the name for the Blood Group category and Save it.

Add blood group names to the Authorized values.

Add the blood group names one by one and save.

3. Add Patron Attributes
Add a new patron attribute type for the blood group.
Administration> Patron attribute types> New Patron attribute type


Enter details of the new Patron Attribute type



Save the Patron Attribute Type for Blood Group. 

Add a new patron and see the blood group list.

Patrons  > Add patron

↧
Search

Bug 31059 - encryption_key config entry not generated when upgrading: solution

July 2, 2023, 12:06 am
$
0
0

Problem statement

The following line does not add to koha-conf.xml when upgrading. I noticed it happened when we upgraded to the Koha version to 22.11.7 and higher. It results in the upgrade process terminating on the way, and Koha crashes.

 <!-- Encryption key for crypted password or sensitive data -->
 <encryption_key>__ENCRYPTION_KEY__</encryption_key> 

Solution

Open the following file and check if the line is there; 

sudo mousepad /etc/koha/sites/library/koha-conf.xml

Find the location of the lines from the screenshot. Check the line number.

If the encryption_key line is not there, add the lines into koha-conf.xml
 <!-- Encryption key for crypted password or sensitive data -->
 <encryption_key>__ENCRYPTION_KEY__</encryption_key>

If the line is there, you only need to add the key.
Need to generate and add the key into the line; apply the following command in the terminal,

pwgen 32

Copy the key and paste it into the encryption key line,


<!-- Encryption key for crypted password or sensitive data -->
<encryption_key>Auc5ciexahphie9kairaegh4ohchai3d</encryption_key>

Restart memcached and apache2. 

sudo service apache2 restart
sudo service memcached restart

Reference

Bug 31059 - encryption_key config entry not generated when upgrading
↧
↧

pCloud for Koha backup

July 5, 2023, 10:17 am
$
0
0

pCloud is a cloud storage service that offers a secure and convenient way to store, share, and access your files from anywhere. It works like Dropbox cloud storage. Dropbox gives only 2 GB of free storage only. pCloud provides a variety of pricing plans, starting with a free plan that gives you 10 GB of storage. Koha users can make use pCloud for backup storage. Schedule the backup and point to the PCloud storage is very convenient.

Installation of PCloud drive in Debian/Ubuntu.

Here are the steps on how to install PCloud software in Ubuntu:

1. Go to the pCloud website, and create an account.

2. Download the pCloud AppImage file for Linux.

3. Save the file to your computer.

4. Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where you saved the file.

5. Run the following command to give the file executable permissions:

sudo chmod +x pcloud

Either double-click on the PCloud icon or run the following command to start the pCloud AppImage:

./pcloud

6. The pCloud login window will appear. Enter your pCloud email address and password, and click Log in.

A folder named pCloudDrive will be created in your home directory. This is your pCloud virtual drive. You can now start storing and accessing your files in pCloud.

To schedule Koha backup to pCloud please visit the following link,

http://kohageek.blogspot.com/2021/08/backup-with-auto-delete-old-files.html

The blog post gives the details of schedule backup in Dropbox cloud storage. The same steps can follow to schedule Koha backup to pCloud.

↧

Prepare Google Drive for Koha backup

September 16, 2023, 1:02 am
$
0
0
Everybody is familiar with using Google Drive. Google Drive is the cloud storage service of Google Inc. Currently, 15 GB of free storage is available with a Google account. Koha users can make use of Google Drive storage to keep database backups. GNOME desktop facilitates synchronising online accounts like Google, Nextcloud, Facebook, Microsoft, Flickr, etc. 

Here are the steps to prepare the Koha system to store the database in Google Drive.

Installation of GNOME desktop

If the system running on desktops other than GNOME, install it. I prefer the GNOME Flashback edition for a minimal and lightweight experience. GNOME Flashback desktop can be installed on the default Ubuntu and Debian desktop. Here is the command to install GNOME Flashback on all Ubuntu variants;

sudo apt update
sudo apt install gnome-session-flashback

Command to install GNOME Flashback on Debian.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install gnome-flashback

Sign out from the current session and change the desktop to GNOME Flashback.


Prepare the system to sync Google Drive

Open the settings, Applications > System Tools > Preferences > Settings 

Select the Online accounts.

Select Google and sign in.

After the successful sign-in, the Google account is visible in the File Manager. Files and folders load into the File Manager when you click on it.


Enter inside the My Drive folder and see the files and folders. Create a folder for Koha's backup. Enter inside the folder for Koha backup and copy the folder's location. It's necessary to direct the database backup to the backup destination.

Copy the folder location and keep it in a file for later use.

The location looks like this, 
google-drive://mygmailaccount@gmail.com/0AHFZ9iUzgfcmUk9PVA/14MJDZzaMNVnosHsOj7r-Xi6bUOHn344e

Scheduling of the backup process

Here is a shell script to schedule the backup with a time stamp. It keeps three days of backup and deletes previous files to save space. Follow the instructions to schedule the backup.

Download the shell script
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pbrZ2S1nUVsuKZTeRWsV0dnVvA9erjp1/view?usp=sharing

Copy the shell script to the home folder. Open the shell script and make changes to the Koha database, username, password and location of the backup. The timestamp of the database also appears on the backup file name. Give the number of days the backup keeps.

Move the shell script to /usr/local/bin

sudo cp backup.sh /usr/local/bin

Give the necessary permission to the shell script,

cd /usr/local/bin
sudo chmod +x backup.sh

Create the cronjob entry of the backup. Apply the following command on the terminal.

export EDITOR=mousepad
crontab -e

Copy the below lines to the bottom part of the crontab file.

#Koha backup
10 20 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh

Change the timing of the backup. Here, backup takes at 8:10 PM. Watch the backed-up files appear in the folder.
↧

Patron searches give 500 error

November 17, 2023, 6:45 pm
$
0
0
Problem statement: The following error message when searching for patron names.

Something went wrong when loading the table.
500: Internal Server Error. 
Month out of range.
Month out of range.
Month out of range.
Month out of range.

Reason: The date_renewed column has some proper dates, some NULLs and some 0000-00-00.

Solution: Uupdate borrowers set date_renewed = NULL where date_renewed = '0000-00-00'. Enter into the MariaDB and apply the following commands,

sudo mysql -uroot -p
use koha_library;
UPDATE borrowers
SET date_renewed = NULL;

Idea courtesy: Mahesh Palamuttath

Reference


↧

Search for data inconsistencies

December 30, 2023, 1:54 am
$
0
0

 


It's a script which searches for data inconsistencies.  The result shows the following inconsistencies in data;

items without a home or holding library
items without item type or with invalid item type
bibliographic records without item type or with invalid item type
bibliographic records with invalid MARCXML
bibliographic records without biblionumber or biblioitemnumber in MARCXML
bibliographic records without title
invalid values in fields where the framework limits to an authorized value category
authority records without authority type or with invalid authority type
patrons who are too old or too young for their category

The above-mentioned inconsistencies create problems in circulation and cataloguing searches.

Apply the following commands individually to get the information on data inconsistencies.

Load environmental variables

sudo su
export PERL5LIB="/usr/share/koha/lib"
export KOHA_CONF="/etc/koha/sites/library/koha-conf.xml"

Enter into the folder where the data inconsistencies script is located.

cd /usr/share/koha/bin/maintenance

Apply the command to run the script.

./search_for_data_inconsistencies.pl

Reference 

↧
↧

Email sending limits in Gmail: Reasons to hire a transactional email service

April 12, 2024, 11:41 am
$
0
0

Many libraries started to use SMTP-based email services in Koha. Koha provides SMTP server configuration from Administration > SMTP servers > New SMTP server. Such libraries use Gmail free account as the email service provider. Gmail allow you to send 100 emails per day. Users can't send new messages for up to 24 hours if the number of messages exceeds the limit. Google says, "If a user exceeds their sending limits, their account might be suspended". Another drawback of using an ordinary Gmail account is that libraries can't add their domain to the email ID. Sending emails from an ordinary Gmail account is a non-professional approach.


What's the solution?

Libraries can use a dedicated email service to deliver emails. Hiring an SMTP email service to work with Koha is a good idea. Libraries can choose email services from an array of service providers. Such services enable sending, receiving, and tracking emails. Netcore, MailGun, and Mailchimp are examples of transactional email service providers. Libraries can subscribe to the plan based on the number of transactions per day. Email services give the SMTP server settings details to configure with Koha.

↧

Configure SMTP server to send emails through Koha

July 13, 2024, 11:58 pm
$
0
0

Now, it's easy to configure an SMTP-based email account for Koha and send emails for various occasions. Koha provides a GUI for SMTP server configuration. Forget about cumbersome email server configuration using Exim and Postfix. Here are the steps to configure the SMTP server using Gmail. Gmail is accessible for most of the users. Other SMTP-based email users can directly go to Step 2 for configuration. The process involves two steps; creating an app password for a Google account and adding the server details to the Koha ILS.

Step 1. Create a Google app password

An App Password permits a non-Google app to access Google's SMTP server. App Passwords can only be used with accounts that have 2-step verification turned on. Google recommends using "Sign in with Google" whenever possible, a more secure way to connect apps. Here, we must create an app password for GMail to work with Koha ILS. Create a dedicated Gmail account or GMail-based email service for Koha. Don't use an existing email for other purposes when SMTP is configured; the inbox will be filled with bounced emails. 

1. Visit the Google Account Security settings page and turn on 2-step verification. Here is the link to your Google Account Security Settings, https://myaccount.google.com/u/2/security.


2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find the app password section. Click on App passwords. Give the app name; for example, Mail. Click on the Create button.

3. Copy the app password and save it in a place for future reference.

Step 2. SMTP configuration

Open Administration > Additional parameters > SMTP servers > New SMTP Server.
Add the details.
Name: Give server name, e.g. MGU Mail
Host: Enter the server's hostname. Here, the Gmail SMTP hostname is smtp.gmail.com
Port: Enter the port number of Gmail SMTP, 587. 
Timeout (seconds): Enter the number of seconds after which an unsent email will result in an error
SSL: Choose the security protocol. STARTTLS works with Gmail.
Username: Enter the Gmail ID. 
Password: Enter the Google App Password.
Debug mode: Select debug mode to send additional output to the logs.
Default server: Select it if all libraries use the default server.

Click the ‘Submit’ button to save the configuration.

Step 3. Enable email messaging in Koha

1. Apply the following command in a Terminal to enable email services from Koha ILS.

sudo koha-email-enable library

Other configurations to prepare Koha to send email messages.

1. Enable Enhanced Messaging preferences.

Koha Administration > Global System Preferences > Patrons > Enhancedmessagingpreferences > Allow

2. Visit each patron category at Administration > Patron categories and change the configuration, Overdue notice required (Yes).

3. Overdue Notice/Status triggers

Koha >  Tools > Overdue Notice/status triggers
↧
Search
Viewing all 155 articles
Browse latest View live
Search