Category: Uncategorized

Koha Roles for the 3.2 release

On Saturday morning NZ time, a significant number of the Koha developers met on #koha, on irc.katipo.co.nz to discuss people to fill the roles for 3.2

You can read the full log here

A quick summary is

  • 3.2 Release Manager – Galen Charlton, LibLime
  • Translation Manager – Chris Cormack, Catalyst
  • Documentation Manager – Nicole Engard, LibLime
  • 3.0 Release Maintainer – Henri-Damien Laurent, BibLibre

QA Manager is still to be filled.

As well as these roles filled several other decisions were made

  •  Galen will set up gitosis on git.koha.org to allow Henri-Damien to push patches to the 3.0.x branch.
  •  Henri-Damien announced that minor revisions of 3.0.x will be packaged and released every two months.
  • Galen announced a date of 10 October 2008 for the developers to complete review of the RFCs for 3.2.  I will also send out another schedule proposal for the 3.2 development cycle.

My first task is going to be setting up a populated pootle and getting some people using it. I plan to work on that this evening

Good things about the Bus Ride

One of my colleagues did a good post on bus etiquette and subsequently ended up on TV talking about it.
While everything he said was true, I actually usually quite enjoy my bus ride to and from work so I thought I’d do a little post about the things that make the ride fun.

  • Saying good morning to the people at the bus stop
  • Betting with the school kids whether the 722 school bus will get there before the number 4, I’m currently 15-2
  • Having a chat with one of the Buddhist monks on the way to work.
  • Looking over and noticing the person next to you is listening to the exact same song as you. (Ok this has only ever happened once, it was cool though)
  • Hitting shuffle and getting 11 awesome songs in a row (that’s pretty much the duration of the whole trip)

Decoration Fascination

So I’ve heard all about this Halloween thing and mom said we’re going to be in America for it and kiwi Halloween in NZ is poopey.  She said people give you free candy. And if you get the Stalter’s house you even get a drink! and one year it even snowed and her and Uncle Tom walked all through the snow on the golf course to get the good candy at Hidden Valley.  It sounds good to me, as I’m a bit obsessed with costumes at the moment.

At daycare they have lots of fun dress ups. Mom doesn’t like dress up cause she’s afraid I’ll get lice, but I get the teachers to put the Peter Pan costume on me most days. Last week they even had “Wacky Wednesday”. Mummum said she didn’t know what that meant. Neither did Daddy.  They should be more specific, cause most moms and dads did their kids with inside out socks, or spikey hair. Not my mom, she said “Wacky… that must mean upside down ice cream cones!”

Here I am with my ice cream cone head, “sprinkle” shirt and ice cream applique pants. All handmade on the night before cause mom forgot. Oh yeah, and Mom dotted my head with markers too. My shirt says “i scream you scream we all scream for ice cream”. I liked the hat. The other kids just thought it was my birthday. Daddy was just embarrassed at the whole thing.  Mom said don’t make fun, or next Wacky Wednesday I have to go as a pickle, a pole dancer, or centaur.

It was fun and I wanted to do more dress up. Mom said not until I learn to stop playing in the sink there and going through 6 shirts each day from wet sleeves.

Tonight I just had to make do with some scraps that mom had drying for her scrap bag. Check out this little number I put together while getting ready for bed (don’t mind the pancake in my mouth).

So what should I be for Halloween guys? My grandma was an ace costume maker, and Mom always won in the West View Halloween parade. Mummy says no plastic cheesey costumes, and no prepackaged anything – the Barr family is diehard when it comes to Halloween…

Rent a conversation

This is a kinda cool idea at the Wellington City Libraries, Living Libraries

From the website

Instead of borrowing a book, you can borrow a person for a 30-minute chat. The ‘Books’ are people you may not normally have the opportunity to talk to. Many of them may face negative stereotypes or prejudice within our community, and all of them have personal stories and experiences to share.

Delhi Public Library using Koha

From the Koha mailing list today

“Delhi Public Library is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Tourism & Culture and governed by Delhi Library Board, fully financed by the Government of India. Delhi Public Library was started as a UNESCO project in the year 1951 by the Govt. of India. It was inaugurated by first Prime Minister of India Hon’ble Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, started as small unitary library in old Delhi, Opp. Old Delhi Railway Station. It has since developed into a premier Public Library System in the metropolitan city of Delhi”

This is the excerpt from the welcome message given on the home page of Delhi Public Library (http://www.dpl.gov.in). I would like to share with you all that this historic library having more than 2 Million books/bibliographic material in Indian and English Language is now online using Koha. Catalogue can be accessed at:

http://59.176.17.111/ (or follow the link on their main website)

It is the real implementation of Koha 3 without any paid support (I think first in South Asia, plz correct me someone if I am wrong). I congratulate Mr. Amit and Mr. Sudhir on this achievement.

Note: Amit is trying to install Koha 3 Stable Release today, Amit! keep it up..