Keynote at the 2013 Koha Conference in Reno, Nevada, USA. Includes an update on Koha 3.14 and thoughts on maintaing serenity in the face of the ferment of Koha development.

1. Calm at the centers of the
distributed whirlwinds
Galen Charlton
16 October 2013
KohaCon 2013
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

2. Circles and cycles
●
Let's embrace the codename for the upcoming
major release of Koha...
Pi!
CC licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Paul Smith:
http://flickr.com/photos/psmith/2190712270/
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

3. KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)
Hurricane Bud by the NASA Earth Observatory (used per CC-BY)

4. What patrons can look forward to
●
A new OPAC theme
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Course reserves
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OverDrive integration
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More secure password hashing
●
Schema.org microdata
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

5. KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

6. What librarians can look forward to
●
HTML5 offline circulation
●
Patron lists
●
Z39.50 search of authority records
●
Ability to merge authority records
●
DOM indexing for UNIMARC
●
Ability to move orders
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

7. More things for the librarians
●
Look up items by keyword or title during
circulation
–
Look Ma, no item barcodes!
●
More options for lost item fine policies
●
Serials enhancements
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

8. What sysadmins can look forward to
●
Improvements to the management scripts
●
More hooks for OPAC customizations
●
System preference overriding
●
Translation fixes
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

9. What developers can look forward
to
●
DBIx::Class
●
More and better tests
–
–
●
Database-dependent tests coming into their own
Search testing
More Template Toolkit plugins
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

10. What cats can look forward to
CC licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Lindsey Turner:
http://flickr.com/photos/theogeo/563051619/
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

11. Stability and instability
●
Imagine a perfectly stable Koha...
●
Imagine a perfectly unstable Koha...
–
Let's pause for the folks who have been active in
the project for years to stop shuddering
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

12. Innovation and conservation
●
Koha is not done yet!
●
Folks hate having stuff taken away from them
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

13. The lifecycle of a feature
●
Idea
●
Resistance
●
Iteration
●
Acceptance
●
Iteration
●
Conservation
●
Destruction
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

14. Distribution
●
Well, yes, of course
●
But it's an ever-present challenge
●
A single purpose ramifies
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

15. Multiplicity of place
●
●
●
The mission that Koha supports is more or
less the same...
But the whys, wherefores, and means, not so
much
This both helps and hinders
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

16. Multiplicity of perspective
●
Public, academic, consortium
●
And just plain odd
●
Traditional vs. new
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

17. Multiplicity of size
●
Who charges their friends overdue fines?
●
Special libraries
●
Consortia
●
National libraries
●
Keepers of the metadata kitchen sink
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

18. Diversity of project
●
You may have heard of Evergreen
●
And others...
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

19. Boundaries
●
Koha can be most things for most libraries
●
That doesn't remove the need for judgment
●
The word “no” must be used at times
●
Quality
●
Production means something
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

20. The eye of the storm
●
Our mission binds us together
●
Even in our differences
●
Gratitude
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

21. Brass tacks with gears
●
Continuous integration
●
Automated testing
●
Workflow analysis
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

22. KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

23. Squishy brass tacks
●
Community
●
Communication
●
Consilience
●
Negotiation
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

24. Bored brass tacks?
●
Patch review
●
QA
●
More testing
●
Where, o where, is the janitor?
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

25. Brick-like brass tacks
●
Wherein the metaphor explodes
●
Out of many small pieces is a wall made
●
Incrementalism vs. saltation
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

26. Structural brass tacks
●
You can't keep a good metaphor down!
●
Module maintainers
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

27. Creative tensions
●
Expedience vs. the unknown future
●
Generality vs. specificity vs. nothing
●
Security vs. the panopticon
●
Delegation vs. centralization
●
Funded vs. unfunded
●
Unity of vision vs. pipelines
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

28. Approaching storms
●
Ending the tyranny of MARC
–
Linked Data
–
MARC still has its place
●
Koha's place in the ecosystem
●
Growth
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

29. Core
●
Koha is for libraries
–
What is a library?
●
Koha is for libraries, viewed broadly as possible
●
Koha is for people
●
Koha is by the people
●
Koha is excellent
●
… and can be made more excellent
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

30. Serenity
●
We're all in this together
●
We're all in this together
●
Messiness happens, but can be transitory
CC licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by Jônatas Cunha:
http://flickr.com/photos/jonycunha/4402158857/
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)

31. Thanks!
Galen Charlton
Koha 3.14 Release Manager
gmc@esilibrary.com
KohaCon 2013
Copyright 2013 Galen Charlton (CC-BY-SA)