Koha-US 2023 Meetings, 11 Jan 2023

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From YouTube: koha-US January 2023 General Meeting

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08:32:44 From Jennifer Marlatt : Here's the agenda - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ShpwpeijWOy2UVrjxSZfc2aJGEn5IaJyPgEx2zt0J94/edit?usp=share_link
08:39:40 From Fred King : I haven't worn a tie since 2005.
08:39:55 From Jason (SEKLS) : I have a tie with whales on it, no shark ties though
08:40:23 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : We don't run into ties because most elections for officers only have 1 candidate. But having a rule in place for how to deal with that possibility is not a bad idea.
08:41:12 From Fred King : https://www.ties.com/v/a/alynn-novelty-dangerous-business-blue-tie
08:41:36 From Jason (SEKLS) : 😍
08:43:41 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : There are still zero responses.
08:45:57 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : Education committee - Wednesday, January 18, 2022 - 15:30 UTC / 11:30 ET / 10:30 CT / 9:30 MT / 8:30 PT
08:50:02 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : Here's a link to the threadless shop: https://kohaus.threadless.com/
08:58:08 From Heather (she/her) : https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=21472
09:02:34 From Jessie Z : need to run to another meting! talk soon!
09:03:57 From Fred King : One MARC record to rule them all, and in the ILS to bind them.
09:04:33 From Emily Lamancusa (MCPL) : 😂
09:04:38 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : VALNet joined in April, CIN was about a month later.
09:07:25 From Kelly-ByWater Solutions : https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Training_resources#Cataloging
09:09:34 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : Most of the cataloging resources on that training page on the Wiki have Heather's name on them.
09:10:35 From Heather (she/her) : So come on, folks! Join in on the cataloging fun! We have cookies and lovely pearl necklaces for clutching!!
09:13:26 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=31492
09:16:34 From Kelly-ByWater Solutions : Gotta run!
09:17:02 From Jennifer Marlatt : RSS OPAC error bug - https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=32114
09:17:27 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : https://koha-us.org/bugs/
09:17:35 From Elise Aiello-ByWater Solutions : also gotta run thanks y’all!
09:18:06 From grogers : need to step away, be right back
09:19:07 From Jennifer Marlatt : I'll be right back.
09:27:51 From Emily Lamancusa (MCPL) : The real-time holds queue is awesome! But turns out the background jobs worker can't keep up with the size of our library system yet :(
09:28:17 From Emily Lamancusa (MCPL) : (shoutout to Bywater for filing bugs and patches for that right away)
09:32:08 From Emily Lamancusa (MCPL) : https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=32558
09:32:51 From NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams : Good article I just started reading before the meeting started:

https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/theory-building/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter

A

Got it all right, all right and Jennifer has posted the agenda in the chat. If anybody wants to look at that welcome everybody to our first general meeting of the year, um if you don't know already I'm Christopher Brandon I'm, this year's uh president for kohai us and uh just some quick introductions. uh uh Bob, has taken on the role of vice president for this year and we also have Jennifer or secretary and Georgette, which is filling a long vacant role as Treasurer.

A

So thank you Georgette for for doing that and, um and then Michael who is not here uh is Our member at Large, supported and I. Don't see, looks like we don't have John here yet who is our financial manager and Lauren? Who is Our member at large unsupported?

A

So we have a few people out at the moment, but uh welcome everyone and if um well, I've I've introduced people but uh go ahead and introduce yourself if you haven't been mentioned or if you have been mentioned, and you just want to say hi, please introduce yourself real, quick.

B

C

B

uh Medical Library, you know very teeny, tinyakoa Library.

C

I'm Greg gants I work with uh George at Nichols and uh I just kind of picking up stuff. uh He is backed up and I. Do it stuff here, but I'm, not hoping that would kill it off so.

D

Hi I'm Emily lamaccusa from Montgomery County public libraries, I'm new to koha as of October, but I've been in the past couple meetings. Working welcome.

B

To my fellow Montgomery, County residents, at least I think you're a record resident.

E

I'm George Williams I, don't know what was said about me before the meeting started so.

B

You're on a committee yeah.

E

Super I won't show up.

F

I'm Barbara Johnson at Bedford, public library, last year's koha US president, and very glad to pass the torch on to Christopher and the rest of the board this year.

G

uh Hi I'm Nick weingard I'm, a high school middle school librarian in South, Denver and I, actually am one of the Librarians that Bob supports so good connection. Awesome.

H

I'm Jason I've been called ubiquitous by Bob before so. You probably know me, but um I work at the Southview Kansas library system.

I

H

Fact you can't just.

J

Sorry, we got here late, some of the Bywater folks, so if we're introducing ourselves hi, my name is Jesse zarrow I'm, the director of library, sales and Outreach at Bywater, Solutions, I, love, koha and we're here to help. However, we can.

I

Foreign I also work at Bywater, Solutions and I. Also love Co-op.

K

I'm Nate Carol I'm, one of the owners of buy water and I also love Goa.

L

A

L

A

The way um I did interest introduce myself as the president of kohai us, but I'm. Also when I'm not playing president I am the I.T coordinator for the quarterling public library, in Coeur, d'alene Idaho, and also on the support team for our Consortium, which is cin The Cooperative Information Network, which Georgette is a part of, but.

M

Yes, I'm at Liberty, Lake I'm, sorry I have to wear the mask. We have um covet in the house, so I have to wear my mask while my employees are in the building.

M

So um but yes, I'm at Liberty, Lake and I'm in a Consortium with Christopher.

E

Liberty Lake California Liberty.

C

Liberty Lake Washington Washington.

M

We're right on the border kind of we're about four miles from Post Falls, Idaho and.

E

I know where it is I just thought, maybe some other people might.

M

Not know yeah yeah we're.

A

Not that big of a Consortium no.

A

N

C

A

uh Right um so we're gonna go ahead and jump into our agenda. uh Any announcements.

A

Anything spectacular going on in your lives we're getting ready for an upgrade next week. Yay yay.

M

I'm kind of anxious for the um upgrade the Circ staff part looks really nice, so I'm. Looking forward to that.

A

All right: well, there are no other announcements. First time you have, the on the agenda was uh uh referring to a bylaw Amendment regarding ties during officer elections, so we had it. We had a discussion at last week's board meeting uh that um we need to add something to the bylaws to kind of outline. What our procedure is. If we have uh ties during an election we've, we've never run into a tie, really um accepts.

A

um Well, let's see here, yeah we haven't run into a tie really, but we need to have this in the the bylaws. Just in case you know, we've been, we've been uh picking up speed with with elections, and we've had more people involved in elections, particularly nominations, and it's always a good idea to to plan ahead for these things. Rather than trying uh invent these things during an election, so um I will be putting out I I will be writing up.

A

I, haven't done it yet, um but I'll be writing up uh and an amendment proposal uh for the bylaws stating uh uh what we plan to do and basically just to you, know ballparket here. uh The the idea is that if there is a tie uh with the member vote for an officer election, the um officers, the the current officers will vote.

A

um We have an odd number of officers, so we shouldn't have a tie, but in the event that we only have um uh an even number or um only an even number uh voting, uh the president will opt out of voting to to make that uh so that it is uneven and uh we we don't end up with the tire selves.

A

So that is the gist of that Amendment proposal and I'll get that out to the board uh sometime and get them to look at the wording on that make sure everything looks right and then we will be setting up a a vote we'll send that out to members ahead of time uh for a vote and then get a vote on that Amendment.

A

uh Any questions about that.

A

All right um next on the new business is the 2023 budget. uh This is normally led by John. uh He is not here at the moment so uh and Georgette I, don't think he is prompted you to do any of that yet and.

M

Not yet no, he um we had a meeting yesterday, uh just kind of going through what you know what I will do and what he will do um so I haven't wait. We didn't talk budget, okay,.

A

Well, if he pops in here we'll we'll uh jump back up to this item. Otherwise, uh for now we will move on um committee updates uh conference and we need to update the uh the chair on this Jennifer, um because I am now the chair of the conference committee conference committee is going to meet after this meeting, um but uh we I haven't looked at I forgot to look this morning.

A

uh I haven't looked to see if we have any proposals for locations submitted yet um so that is something that we're going to look at afterwards. But um as of last week, when I sent out an update, we did not have any proposals uh for a location. We I do have some ideas that float by the committee uh in the next hour or so stay tuned. We will find a location for our conference for this year, um but that's where we're at at this this moment we're trying to nail down a location.

A

So we can move forward. uh Thank you for updating that uh the development committee uh Bob.

O

Yeah um well, I am now running the development committee uh because of some scheduling conflicts I had uh typically the meeting would have been uh tomorrow, but uh we've moved it to uh next week, so it will be the third Thursday every month at uh 9, A.M Pacific, heavier mountain and so on. uh So uh if you want to bring ideas for developments uh to that, that would be a great uh place to do it. I have not run that meeting yet nor attended one so we'll all have fun. Next week, uh learning together.

A

And just as a uh just so everybody's aware, um we are um and because I was the the previous cheer on that I'll. Just add that uh um we are trying to finish up our previous developments uh which, um by water we're supposed to get uh get some information from Bywater about. They had some input on that development and uh so we're waiting on that and then we're gonna weigh our options as to uh which direction to go with that development. To try and get that finished up, hopefully this year.

A

But we are also um the team has vetted the uh proposals that have been submitted, they've gone through and and looked through those. So now it's the the team's uh prerogative to uh get those vetted uh proposals uh together and submit them to the members for voting uh for this next uh development that uh kohai us will be working on. So that's where uh the development team stood when, when I handed over the reins. So all.

C

Right education committee.

E

We didn't meet in December, so there's nothing to report from the December meeting. uh We meet the third Wednesday of the month at the same time as this meeting so I just put a the next meeting will be the 18th of January and there's the uh the time and uh I'll send out an agenda for that by Friday.

A

All right, uh Finance Georgia, is still get getting uh familiarized. With with her position. Do you have anything that you want to share Georgia about your progress? You.

M

Know I, don't I had a meeting um yesterday with John I now have the um email I have access to that, and um so we're just um you know we're meeting every week to get me up and going and um kind of up to speed on what needs to be done.

C

A

Right and then, of course, fundraising, the chairs vacant we're not uh doing any active fundraising at this time, uh although I will um I will point out, uh we, you know koha us uh we're always open for uh new members to join uh your membership goes towards uh developments, uh so we encourage people to to join kohai us also. You can donate at any time there is. There is a donate link on our website. You can also uh we have some merchandise uh that covers some basic kohai us uh logos and also past conferences.

A

If you're interested in purchasing any of those anything that you do there, uh it contributes towards uh our funding as well, um and uh also you can do you can contribute to kohai us through Amazon smiles. So all that information is available on our website. Please check that out, but that's the extent of our fundraising right now.

J

A

J

Please, um okay, so we're we're trying to do a big push at buy water to send out messages to all of our partners. Our Co-op Partners about membership in koha us and you know, trying to get everybody um signed up and I noticed that there's um no like group or Library organization membership has there ever been talk about maybe having that option so, like a library can like sign their.

J

You know entire group up rather than having to do individuals.

A

There there's been talk in the past and there's some logistic issues with us, uh at least in the discussions that I've heard in the past uh there. There have been issues with trying to to implement that. I can't remember what those issues are exactly John knows uh bulk of that um you know. George, do you have anything.

E

I was gonna, say, maybe it'd be time for the board to revisit that.

M

E

M

I discussed that yesterday.

K

Yeah, we're playing with the idea of paying for your first year subscription to KOA us for all new KOA customers, but not having a library subscription level kind of makes that difficult um yeah. So you know getting rid of that. Roadblock would allow us to get people into the KOA us Community for at least a year. Then they can come, they can see what happens, get them involved and then maybe they'll Renew on their own. You know so that's kind of like the thought process that I've had the last few days like.

K

Let's get everybody in we'll we'll cover the first year as part of your implementation and then from there. You know it's incumbent upon KOA, us and the library to figure out about renewals, but at least this gets them in the door and they see what we do and they're. You know more involved right, but we need that Library level so that we could say. Even you know more money, I mean that's fine, like it's 50 bucks, so 75 bucks for a whole Library, whatever it.

E

K

You know we get him in the door and then boom.

A

I think one of I I don't know what John's uh logistic challenges are behind. All of that. One of the the the thoughts about the the library level is what does that look like compared to a membership level, particularly with membership benefits? You know, uh does you know? Does a library level uh uh membership mean only one person votes for the entire Library as opposed to each member? You know, that's involved gets a vote so yeah. If you have 10 people at your library that that have become members, they get 10 votes.

A

So uh the question is: what is what does that do to their membership versus a regular single membership? So that's one of the things that we've I I think that we have to figure out um on the board. Is you know where is that going to go.

K

Like a library, level gets three votes or whatever yeah.

O

You're, paying three.

K

Times the amount of a normal subscription right.

O

C

Something like that right, yeah and if you want more votes, then you.

K

Have your individuals go on an individual basis within the library you know.

O

K

O

Just scale it with like, you can buy a library membership at up to five individual. You know and just like offer a discount I think there's a lot of different ways. We can structure it that will get through whatever logistic issues we have. So it's definitely something I think we can work on and figure something out. Yeah, yeah and.

K

Can you purchase a membership for someone else currently.

A

I, don't see any reason why you couldn't okay.

K

Because it's not tied to your specific email or anything like that, you could fill.

A

I, don't know because you you can specify the person and their email address cool.

K

So maybe we'll just start with the main point of contact at the library and we boom. That's the registration, um and you know we would be telling the library this we're.

C

Like trying to like.

K

You know we're paying for it, so we're not gonna, add the cost to their we're. Not doing that, but um you know it'll all be upfront on it, but.

I

K

Cool, that's something that we're seriously considering doing I, think that would be a nice jolt um to everything. So that's awesome. We appreciate it. A lot of it is just awareness you know, and if you're like, hey I, need you to be aware of this and it cost us 25 or 50 to do that cool. You know we're willing to do that. No problem, um great.

A

uh And Jennifer, if you could uh make note of that for the agenda for the next board meeting, uh we'll definitely have that discussion.

C

A

A

Okay, all right so um I had this discussion with the board last week and um I I wanted to just run this by everybody here at the general meeting um as kohai us has grown as an organization we've, you know we've taken on more of an organization uh functioning, but uh um the general it used to be just a general meeting. You know there was a general meeting, then you know the board was there and you know we had a board meeting and a lot of stuff from the board bled over into the general meeting.

A

Initially, when kohai us started, we had a lot more General discussion within the general meetings and I want to it's. It's my desire to get us back to a general meeting that meets the needs of our members and uh not so much organization uh stuff going on with within the general meeting. You know we want to do you know just like we just did General announcements, but here we are we're.

A

You know almost uh 25 minutes into the meeting and um we haven't had a general discussion, and so um my goal uh for this year is to keep these General meetings as much as we can open to General discussion and as little as possible the organization stuff, and so what that means is, if you are interested in any of the organization stuff, the business stuff, that you know that shapes koha us and uh all the background stuff I encourage you to sit in on our board meetings. Our board meeting meetings are open.

A

We WE Post the links uh you're welcome to sit in and listen and uh comment, uh but you want to keep that business stuff at the board. Meeting. I want to devote this time to you guys, because um without our members, kaha us is nothing and we need to and we're wanting to invest in our members, and this is that time uh you know. Aside from now now we have special interest groups or six uh that we have for our members and that's great.

A

But this general meeting was the purpose of it was for you, the members, and so uh we we need to get back to that. So I I want to shift that back towards that. So you know uh once in a while. You know we will have our. You know our brief committee updates and um our um we will have you know some announcement or um we will also have uh our financial uh stuff talked about, but I don't want to spend a lot of time on the financials.

A

You know so I'm going to have Georgette and John keep that stuff to a minimum. I don't want to consume a lot of time at this meeting. For that. So that's my goal and I'm, hoping that we can generate more discussion with you, the members uh in this meeting uh more than just reporting and business. So with that said, you know we are through the primary business of our agenda.

A

um I want to encourage the members. You know if you have things that you want to talk about. If there are things that that you were up against you're dealing with workflows upgrades whatever uh you have questions about products, you know anything that that you're dealing with that ties into koha, um even if it doesn't tie into kohai. You know: that's that's fine, but uh um whatever you're you're dealing with working on uh you know, whatever is on the minds of our members.

A

That's what we want to talk about here and I've I've tasked the board members. If people don't come with with topics, we should have some stuff uh that we're ready to throw out there um uh that were that we can talk about.

A

um I, know that uh by Waters uh finishing up their upgrades this month and- and you know we have yet to to do our upgrades, so our upgrades next week um so I'm looking forward to that um you know, I would like to hear back uh from any of you that have done upgrades. How has that been going? uh Have you run into anything uh with your upgrades?

A

So floor is open.

A

I saw a thumbs up from Heather. Did you get upgraded.

P

Yes and uh there's there's so much, that's wonderful, we've barely dipped our toe in it's and so far so good, although I am going to mention a bug and bugzilla that influences the linking entry field linking and uh everything would be going so much more smoothly with our koha and I think with everybody's Coho catalog, especially with more RDA catalog records coming in that use these linking entry Fields more often that I'd really love to encourage everyone to look at this bug, even if it seems Byzantine, uh come to the cataloging special interest group and ask questions or ask questions about it here.

P

um These are seven six x through 7 8X fields, and so.

A

Not being a cataloger, can you kind of generalize with this? What this means.

P

P

To, for example, worldcat.org, and they look for Harry, Potter they'll get see all Editions in in one record, and this is the ferberizing effect and I think it um it's a con. It's it's accomplished behind the scenes in yet kind of a a strange way through often through these linking entry fields.

P

That say, for example, the Spanish Edition is a translation of the English edition, or this film is an adaptation of this book, and these fields are also used for serial title changes when people are looking for periodicals and so these fields, although a bit obscure, are being used more and more often- and this is the sort of technical behind the scenes bug that I think a lot of people aren't aware of, but once this functionality can be added to koha, it could be of use to public libraries say that would love record clusters of the different editions of books, the different um you know: Moby Dick, the film the book.

P

The stage play the audiobook as well as academic and special libraries. That, for example, have records for different articles and periodicals. That then need to link to the periodical to actually find on the Shelf, where that article is so it's it's something that comes up every time, we're upgraded, because we have custom xslt for this functionality and it comes up in a lot of bugs on bugzilla, because I think a lot of people aren't aware that the functionality is embedded in these clusters of Mark Fields.

P

That then need to search for record numbers that sort of thing so throwing it out taking this chance to throw that out. There.

A

A

I, definitely, you know I, you know not being a catalog or you know. I I can appreciate the work that goes into to tying records together. I mean that that's quite the undertaking- and you know how things can be uh linked- how they can be uh linked through commonalities.

A

um It's it's it's beyond complex to me um and I appreciate every time I can go to a record and find the information that I need upon. You know you know just you know when I'm searching for something for for a patron, and you know they're asking about something in a series if I can just go to the record and you know of one of the items and uh find out more about that or other editions. That would be awesome.

A

You know instead of having to dig and hunt- and um you know sometimes I have to look outside of koha, because you know we don't have the information or that linkage in our our records so um yeah. You know that would be great to have that addition. So uh this is this is a feature yet to come. If I find my understanding, correct.

P

Yeah there there are, there are pieces of it that sometimes work, but if this were actually implemented and in my dream, you'd have a system, preference that says, for example. Yes, when the the you click, the linking entry field link I want you in my catalog to search on the uh we use those CLC numbers in an 001 field or no we're a Consortium. That does not use those CLC numbers and please use the no35 field. And you just you just pick your choices and it would just work beautifully.

P

And then you could have things like say: one record for the Aubry matron series and you simply go. Oh yeah I want volume, three Click Boom or one record for all the Lord of the Rings, and it's like yeah I want the films, oh yeah and I, want that Rankin bass, Hobbit or yeah Sim, so that all the users and the reference staff could simply link click through.

A

So I'm I'm curious about something um thanks. Yes,.

P

Fred, yes, I.

A

I'm curious about something so I know that when we joined koha back in oh wait was it 2012 man? It's been that long already.

M

Yes, it was 2012., yes 2012. when.

A

We joined koha, okay, you know, we've, we came from a system, uh understanding cataloging in a certain way, and we understood uh you know what we could do with the system at that time and then we were trained on uh Kohan I. Believe our catalogers had some specific training, but a lot has changed since then and I'm wondering do we have do. We have any kind of resources or videos that do uh any kind of in-depth training on uh aspects of cataloging.

A

You know I know we have our cataloging sick, but you know maybe we have catalogers that have been doing things the same way since 2012, and you know they hear about this.

A

You know a new feature or whatever, but they don't really get into it because there hasn't been any kind of formal uh training or you know you know what I mean I'm I'm wondering if we have any kind of resources out there, uh that we should be pointing our catalogers at or consortiums at and say hey, let's, let's uh do some required training I want you I, want you to review these materials and then have a discussion about these things, rather than it just being something that passes by in an email or whatever.

B

That might be something the analoging Sig could take on just a list of neat things that are specific to KOA. That save a lot of time, but may not have known about I mean complete switch from Cersei, Dynex and I've said many times before sorry, I didn't know what I was doing so now, I'm figuring it out, which is why redoing, the authors catalog to speak is moving so I'm interested.

P

Yeah I I think that that those are some great ideas and I would very much encourage people to funnel those those questions. Those tips, those tricks to the cataloging Sig to me, because uh an example of what came out of that was is the sample Mark Records, On, The, Coho, Community Wiki, so I think that this is something that would not just benefit koha us but KOA us and all of us could be a springboard to benefiting the entire world of cataloging and increasing the global pool of cataloging Records.

A

I would I would love it if uh you know some folks or if the entire sick team would collaborate and and work on some things that would be awesome. You know, um I, you know, I I would like to I would love to see. Okay, here's you know basic cataloging 101 for for koha, but I would like to see more beyond that. That's specific to uh kohas strengths, and you know what it can do for the records, and you know things that people may not do coming from another system or be aware of you know.

A

I would like I would love it. If you guys, could collaborate and put together some videos for that.

C

B

C

B

Lot of what I've come up with in the last few months has done something- maybe oh neat. uh A lot of that comes from Mark attic.

B

A

B

I didn't have much or I.

P

B

Any cataloging experience with Circe Dynex I accept the correct one or two records so.

A

And I jumped in with both feet, yeah.

B

P

There there is a video that I did with by water. That's out there and uh I I'm. Sorry, I'm, I'm very slow this morning. So I don't have the link right away, but it is a basic introduction to Mark records, so um I'll check and make sure that there's a link to that somewhere on The Coho Community Wiki, because I don't think that link has made it over to the cocoa Community Wiki.

E

um Kelly, just posted a link to the training resources on the community Wiki in that link for that video is not there you're correct, but.

A

It's in the chat.

E

A

Awesome, you know I'm I'm thinking, I'm thinking too, you know a lot of a lot of libraries that that are involved. You know well that are doing cataloging. You know they have paid staff, they have, they may have a staff member that is trained in Mark records or or cataloging they have. They might have some formal training. You know- and you know getting familiar with becoming familiar with uh koha is, is a task all on its own, but you know there may be libraries out there and I'm I'm talking.

A

It could be rural us, it could be uh outside the U.S, but there are libraries out there that may just be. You know, trying to do something within their community and building a library on their own and they they take on koha and there's no formal training whatsoever. So you know if, if there's any kind of resources that we can provide or Point people to or make sure that you know, we don't have any holes in in certain areas for these libraries, these people that are trying to build a library from nothing with koha.

A

um If we can fill in those holes, that would be awesome, you know give them all the tools that they need to to understand and move forward. You know, and maybe eventually you know, they're going to need to uh become something more formal, more traditional and hire people that actually are educated in certain areas, but you know whatever we can do to provide them with the the tools and skills uh that they need to just launch would be awesome.

B

Yeah that fits in really well with my hobby horse umbrella for small libraries that have no budget, and maybe maybe one full-time person or maybe not.

A

um All right anyone else, I mean we started off on the topic of upgrades, but uh um anybody have anything that's to say about upgrading or upgrades recent upgrades or you.

H

Know um I had we had a minor catastrophe in the office.

F

H

uh Yeah half the office doesn't have power, including the part that powers our Internet, it's weird. They cut something outside, but I had two bugs that I was gonna share, um upgrade related the first one was uh about RSS feeds, they're, just completely dead in the OPEC um and I. Don't have the bug numbers now, because I don't have access, um but I'll just try and share that out later um that one is fixed in the the current Point upgrade 0.08, so um that one should be fine.

H

The other one that we're running into a lot, because we do patreon photos is there's a bug where, if you're not uploading, the patron photo from the um from the more details page of the account, then you get an error so like. If you try to do it from the checkout page, it gives you like a token.

C

H

Or something and there's a bug out there on that too, the um Nick suggested what the problem is, but there hasn't been any fixed written yet.

A

This is the uh um the feature where you can actually add the patron photo from the webcam.

H

Yeah, it affects both ways um but so like, if you're, using the webcam or, if you just upload a photo. It's using the same like modal now so you'll get that error, no matter which.

I

Way, you're doing it.

H

um Which is frustrating it's probably the biggest complaint that I've gotten so far since the upgrade is.

E

It the one titled, the patron image upload, fails on first attempt with csrf failures at the bug. Yeah.

H

Yeah, that's the bug. It's.

E

Three one: four, nine two I'll put a link in the chat box for you, Jason I,.

N

Can't find the.

A

N

E

Because it's been patched.

A

Yeah I noticed that uh on testing as soon as uh um our test server was updated, I played with it and tested it out and yeah I was running into that. That exact issue and it's like, am I doing something wrong because you know uh Kelly and Jesse. They demoed it so flawlessly. It's like what's going on, I must suck.

I

I was just thinking the same thing, Christopher like how did we do it right if it's broken foreign.

A

So yeah and that that was a feature that I actually um helped uh Mark Thompson uh uh work on. Initially he had, he had done a lot of the the initial footwork on that and I was so excited and then he had to he had to back out, and somebody else picked up the um the reins on that and finished it and I was excited to hear that that was coming out.

A

It's like, oh, this is the first thing I'm absolutely going to play with when I get it on the test server and then I'm running into this errands like what.

L

A

I doing wrong um so yeah um I'm excited about that because it eliminates so much of the fumbling uh involved with adding a patron uh photo because you have to save it somewhere, you have to upload it. Then you have to type in you know it's just it.

A

It was not convenient for staff in their workflow and doing it with the webcam is going to make a huge uh workflow shift for including Patron photos now and so I'm hoping we can get that that worked out uh sooner rather than later, because you know we've I've been waiting for it forever. You know.

H

Yeah and I will say like it's really slick and it's really nice, and um once we get past the fact that you have to be on that specific page to do it, people are really enjoying it. So I think it was a great addition.

A

Is there are there any comments in that bug that you know of uh to uh currently work around it until it gets patched.

H

I'm I mean I, put my comment on there about how you have to be on that specific page. But that's really. The only only workaround.

A

I think, okay, you know if there's something that would be. That would be great. You know if we have a known work around to get around that particular issue that that's consistent. That would that's! You know a step in the right direction, at least until it gets patched so.

A

Anyone else I've I've got a I've got a list here. If, if no one has anything to to talk about Jason.

N

Is the RSS bug? um Is it about a template error in the OPEC yeah.

H

Yeah, that's the one: okay.

N

That's three two one one, four I'll put it in the chat. Awesome.

E

And for those of you that don't come to these meetings regularly, I, listen to all the bug numbers and we have a a uh koha us account that I add to all the bugs that we talk about that I. Try to add to all the bugs we talk about in the meetings and I'll put the link to that RSS feed for that list of things.

A

We've discussed in.

E

Past meetings in the chat box, uh when I find it here in a minute thank.

A

You for doing that, George.

A

Any other bugs of Interest or upgrade topics of Interest.

B

Not exactly but I.

B

Have sort of a rant about uh unhelpful error messages, I was trying to load some something and I got a message. Something went wrong while loading the tables.

B

You know what and.

B

Sort of related to koi I tried installing elasticsearch on the new uh test site for the authors, catalog and it didn't work and it didn't work and it didn't work and the uh error message didn't have anything. This anything helpful turns out I just needed to add another couple. Gigabytes of RAM and elasticsearch says you need two, but elasticsearch and KOA apparently needs four.

A

I am so glad to have a support vendor that does all that stuff for me, so I don't have to think about that stuff.

A

A

Well, I can mention one of the things that that piqued. My interest on uh this upgrade is uh the material request.

A

um If you or purchase suggestion um the the new feature or the preference OPAC suggestion autofill, which fills in the title info from Google Books based on ISBN. So if you're doing a purchase suggestion and you put in an ISBN, it will fill in uh the form with uh some information from Google Books, which is really helpful kind of saves time.

A

Maybe maybe it's a good thing Maybe, not. Maybe it makes it too easy for patrons to suggest things that you need to add to your collection um we'll see, but.

E

I, don't think so because you know saying to a patron: go, find the ISBN and put that in this spot, I mean you've just opened a whole can of worms that I mean people are gonna. Go you want me to do what I mean that's saying, Phil in the ISBN that there aren't a lot of people who are going to get that so I don't think it's going to create a flood of work.

A

I, don't know you know, you've, you've got I, think your hardcore people are the ones that are doing the the purchase suggestions most of the time and if they're hardcore, they probably know these things a little bit more they're, probably a little more savvy than your your average Patron. That just goes in and searches can't find what they want. Yeah.

B

But they're probably going to give you the o2oz instead of o2oa catalog and Hume right there, foreign.

A

I did note uh that patrons can delete both hold history and checkout history, which is new um yeah.

E

That's uh something that Nichols pushed for that we paid for uh because when hold history was added. That was one of the things we really wanted was we wanted? We wanted it to be just like the reading history, where there's the reading history has been in the OPAC as long as it's been as long as I've been using KOA, which is almost 10 years now, and uh we when the whole history was added, we wanted that to be available to patrons, but then we also wanted for those uh for the tinfoil had patrons.

E

We wanted to make sure that they felt comfortable, knowing that they weren't their history, wasn't being saved permanently so I'm.

I

E

Pleased with that and I'm really looking forward to it so.

A

I just had a thought um does do patrons. Have I know that in on the staff side, we can go into a patron account and look at the notifications that they have received. Can the patrons do that on their side.

E

I do not believe so um I.

A

C

A

Probably just because are.

H

You talking about like text messages.

A

And stuff just you know the notifications, um so any any email or or print notification or text or text.

E

A

H

I think that there's a there's, a messaging press tab on the OPAC that patrons can use on the vanilla, OPEC, anyways I, don't know about Aspen.

A

I know that they can set their settings, but I I, don't know if I can't remember if they can actually view past notices, yeah.

H

Oh yeah, no, not.

A

Today, yeah.

E

Yeah they can adjust their preferences for how they receive messages, but they can't there isn't an archive of old messages available on the OPAC to.

G

H

E

There is I, haven't seen it in 10 years, so no.

H

I want that, though somebody put in a book, it's got to.

E

Be awesome, yeah somebody put in a bug and pay for it.

A

Maybe it'll be at one of our upcoming developments, who knows.

E

That would be one I think um Nichols would probably be willing to help fund. If we, if somebody you.

C

Know maybe I'll.

E

Come to the development meeting, that's when next Thursday, Bob or yep.

O

Next Thursday.

E

A

um Yeah I mean you know, white white shouldn't patrons be able to see their their past notifications. uh You know, but you know if, if that is the case, then that'll probably open up another can of worms of uh you know how much of this do they want retained exactly.

E

And that's uh you know, I think currently at knuckles, I think we only keep the previous 90 days worth of messages for that reason that we don't want to hold on to that data for too long.

C

E

That would be another that'd be another privacy issue. Is you know patrons? Do they want that history retained um and if so, how long for can they delete it? That.

C

E

Probably open up a big can of worms because there's the rating history and the the holds history I don't mind if people delete that themselves, but the messaging history I think I kind of want to keep on the staff side longer than some patrons may want it kept on the OPAC sign. Well,.

A

You know, there's there's a few thoughts here that you know it may open a can of worms, but some can of worms are better than others, and this would be I think a good can of worms, because I I don't I'm not opposed for for patrons to see stuff, maybe, instead of them opting to delete stuff. Maybe you know they can Mark stuff that you know they don't want to see any longer, but then we dictate how long we retain it.

A

On our side uh kind of thing, I, don't know, um I mean it's it's there. You know we're just giving them the option of you know how far back they want to be able to to see that stuff. uh As you know, as much as you know, we hold on to doing something like this. You know I I, think I think doing something like this might push forward the agenda of hey.

A

You know there are certain things in koha that need to be cleaned up on a regular basis and not retained for forever, um and you know it may lead to better uh storage, because you know we have more eyes on on records and how much stuff is being retained. So you know I I, think I think it's a good topic to breach and possibly a good direction to go.

A

But you know I I think you know if if we have them available and if they are of use to patrons it would be worth uh exploring and talking about you know, um you know you know in a bug. You know we can open up a bug and and mention that, but I think where it's really going to take shape and form in what direction it should go is when it's in discussions in places like this.

E

Yeah I think it'd be nice if whoever whoever is out there typing right now and entering this bug into the into the in the bugzilla, um be sure to say, make it possible for patrons to optionally be able to see their messaging history.

O

Consider it on the agenda for the developments committee awesome more discussion there.

A

All right: well, we have about four minutes left here.

A

um Another thing that I saw in this upgrade for uh 2111 or excuse me 22 boy, wow 2205, is a real-time, holds q and I'm. Looking forward to that, that's something that has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, because um there are often times that we run our holds cue and we catch it in the middle of it regenerating and that always threw me for a loop. Why is this?

A

You know completely wiped out and starting from scratch, rather than just updating the the bits and pieces that it needs to, and so I'm I'm interested to see how this is going to perform compared to the our current holds skew.

O

Foreign yeah- that's sometimes you not always, but sometimes it takes 45 minutes for our queue when it's running slow, because we have so many libraries if there's just something slowing it up, that's been a real pain, so very much looking forward to that. One.

A

O

A

Run the queue and and we'd be in the middle of that regenerating and it's like there's only what a couple Pages worth of things here and we usually have like 12 or 15 pages. It's like this is weird it through. It took me a few times through this to realize. Oh, if I run it again, there's more to it. It's like! Oh, it's building it so.

O

I'm interested in what Emily commented on there where, because that could apply to us as well that uh maybe the uh the size might still not keep up with um so so what happens? Emily? Can you expound upon that.

D

So basically, what's happening for us right now is. Is that the same background job like cue, that processes, the real-time, holds Q processes all of our batch modifications and, like anything else that needs to happen in the background? So when the holds real time holds, Q was turned on.

D

There were just too many jobs going in that it was not able to keep up with processing and they'd slowly build up in the system and, like you know, editors were noticing that they'd put in a batch modification and then the changes wouldn't actually take effect for like 10 to 20 minutes I think was what they were seeing wow, so Bywater actually had to go in and turn our real-time holds Q off, while they're working on patches to get it to like process things in parallel rather than process everything one by one in the order it's received and letting it build up.

D

So fingers crossed they're able to get that in soon and get it working, because the real time holds. Q is amazing and we want to be able to use it and we sponsored it.

A

You do a lot of batch uh modifications throughout the day.

D

I think so, um I'm like I.T on the back end and I've only been with the library system for a couple months, but my understanding is that batch modification is happening. A lot from like the Librarians use it to move books from like the new book section to the regular section, as a big one, I know happens, a lot um Felicity.

Q

Is not perhaps.

D

Getting spanned.

Q

We have 21 locations that are all doing their own batch editing on site as they're weeding things as their adjusting locations Etc. So it's pretty frequent and it's we've noticed slowdowns a lot in our cataloging efforts, um things that are going on so.

B

Q

It's it's been a pain. Our catalogers have been pretty pissed.

E

um Yeah, that being said, I think you'll find it better to have it used to be when 21 libraries were all batch modifying things at once. All those jobs were trying to run at the same time, and so having them in queued is is a new process in koha within the last couple of years, and.

C

It's much better.

E

Than having it's better to have 21 run things one sequentially than have 21 things running all at the same time, because that causes a different problem. Yeah.

Q

It's been fun um explaining to people what mq means, because I actually prefer I love that there's a message that says: yes that did go through instead of it just sitting there and you're wondering, did it happen or not so um the grinding yeah so they're like what does this mean I'm, so worried and I'm like yeah? It's good! That's that's what you want to say so.

A

Emily, if you have uh patch numbers for those at all, please feel free to share those uh with the group either in the chat where you can, you can throw it on the on our uh list uh uh email. We would love to to follow up on and follow that because um I mean you know this. This is a feature I've been looking forward to, but it's like this is the first I've heard of this issue, so it's like I'm.

A

This is exactly why I want us to be able to talk about these kinds of things uh at meetings like this, so that we can learn more about this I wouldn't have known I would have turned it on and said, and then you know running probably the same thing uh after a while, and it's like that's good to know. So. Thank you for sharing that um all right. Well,.

C

A

Have we are two minutes past the half hour? We need to wrap up here um John. uh Unfortunately, we ran out of time here for your reports. um uh Do you think you could just send out something to the the members via email, I or save it for the the next general meeting.

L

um For the with regard to the regular finance committee reports, there's really not a whole lot to report uh other than to say we, as of the end of December, had 26 members uh for 2023 and all of our activity right now is really related to uh membership. Every people paying we're not spending a lot, although we do have to renew our Zoom room and we're on the process of doing that, um I'm glad to Jennifer had provided a link to the budget that had been approved by the board.

L

People would like to look that over they can direct any questions about that approved budget to me at Financial Manager at koha-us.org.

A

And thank you and again. If you want to hear uh details about these kinds of things, please join us at our board meetings, which are the week before our general meetings and with that said, um I'd like to go ahead and close up shop here. So I want to thank everybody for joining us today and uh we'll see you next month, if not sooner in a Sig meeting or a committee meeting and speaking of committee meetings, we're going to start our uh our conference committee meeting in just a moment here.

A

So if you're joining us on that great. If not thank you for stopping by.