I’m still making alot of updates to Libki lately, the newest feature is a ‘Clients’ view. On the Clients page of the web administration, you can see all the machines running the Libki client, and whether or not someone is logged into the client. I imagine this will be far more useful than limiting the User’s view to only logged in users.

I will be rolling this version out in production at the Linesville Public Library, most likely tomorrow.

In addition, a reservations system will be coming soon. It is in the planning stages. If anyone has any suggestions for features, don’t hesitate to let me know!

Kyle

Hey All,

I’ve been hard at work getting LibKi into a form that is more suitable for the general public to use. First, I’ve moved the code from SourceForge’s subversion repo to GitHub, at least for now.

I’ve finished porting the code from using PostgreSQL to MySQL. In addition I’ve been working on the startup scripts that disable hotkeys that could be used to bypass LibKi on Windows clients. These scripts were made with AutoHotKey, a wonderful piece of FOSS that was designed for creating Windows shortcuts, but has grown so fast it’s possible to write complete graphical programs using only an AutoHotKey script. These scripts are located in the libki/client/src/windows directory, as they only function on Windows. There are four, each one is slightly different to better suit individual needs.

• libki-keylock - Disables alt-tab, ctrl-alt-del, and many other commands that can be used to gain unauthorised access. With this version the key combo ctrl-alt-shift-L will pop up a password dialog that can disable the script. The password is contained in the file /etc/libki/keylock
• libki-keylock-nopwd - The same script without the password unlock feature.
• libki-keylock-startbutton - The same as libki-keylock, but this version also disables the start button, so only shortcuts on the desktop can be used to launch programs.
• libki-keylock-startbutton-nopwd - The same as above, but without the password unlock feature.

For each of these scripts, there is an executable, and a corrosponding .ahk file which contains the original AutoHotKey script code in case someone would wish to modify the scripts further.

That’s all for now. More updates will be coming soon.

Hey All,

I’ve decided to avoid the messy business of setting up my own Koha git repository ( at least for now ). Instead, I’ve set up a Github account here.  I’ve configured github to update my twitter account ( kylemhall ) each time I make a push, so if you want to track my changes you can watch that. I may even set up automatic posting to this blog. I will be continuously rebasing from git.koha.org and pushing those updates so it will be up to date with the latest changes from the official git repository.

Kyle

Here’s a interesting article comparing and contasting the Koha, Evergree and Rome ILS systems. I stumbled upon it because it happens to link to my Koha VMWare Appliance page. Linky.

NExpress is apparently a consortium of libraries in New England and New York the Northeast Kansas Library System’s shared catalog project. I found a page linking to the Offline Circ download. Linky.

It’s been awhile since I posted last so I thought I’d let everyone know what I’m doing development-wise involving Koha 3

We are about 5 weeks out from the point where we have to be ready to switch over from using the dev_week development version of Koha to 3 which is based on dev_week, but with many differences. To get ready, I’ve had to port a number of features from dev_week to Koha 3. These include:

• Porting my Reserves System updates from dev_week to Koha 3
• Porting my Rotating Collections system from dev_week to Koha 3
• Adding the ability to pay fines by an amount paid, rather than paying individual fines one at a time.
• Porting my ‘Fines On Return’ system where actual fines are not generated until an item is checked in. I think it’s a great system and our librarians definitely prefer it to Koha’s standard fines system.
• Porting my Clubs & Services feature from dev_week to Koha 3. This is the largest and complex addition to Koha I have made, and I’m done with the basic feature, but I haven’t sent a patch yet because I’d like to add some more bells & whisles to it first.

Hopefully I’ll have a public Git repository up soon so anyone can pull these updates from me instead of waiting for them to make it into Koha 3 proper.

In addition, I’ve set up a new website for KUDOS, the US based Koha Users & Developers Group. It’s located at kudos.koha.org.

Kyle

I believe the Koha Offline Circulation client has hit a milestone. Geauga County is now using the KOC program on their bookmobiles to avoid resorting to pen-and-paper. Thanks to them, KOC has a much expanded feature set, a Koha community endorsed file format, and the server-side scripts are included as part of the Koha 3.x distribution.

Go to the Koha Offline Circulation Home Page.

I just completed the work necessary to run the LibKi client on Windows! The instructions are here. We are already running the LibKi kiosk software on about 10 Ubuntu thin clients, with around 50 to 75 unique user’s logging in each day.

The system has worked very well, the few issues we have are connected to the fact that I have customized our particular LibKi installation to integrate with the Koha ILS. By doing this, we are able to have a single username and password for each patron, for both Koha and LibKi. Those issues have been resolved, and we have not had any problems since.

I’ve nearly completed a new project for our library system. I have named it LibKi, short for Library Kiosk, though I wish I had gone with KiLock, for the humor.

LibKi was written to take some of the load of handling the public computer systems off our librarians. The libraries currently use sign in sheets and have to keep track of who is on which computer. LibKi allows a patron to login, and a timer keeps track of how much time they have left. I’ve written a script to import our patron data from Koha each night, and to reset every patrons allotment to 30 minutes a day.

The entire system is written in PHP. The daemon is cli-only PHP. The web interface is built on CakePHP and allows librarians to alter a patron’s minutes, log them out, disable their account and send the user a message. The kiosk client is written in PHP/Gtk+ and should run on any OS with Gtk support. I’ve tested it in KDE and XFCE, and it work’s great.

I’ll be putting up a new section for LibKi on this site soon. But for now you can peruse the code at sourceforge here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/libki

Happy Holidays.

Here’s a screen shot of the new reserves system I’ve been working on.

As you can see, the pulldown where a librarian used to choose a reserve’s priority is gone. Instead priorities are altered with the arrows on the left-hand side.

The ‘lock’ icon on the right hand side allows one to ‘lock’ the priority of the reserve. If the reserve at priority 3 is locked, then the next person in line checks out the reserved book, the person at priority 4 will become priority 2 and priority 3 will remain the same. In this way reserves ‘flow’ around locked priorities. This features was requested by our librarians so that someone with a reserve can go on a long vacation without losing their place in line, and without holding up other people who could have read and returned the reserved item in the meantime.

The down arrow to the right of the lock is the ‘lowest priority’ switch. When enabled, this switched keeps the reserve at the bottom of the list. If a new reserve is added, that reserve will get a higher priority then the ‘lowest priority’ reserves. This feature was added because our library loans books to people in group homes. These people get to keep books for periods of months. Because of this, they only get reserved books if no one else has said item on reserve.

The ‘X’ icons to the right of this ‘lowest priority’ icons are ‘cancel reserve’ buttons. This replaces the ‘del’ option that was in the priority number pulldown menu.

Another new feature is the ‘not needed by’ date. If a date is put in here, and the reserve is not fulfilled by the given date, the reserve is automatically canceled. This is useful for students who are doing research for a paper, and don’t need a reserve if they have not received the item by the time the paper must be turned in, and other situations of the like.