My final panic!!!!

It is the day of submission for this assignment, so I decide to check my staff and OPAC interface one more time.

The staff interface does not work. The error message says it is taking too long to load. I instantly panic, misremembering having tested this on work computer (I had only tested the OPAC, not the staff interface, for some reason).

I decide to ask my husband to check AWS, as this is also not running correctly on my work computer. He says that both the OPAC and staff interface still work as normal. I don't understand, but am less panicked. He suggested that, since the staff interface is on a non-default port (8080, instead of HTTP's usual 80), that it could just be my work's proxy server refusing connections to ports that are not 80. I therefore try check an unrelated site running on a non-default port, and it too does not work. This seems to confirm the problem is at my end.

I try to access through webproxy.net, but this site is blocked by my work. If this were to be implemented through my work, we would need to consider whether this would be an issue on the internal servers, or, if we decided to run on external servers, whether we could perhaps have our 8080 site allowed. Alternatively, after briefly researching the Koha Community wiki (and looking at the Koha pre-web configuration), it looks like we could run the both the staff interface and the OPAC on port 80 on the same server.

The Future....

I am definitely not done with Koha. In fact, I think I still have a lot to learn. The intial things I would like to try are

• More testing to find the many other issues which are sure to exist
• Install Koha on my own server (not on Amazon Web Services). This is just for my own knowledge - I would like to see how the process differs, and then when it comes to implementing for the library I work at, we can make a more appropriate decision.
• Perform more complex customisation, especially for the OPAC. I would like to create a nicer CSS.
• I am very interested in the idea users being able to use tags and subject headings to create RSS feeds that alert them to new content. I would like to see if I could learn enough programming to accomplish this.
• Would like to look at how Koha can be used as a CMS, but also how I would use Koha with another CMS like Drupal.
• As the catalogue records at the library I work at can only be exported a CSV, I would like to attempt to upload a batch of CSV records to Koha, to see how it is done, and to spot potential issues with implementing Koha at work in the future.

Putting Koha through its paces

I now wanted to put my Koha through its paces, and see how it performs.

Basic checks

• I first tested the most important thing: Does it work outside of my computer? Thankfully it did. I tested it on both my husband's and a public computer at the National Library. Making sure I could get to both the staff and OPAC interfaces.
• I also checked it worked on my mobile phone, and it did (however I think it could be customised more for mobile devices).
• I wanted to make sure it would work on different browsers, so tested compatibility with Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Lynx.

Cataloging checks.

• I now wanted to attempt to add records through Z39.50, the copy cataloguing tool, and lo and behold it didn't work. I kept getting the message "No targets selected." I eventually figured out by Googling this error that I needed to add some Z39.50 target for it to search, and found this great video, which showed me how to add some Z39.50 targets from IRSpy.

Z39.50 Servers added

Now I was able to easily find books through this. I then encountered another problem, as I had not created any item types. Since I remembered seeing this earlier, I popped back into this setting to create a "Book" item. I was then able to create the following five records.

• The organization of information /
• Alison Holst's meals without meat : vegetarian recipes /
• Homo mysterious : evolutionary puzzles of human nature /
• 27 cats next door / by Feagles, Anita MacRae
• All about cats / by Burger, Carl 

Now, I searched the catalogue to make sure these all existed, and they did. The search functionality also worked well.

Adding users

It was very simple to create two users (a staff member and a patron).

However, I could not place a hold as a patron. I just kept getting the error message "Sorry no items can be placed on hold, no items available."

I tried to go through all the patron settings, and catalogue settings, but couldn't make it work. I then tried Googling this error, but got nothing useful. Only a couple of links saying that it may be a bug with the zebra indexer. I tried adding barcodes. I even used my staff login to check in out (which worked), but once checked back in, he still could not place a hold. Staff could also not place holds for clients. Now was the time to trawl through all the settings to do with holds (the system preferences are thankfully searchable), and found the holds policy, which did not allow for holds to be place on items that were currently on the shelf. I changed this to allow, and the problem was solved.

I was then able to request this book as Robert Jones, and then locate it in the holds to pull, and check it out, as librarian Karla Martin.

What I learnt - With perseverance and some serious trawling, you can fix even what I believed unfixable. My Koha installation works, but it still has some issues, which I can only discover through testing. I still need to do more testing over the coming weeks to see if all aspects are working, but I also need to change some additional settings first. In this case, none of my problem solving methods worked except for a manual line-by-line search through the settings. This means you cannot always rely on Google. I couldn't find the answer on Google, nor the Community Discussion Lists. I also learnt that testing each facet of the software is very important before launching, so that each problem can be found and a solution hopefully discovered.

Some basic customisation

Now, that I have Koha up and running, I would like to do some basic customisation.

I went into the Administration tools as shown in the final steps of the Ubuntu instructions and created my home library (Martinville Public). Now I wanted to see what else I could do, so it was time for some good old discovery through exploration. I went into the settings to see what I could do. I decided, since there were so many settings, that I would focus on OPAC customisation. I found the settings by searching the Global system preferences for the world OPAC. I changed a number of the settings to what I preferred, and this was relatively easy, each setting had a good description, any setting which needed each clarification could be looked up in the manual, and additional information and examples were available.

Koha Administration settings

A few settings in the OPAC configuration which I wished to change were a bit harder. They required me to brush up on my HTML skills. I was trying to get the image to scale to 100% of the page, and couldn't figure out how to do it. I had visited Google, and W3C Schools, but couldn't find the right way, so I asked my husband, and he said that all I needed to do was to add a style element to my <img> tag to create

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/0YQEJWX.png" style="width:100%;" alt="Martinville Library Banner" />

This worked very well, and I now had a banner which resized based upon the width of the widow.

I also edited the HTML for the footer to add my name

<p style="text-align:center;">&copy; Karla Martin</p>

as well as the Important links on the side, which I added a few links back to my public library, Hutt City, as fillers.

<ul style="list-style-type:none;">

   <li><a href="http://epukapuka.lib.overdrive.com/8532C2E5-CC21-4BB7-BA0C-2F42FF568DE1/10/50/en/Default.htm">Ebooks</a></li>

   <li><a href="http://library.huttcity.govt.nz/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/OPAC/CONTACT">Contact us</a></li>

   <li><a href="http://library.huttcity.govt.nz/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/OPAC/LOCATIONS">Locations & Hours</a></li>

</ul>

I used my existing knowledge of HTML to complete these tasks, referring to W3C Schools to find out how to remove bullet points from an unordered list.

Changed Koha Settings

My Customised Catalogue

What I learnt - I had a good existing knowledge of HTML which allowed me to set a lot of these settings rather easily. I was surprised to realise how easy I found it to change the settings. I think my previous knowledge of HTML helped a little, but this was greatly helped by the good manual and descriptions included with all the settings. I also learnt the knowledge of other people can sometimes trump Google searching, as when I couldn't find a way to get a full width header.

Web Installation - Finally something I am familar with

This is the stage I has been looking forward to - a graphical interface. My goal was now to complete the web install and set-up of Koha.

• I accessed the Koha web installer through the staff interface, and retrieved the password and user name, guided by the Ubuntu instructions.
• I then followed the prompts to complete the setup. I encountered a few things I did not understand, however, and, as the installer didn't clearly explain what a lot of them did, I relied on Google to tell me what selecting this optional setting would do.

For example, I didn't know what "Matching rules for MARC 21" were, so I Googled it, and found section 4.7 of the Koha manual particularly enlightening. I did this for all the settings that weren't immediately obvious from their names, descriptions, and/or examples.

Now, finally, after many, many, many hours. I have two Koha web interfaces up and running: The OPAC, and the Staff/Administrator Interface, and they both work!

My Koha Staff/Administrator Interface

My Koha OPAC

I learned that I much prefer a graphical interface to command line, and that with instructions I can achieve what I thought also impossible. Having experience this complete install I am much less afraid to try command line interfaces, as most problems it seems can be solved with a little research, and a lot of perseverance.

Pre-Web Install Setup of Koha

It was another day, and I had decided to finish the pre-web installation and set up of Koha. My goal was to install and set-up MySQL, configure Apache, and determine the IP addresses.

• I again followed the instructions on this page, with additional visual help from the Koha in 11 mins video.
• Installing and setting up of MySQL was simple, and I just needed to follow the instructions given.
• While configuring Apache, by thoroughly reading the instructions I figured out I needed to change the ports, as Koha setup uses a different port for the staff/administrative interface than for the OPAC. I went back to video, and attempted to see what they did. It showed I needed to change add a second virtual host and tell it to listen on port 8080.

• The next few steps were completely straightforward. I retrieved my password for the web install, and was now ready to ditch the command line interface and do everything through the staff interface in a web browser.

What I learned - I learned to take care while reading to ensure that I picked on up any places where I had to enter something that differed from the default value (like changing the ports for the staff interface). I also found it helpful to have two sets of instructions, one in text, and one in video, and it provided me somewhere to refer to when the other was hard to understand. Having now finished with the command line, I find that it is not nearly as intimidating as I had once thought, and that I would probably use it more in the future.

Ubuntu - Third time's a charm, right?

Back to the drawing board - I was still trying to solve the same problem, that of installing Koha. Debian Squeeze had had issues with my user name, and Amazon Linux didn't have the ability to install Koha from a Debian package.

So what next? I still needed a Linux based AMI. Other than Debian Squeeze, Koha community also had instructions for installing on Ubuntu. Some quick double-checking on Google told me that Ubuntu was Debian-based, and there was an Amazon-supported Ubuntu AMI. I also knew that "ubuntu" was the user name. Why wasn't this my second choice?

It was 11:30PM, and I thought "Why not? I'll give this one more try. Third time's a charm, right?" I installed the Unbutu AMI and logged in via PuTTY. I was now an expert at doing this from my previous two attempts, and didn't even need the Koha in 11 Minutes video.

I then followed the instructions and commands to enter on the Ubuntu instructions from Koha community up to (but not including) Pre-Web install set-up. Everything worked exactly as planned, exactly as written in the instructions, and I now had Koha downloaded and installed. At 12PM. And I needed to get up in just over 5 hours.

Koha Installed

What I learned - That, while sometimes all you need to do is just follow the instructions to get a good result, it is important to make sure that the instructions actually apply to your exact situation. Once I got a Linux platform I could actually work with, I found this was remarkably simple. I originally thought entering the code into the command line would be my biggest challenge, but this proved remarkably simple and easy for me to grasp compared to bizarrely abstract problems like the differences between two versions of Linux, or what somebody has decided to make the default username.

I also learned a lot from my two failed attempts. I found that setting a server up on AWS and logging in via PuTTY was actually pretty simple, whereas at first I had found it difficult. This could be due to the fact that practice makes perfect, but also, through my failures, I learned what I was actually doing, rather than just following some instructions. Most importantly, I understood what I was trying to do when performing those actions. This increased my ability to problem solve, and I think this will be especially useful if I attempt to do this again.