Preliminary program
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
Conference days (Monday and Tuesday) take place in the Coeur des sciences de l’UQAM, at 200 Sherbrooke St. West.
Talks are given in the amphitheatre (Amphithéâtre), room SH-2800.
B-Side discussions and coffee breaks are held in the multipurpose room (Salle polyvalente), room SH-4800.
Salle polyvalente
SH-4800
Registration and morning coffee
Coffee, refreshments, and snacks
Socializing and networking
8 AM
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Welcome address
9 AM
Eric Bégin
CEO, Solutions inLibro
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Opening Keynote
9:15 AM
Louis Germain
Executive Director, Wikimedia Canada
Salle polyvalente
SH-4800
Coffee Break
Coffee, refreshments, and snacks
Socializing and networking
10 AM
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Preservation Module
This presentation aims to present the potential uses of the preservation module as well as the context which led to its development.
(Presentation in French)
10:30 AM
Amaury Gau
ILS Administrator, Bulac
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Streamlining Borrower Requests: The Ultimate Guide to Koha Bookings
The ability to create bookings within Koha was introduced in the 23.11 release and has generated significant interest from libraries across all sectors.
This presentation explores how health libraries in the United Kingdom and a Public Library in the United States have leveraged the bookings functionality.
Additionally we will look at the upcoming enhancements planned for the 24.11 release which aim to extend the capabilities and usage of this feature, addressing the needs of libraries.
11 AM
Fiona Borthwick
Head of Sales and Account Management, PTFS Europe
Jessie Zairo
Director of Library Sales and Outreach, ByWater Solutions
Rebecca Ranallo
Literacy and Learning Director, Cuyahoga County Public Library
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
What’s happened since the Marseille Hackfest 2024?
A quick look at what happened at the Hackfest in Marseille 2024 for those who missed it and an update of what we’ve achieved since against the goals we set.
1:30 PM
Martin Renvoize
Head of Development and Community Engagement, PTFS Europe
Andrew Auld
Commercial Director,
PTFS Europe
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Koha funding and foundation
TBA
1:45 PM
Brendan Gallagher
CEO, ByWater Solutions
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
KohaLa: how a user group can help improve Koha
Presentation of KohaLa, its working groups, and the developments financed by the association.
(Presentation in French)
2 PM
Sonia Bouis
Document technology manager, Université Lyon 3
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
$(‘.patron’).focus() : Patron-centric Koha Customization
Patron Focus is one of the guiding values of the SEKnFind shared catalog. This session will share customization work we’ve undertaken using JavaScript, CSS, and HTML to improve the patron experience both internally via the staff client and externally via the OPAC. Strategies for focusing in on projects that put the patron first, and the limitations of customization will also be discussed.
2:30 PM
Jason Robb
SEKnFind Coordinator, Southeast Kansas Library System
Salle polyvalente
SH-4800
Coffee Break
Coffee, refreshments, and snacks
Socializing and networking
3 PM
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Ilsas+ Project: Deployment of Koha in 20 Greek universities
Libraries of twenty Greek public universities are currently being migrated to Koha. The implementation architecture includes a central Koha instance (Collective Catalogue) and local Koha instances (Local Catalogues) for each university library, which communicate via an innovative synchronization mechanism.
Bibliographic records and authorities are synchronized from the collective catalogue to the local catalogues, ensuring that the most up-to-date information is always available. Simultaneously, information on documents from local libraries is automatically carried over to the central catalogue. The overall implementation plan ensures a smooth transition and minimal disruption during the migration process.
The European Union is funding the project under the “Digital Transformation Programme 2021-2027”. The University of Western Attica and the National Technical University of Athens are responsible for the overall coordination of the project on behalf of Hellenic Academic Libraries Link. Dataly Tech (https://dataly.gr/) and BibLibre (https://www.biblibre.com/) were selected after an open international competition to implement the project.
(Presentation in French)
3:30 PM
Laurence Rault
Head of development, BibLibre
Matthias Meusburger
Developer, BibLibre
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
How to kill a bug
So you found a bug in Koha? This presentation will show you that absolutely nothing can go wrong reporting it to the community. We will be looking into Koha’s QA process that requires teamwork and communication, encourages looking at things from different perspectives and transfer of knowledge. We will talk about the different bug status and how to figure out which version your bug might have been killed in. Anything else you have always wondered about? Let’s talk about bugs!
4 PM
Katrin Fischer
IT coordinator,
Bibliotheksservice-Zentrum Baden-Württemberg (BSZ BW)
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Saving the most cows: QA in the Koha Community
A talk about some methods and practices for QA in the community that I have found useful, and an introduction to the MoStCoWs method for QA, adapted from the Moscow method for project management.
4:30 PM
Nick Clemens
Head of development, ByWater Solutions
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
Salle polyvalente
SH-4800
Registration and morning coffee
Coffee, refreshments, and snacks
Socializing and networking
8 AM
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Sharing the Love: A Deep Dive into Rotating Collections
The sharing of materials among libraries is critical to achieving our shared mission of providing patrons with access to a wide variety of resources and information. This has a particularly significant impact on smaller communities and those with limited funding. We would like to discuss three of the features present in Koha that facilitate materials sharing among libraries: Floating Collections in Circulation, the Rotating Collections Tool, and the Stock Rotation Module. This presentation aims to cover functionality and setup, example use cases, known issues (important bugs, etc.), and the path forward for each of the three with particular attention paid to the Stock Rotation module.
9 AM
Heather Rommens
Educator, ByWater Solutions
Martin Renvoize
Head of Development and Community Engagement, PTFS Europe
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Growth and Implementation of Koha’s ILL Module
Sharing knowledge is a core part of libraries and inter library loans are a large part of that. We’ll discuss the Koha ILL module, some recent improvements, how some of those improvements were implemented by the INN-Reach ILL plugin, and future bugs that may be of interest for the ILL module.
9:30 AM
Lisette Scheer
Koha Development Support, ByWater Solutions
Tomás Cohen Arazi
Koha Development
Salle polyvalente
SH-4800
Coffee Break
Coffee, refreshments, and snacks
Socializing and networking
10 AM
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
SIP vs NCIP – Old school or new tool?
This presentation will survey the capabilities, pros and cons of SIP and NCIP, two of the most popular library interchange protocols and the specifics of their implementations in Koha.
10:30 AM
Kyle Hall
Director of Development & Operations, ByWater Solutions
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Reality vs the Search Index: All about reindexing, rebuilding, ghostbusting, and touching all
Indexing mismatches in Koha incite confusion when search results do not accurately reflect the reality of the catalogue. In this presentation, I’ll go over the common problems related to indexing, as well as solutions, from both the staff interface and command line, giving scrutiny to both Elastic and Zebra indices and their respective challenges. I’ll review community tools that are of particular use, and briefly touch on the touch_all scripts, where they are needed, and how they differ from reindexing.
11 AM
Valerie Burnett
Data and Migration Librarian, ByWater Solutions
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
The Consortia with Something for Everyone
The AspenCat Consortia features 159 libraries, including public, academic, school, special, prison, and mental health types of libraries. Thanks to the flexibility of Koha, each library has a custom environment tailored to their needs, coexisting together despite a wide range of customizations. This is accomplished through a creative use of the various settings Koha offers, and could only be done using Koha.
11:30 AM
Bob Bennhoff
AspenCat Services Manager, Colorado Library Consortium
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
From Notes to Tutorials: Workflows for Documentation
In this presentation, we will outline best practices for educational tutorials. Our goal is to align our documentation with the Koha manual and build on this information. We want to heighten the process and provide contextual examples of how libraries are utilizing these resources.
We will also discuss how to prepare and empower staff for upgrades through:
- Access to sandbox sites;
- Individualized Webinars and Video Tutorials;
- Creating personalized documentation; and
- Cheat Sheets for specific workflows.
1:30 PM
Jessica Zairo
Director of Sales and Outreach, ByWater Solutions
Kelly McElligott
Library Accounts Coordinator, ByWater Solutions
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Harmony in Education: Integration of an E-Learning Management System with Koha for a Seamless Educational Ecosystem
In this presentation, we will explore the dynamic interaction between library management and e-learning systems through the integration of an E-Learning Management System (LMS) with Koha. Our discussions will revolve around creating a comprehensive educational ecosystem that seamlessly connects resources, learning materials, course reservations, and sharing resources.
2:30 PM
Animut Mesfin
System Librarian and IT Expert, IPHCE
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
ULRI: Ukrainian Libraries help and post-war Restoration Initiative
Our goal is to help Ukrainian libraries to restore, from buildings to collections, but also IT infrastructure, after the war, and start serving Ukrainians to rebuild the future. We want to start preparing for this now.
We will unite and connect worldwide libraries and government organizations for this goal and now call you to join. Let us know how you can be helpful and what your ideas are, and follow us to receive our requests for action and our proposals, needs, and requirements. We need money, hands, and brains, so everyone is welcome to join please.
Among these, because our community consists of Perl and Koha enthusiasts, we tend to reorganize the IT part and help Ukrainian libraries switch to Koha countrywide, centralized, and with strong support from both Perl and Koha Communities. We also target to help Ukraine to grow Perl and Koha Open Source team to combine efforts with worldwide Community.
2:45 PM
Andrii Nugged
Salle polyvalente
SH-4800
Coffee Break
Coffee, refreshments, and snacks
Socializing and networking
3 PM
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Koha – not your average library system
Since its conception, Koha has never been a traditional library system. After its release in 2000, when it became the first open source library system, one of the first installations of Koha was for cataloguing car manuals for a manufacturer in Detroit, USA. Koha has continued to push the boundaries on what a library system can do, what problems it can solve, and how different types of organisations can put it to use.
3:30 PM
Aleisha Amohia
Technical Lead, Rōpū kohinga, Catalyst IT New Zealand
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Closing Keynote
4 PM
Sarah Legendre-Bilodeau
CEO, Videns Analytics
Amphithéâtre
SH-2800
Closing address
4:45 PM
Eric Bégin
CEO, Solutions inLibro
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
Wednesday is the cultural day. Activities are planned to allow visitors to discover the host city.
Walking Tour: Mount Royal and the Challenges it Faces
This guided walk will help your group explore the multiple facets of Mount Royal, Montréal’s iconic mountain that unites nature and culture. This activity will highlight the many challenges involved in protecting the Mount Royal Heritage Site and the role of Les Amis de la montagne. Our expert guide will also raise participants’ awareness of issues related to nature and biodiversity conservation, urban planning, accessibility, and Montréal’s natural, built, historical and cultural heritage.
Price: 25$
Places are limited. Prior registration is required.
9:30 AM
Library visit: BAnQ’s Grande bibliothèque
Guided tour of the Grande Bibliothèque and the national collection.
Price: Free
Places are limited. Prior registration is required.
TBD
BIXI Brewery Hop
Rent a BIXI bicycle to cycle along the scenic Lachine Canal and stop at breweries along the way for a drink and a chat. This is a self-paced tour of four microbreweries, feel free to skip some stops if you don’t want to do all four. We will meet at Terrasse St-Ambroise at 5 pm for a 5 to 7 (“happy hour”) with everyone.
Breweries:
Most places have non-alcoholic drink options and food. Please drink responsibly!
Price:
- BIXI One-Way Passes are 1.35$ + 0.20$ / minute for a regular bicycle or 0.35$ / minute for an electric bicycle, to be paid by credit card at the BIXI stations
- Food and drinks at the various breweries
3 PM
5 to 7 at Terrasse St-Ambroise
A 5 to 7 is a social gathering for drinks and food that lasts from 5 pm to 7 pm or later (a sort of “happy hour”). Everyone is welcome to join. Those who do the brewery hop will finish here and those who don’t do the hop can join in at 5 pm.
Please drink responsibly!
Price:
- Food and drinks
5 PM
More cultural activities coming soon!
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
Hackfest days take place in the Goethe-Institut Montréal, at 1626 St. Laurent Blvd.
Three classrooms, as well as the library and café area are reserved for KohaCon activities.
Room 1
Workshop
TBD
9 AM
TBD
Room 2
Bugs – how to file them, how to test them
This workshop is for everyone who wants to learn more about how to contribute to Koha and will start with the basics. We will be taking a closer look at Bugzilla and how filing new bugs and communicating about bugs works there. Sandboxes allow you a sneak preview of new and upcoming features and they can also be used to test patches and sign-off on them. They don’t require any local installation and are fully web-based, so this is where we will be headed next. We will be doing a lot of things together, but bring your laptop and you will be able to start testing bugs yourself right away!
9 AM
Katrin Fischer
Room 3
Hackfest
Work on bugs, patches, enhancements, etc.
9 AM
Room 1
Tips and Tricks from some old hat Koha developers
An interactive session where we share each other’s secrets to Koha development, testing and quality assurance.
I want to use this opportunity to highlighting some hidden tools of the trade and techniques that I’ve been using over the years and also those I’ve learnt more recently.
1:30 PM
Martin Renvoize
Room 2
5 Minutes, No Tech Skills: Be a Koha Translation Superhero!
Join us for a hands-on workshop where we’ll guide you through the simple steps of manual translation for Koha. Discover just how easy it is for anyone, regardless of technical skill level, to make a meaningful contribution to enhancing the Koha manual.
1:30 PM
Marie-Luce Laflamme
Room 3
Hackfest
Work on bugs, patches, enhancements, etc.
1:30 PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
Room 1
Care and feeding of your Koha testing docker
Talk about good processes for keeping your KTD up to date and troubleshoot problems users may have encountered.
9 AM
Nick Clemens
Room 2
Workshop
TBD
9 AM
TBD
Room 3
Hackfest
Work on bugs, patches, enhancements, etc.
9 AM
Room 2
Workshop
TBD
1:30 PM
TBD
Room 1
Workshop
TBD
1:30 PM
TBD
Room 3
Hackfest
Work on bugs, patches, enhancements, etc.
1:30 PM
TBD