George Williams koha-US member and Past Presidentwww.koha-us.org
Hello, I'm George Williams
USA - Kansas is in the middle.
I am the Next Search Catalog Coordinator at
I am the Next Search Catalog Coordinator at Northeast Kansas Library System in Lawrence, KS,
117 NEKLS Libraries in the highlighted area.
NEKLS provides many services to all types of libraries in north east Kansas.
The 14 highlighted counties account for approximately 44% of the population of Kansas.
which is also known as NEKLS.
Using Koha since 2008.
Community Koha hosted by ByWater Solutions since 2011.
We've been using Koha since 2008 and we've been on Community Koha supported and hosted by Bywater Solutions since 2011.
My life before Kansas
Originally from Idaho.
Latah County Library District
University of Idaho
Boise Public Library
University of Idaho Library
+Bus driver, Restaurant manager, Cook, Dishwasher, Sophisticated man about town.
I've been at NEKLS since 2016. Before that I had some different library jobs at some different libraries and I had a lot of other jobs. In 2019, I was the koha-US president.
koha-US
www.koha-us.org
And that's what I'm going to talk about today - koha-US
koha-US at KohaCon18
KohaCon18 koha-US presentation
koha-US did do a presentation about itself at the KohaCon in Portland, Oregon in 2018
Lots of people attended
KohaCon18 full group photo
A large number of people from the USA attended
KohaCon18 - Portland
KohaCon18 Solving problems
As well as people from around the world
KohaCon18 - Portland
Hanging out at KohaCon18
As a result of meeting Sher Afzal Kahn, I ended up speaking the next spring at Pakistan's KohaCon19.
An update of what koha-US has been doing
koha-US since 2018
So, I thought this would be a good chance to just give everyone an update of what's been going on with koha-US since 2018
Brief recap
koha-US since 2018
But for those that have never heard of koha-US, I'll start with just a little bit of a recap
KohaCon13
Reno, Nevada
KohaCon13 was in Reno, Nevada, and for many Koha users in the USA it was the first time they'd ever had a chance to get together with one and other
Reno was fun!
Let's get together again soon
So towards the end of the Reno conference a bunch of people said "Wouldn't it be nice to get together in the US again next year since most of us can't all afford to travel to Argentina in 2014?"
Past conferences
Early conference locations
So, ever since 2014, we've held a koha-US conference somewhere in the USA in the late summer or early fall.
koha-US website
Major website update in 2018/2019
We also created a website,
Boring financial stuff
Boring but necessary
and set up by-laws and elected officers,
Even more boring financial stuff
Wikipedia article on 501(c)3 click here
which allowed us to become a 501(c)3 corporation in the USA
Tax exempt in USA
koha-US is a tax-exempt organization in the USA
which makes us tax-exempt under US law
Working together
Collaborate; Learn; Unite!
Overall, the main goal of koha-US has always been to encourage Koha users in the USA to work together and to encourage other librarians in the USA who are not using Koha to use it.
Monthly meetings
Everything's on Zoom
To this end, we continue to meet monthly by Zoom on the second Wednesday of each month at 1630 UTC.
Links on website
koha-us.org
You can find a link to that meeting on our web page at www.koha-us.org.
Anyone can attend
Everyone is welcomed
Anybody can come to these meetings. You don't have to be a member of koha-US; you don't have to live in the USA; all you have to do is show up
YouTube
Archive of many, many meetingshttps://www.youtube.com/c/kohaUS
And since these meetings are on Zoom, we do have videos from almost all of our meetings all the way back to 2014 on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/c/kohaUS
Special interest groups
A group for just about everythinghttps://koha-us.org/special-interest-groups/
In addition to the main monthly meetings, we now have several special interest groups meeting throughout the month, covering a wide variety of topics like:
Special Interest Group List
https://koha-us.org/special-interest-groups/
Acquisitions: 3rd Tuesday of the month 1700 UTC
Cataloging: 1st Thursday of the month 1500 UTC
Circulation: 1st Tuesday of the month 1800 UTC
Consortia: 4th Thursday of every odd month 1400 UTC
System administration: 2nd Tuesday of the month 1600 UTC
Web development: 3rd Thursday of the month 1800 UTC
Book and crafting club: Last Wednesday of the month 0100 UTC
//read list as you click through it
Special interest groups
These are all posted on the koha-US calendar with all of our other meetingshttps://koha-us.org/special-interest-groups/
You can find the full schedule for these meetings at https://koha-us.org/special-interest-groups/ and each of these groups also has its own mailing list that you can join.
Anyone can attend
Everyone is welcomed
Again, anybody can come to these meetings. You don't have to be a member of koha-US; you don't have to live in the USA; all you have to do is show up
YouTube
Special interest group meetings are also archivedhttps://www.youtube.com/c/kohaUS
Just like the other meetings, all of our meetings are available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/kohaUS
Regional user groups
Several groups in different areas
koha-US has also helped organize some regional users groups including groups in Kansas; Michigan; Colorado, Utah, and Idaho; and Texas. You can find information about those groups at http://koha-us.org/regional-koha-users-groups/
Kansas
NEKLS; SEKLS; CKLS; KanShare
Michigan
Still developing
Intermountain West
LCEI; CLiC; Several Utah Libraries
Colorado, Utah, and Idaho
Texas
Several independent libraries
Communication
Mailing lists; Zoom
Our main role in helping these regional groups is to create mailing lists for them but they also have the ability to use our Zoom account if they need that help to facilitate any meetings they want to have
Koha development fund
koha-US wants to help fund development
A longer term goal of koha-US has been to help fund Koha developments; and this year koha-US did sponsor its first development
Two goals
We want the development - We are hoping the developer will do more Koha work
The two goals we have here are; 1) a lot of our members are interested in the development; 2) we're hoping that now that this developer we're using has done one Koha development, we'll be able to pay them to do more.
2014-2018 Conferences
First koha-US conferences
We have also continued to have our annual conferences.
koha-US 2019
Pueblo, Colorado
In 2019 we had our annual conference in Pueblo, Colorado, and it was the best attended conference we have ever had.
koha-US 2019
Our second conference east of the continental divide
In 2019 we had our annual conference in Pueblo, Colorado, and it was the best attended conference we have ever had.
Kohathon
Our first 100% online conference
In the spring of 2020 we had an event we called "kohathon" which was originally meant to be an all-online conference to supplement the in-person conference and we saw it as a kind of online fundraiser so we could raise some money to fund developments and outreach.
Fresh Perspectives Cancelled
Stupid pandemic!
We had originally scheduled our in-person conference in 2020 to take place in McKinney, Texas, but, COVID prevented that from happening. Instead, that turned out to be our second all-online conference.
Online Together
Our fully online 2020 Conference
So, it turned out that KohaThon was just the first fully online Koha conference of the pandemic.
koha-US 2021
McKinney second try
Then just a few months ago we finally had our conference in McKinney, just a year later than we had planned.
Past conference presentations
2017 Conference presentation Click here
2019 Conference presentations Click here
2020 Kohathon presentations Click here
2020 Conference presentations Click here
2021 Conference presentations Click here
Like with all of our other meetings, almost all of our conference presentations are available online and can be found on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/kohaUS
Every Other Thursday
Videos by a couple of fools
Speaking about our YouTube channel, one of our other initiatives over the last year or so has been to produce educational videos about how to better use Koha.
Every Other Thursday
Christopher and George
Since the two people that volunteered to take on a bi-weekly video series were myself and Christopher Brannon
Every Other Thursday
jQuery
most of our videos have been about how to write better SQL and how to use jQuery and Java to manipulate workflows in Koha and the appearance of Koha
Every Other Thursday
SQL
because that's something Christopher and I are both interested in.
Every Other Thursday
Send suggestions to education@koha-us.org
We do take suggestions for videos, though, so if there's some piece of Koha knowledge you'd like us to talk about, please let us know at education@koha-us.org.
Mentors
koha-US mentors
One of the things koha-US plans to tackle next year is to help members that are new to Koha connect with other members on a mentor/mentee basis.
Mentors
New people that want help should get help
The idea would be that when someone joins koha-US and says they're new and they want a mentor, koha-US will help them find a mentor that is willing to meet with them regularly to help them with any
New officers for 2022
Barbara Johnson, 2022 koha-US president
And as we're about to start another year with koha-US; Barbara Johnson of the Bedford, Texas, Public Library is the incoming koha-US President
Giving Tuesday
Koha Q&A
We just recently did a koha-US Q&A
National Library Week
A second Q&A session is planned
We are planning on doing a second one sometime in April during National Library Week
Every Other Thursday
We've had some illnesses and some busy months
Our video series has been on hiatus due to some illnesses between Christopher and myself. That should be back again sometime in January.
koha-US 2022
Accepting proposals
And we are currently in the process of fielding submissions for our 2022 conferenc. Location proposals are open until the end of December.
koha-US 2022
Location to be determined
Then we'll vote on a final location in January for the conference in August or September
Look for our website
Everything you need to know is therehttp://koha-us.org
Again, everything you need to know about koha-US can be found at koha-US.org
Please join us
Everyone is welcomed to attend
And everyone is welcome to come to a meeting and join in
Slides
These slides availale at http://hopperdietzel.org
These slides are available at hopperdietzel.org. If you go there and click on "See my presentations here," this is the one at the top of the list that says KohaCon 2021 - koha-US update. And, of course,
hopperdietzel.org that's spelled just like it sounds - o-r-g
Slides
These slides availale here https://bit.ly/kohacon21
Seriously, though, if you don't want to spell hopperdietzel.org, you can also go to https://bit.ly/kohacon21
