ByWater Question of the Week: What is Counted for Checkouts in Koha's Item Search?

by Hebah Amin-Headley on May 2, 2025

Each Friday, we will bring you a new ByWater Question of the Week. We will select real questions that we receive and share the answers with you!

Question: What is Counted as Checkouts in Koha's Item Search?

Answer: We are bug fans of Koha's Item Search around here, especially for collection development reports. Partners sometimes wonder if the Checkouts count is strictly checkouts, or if it includes other statistical transactions like renewals or local use.

That checkouts count is looking strictly at the issues, or checkouts, count on the item records. For transactions in Koha, it is strictly an initial checkout, independent of any additional renewals, and not factoring in local use. For libraries with data migrated from other library systems, part of that historical checkout count could be a combination of checkouts and renewals, depending on how legacy systems treat renewals.

Libraries that need a more complex picture of collection usage that incorporates local use and/or renewals would still be better served by a custom report that would allow the library to finetune what they're counting as usage in their collection development decisions.

Additional Resources

Koha Wiki: Collection Development Reports

An Ode to Item Search