Library Software: a KohaCon 2019 Field Guide

by Margaret Hade on Jun 14, 2019

This year at KohaCon 2019 in Dublin, Ireland we caught brief glimpses of a dazzling array of software solutions. Some were the subject of whole presentations; while others were only briefly mentioned.

Are you curious about the technology that other Koha Libraries are using to serve their staff and patrons? We've complied this list just for you!

Amazon Smile: A website operated by Amazon with the same products as Amazon.com. The difference is that when you shop the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of to the charitable organization of your choice.

Asana: A web and mobile application designed to help teams organize, track, and manage their work.

Bokeh: A open source content and community management software.

CORAL: The first Open Source ERMS (Electronic Resource Management System). Coral manages your electronic resources subscriptions. With Coral you can also manage the subscription process, usage licences, price and store all your contracts in the same place.

Debian: Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run.

Docker: A set of coupled software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service products that use operating-system-level virtualization to develop and deliver software in packages called containers. The software that hosts the containers is called Docker Engine.

DSpace: An open source repository software package typically used for creating open access repositories for scholarly and/or published digital content.

EDS (Ebsco Discovery Service): Creates a unified, customized index of an institution's information resources, and a means of accessing all the content from a single search box. The system works by harvesting metadata from both internal and external sources, and then creating a pre-indexed service.

ePrints: A free and open-source software package for building open access repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.

Explorit Everywhere: A Federated Search Engine that allows organizations to search multiple resources simultaneously, not harvested but live. You can search the library catalogue and all your online resources at one time.

Firefox: A free and open-source web browser.

Hydra: Hydra and Fedora are names for two prominent open-source communities in repository land. Hydra refers to a multitude of end-user applications that one can architect on top of a Fedora repository to perform digital asset management.

KeyLinks: KeyLinks is a standalone reading list management system which supports your teaching and learning activities designed to improve student experience with easy access to resources, maximise the visibility and use of library-owned resources, and improve efficiencies in your back-office workflows.

Knowvation: Allows organisations to store, search, retrieve, browse and manage a diverse set of content/digital objects within one easy to use system. Knowvation™ is a web-based, full-text search and retrieval content management system.

LibGuides: An easy-to-use content management system deployed at thousands of libraries worldwide. Librarians use it to curate knowledge and share information, organize class and subject specific resources, and to create and manage websites.

Libki: A cross-platform pc reservation booking and time management system designed to allow time limited access to computers on a network.

Library Extension: A browser extension that lets you instantly see book and e-book availability from your local library.

LibreOffice: A free and open-source office suite, a project of The Document Foundation.

Matomo: A free and open source web analytics application developed by a team of international developers, that runs on a PHP/MySQL webserver. It tracks online visits to one or more websites and displays reports on these visits for analysis.

Metabase: Metabase is an open source business intelligence tool which lets you ask questions about your data and displays the answers in a wide range of graphical formats. Metabase can create and share customisable dashboards which monitor specific aspects of library business.

MyBibApp: A phone app for accessing and managing your library account

Mycroft Project: A search engine plugin allows you to access a search engine directly from your browser. Libraries can use their Koha database to create their own custom search portal.

Omeka: A free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions.

OpenAthens: An identity and access management service, supplied by Jisc, a British not-for-profit information technology services company.

PayPal: Donors simply click on your button or link and choose to pay with a credit card, debit card, or PayPal account.

Prezi: A presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to illustrate ideas.

rebus:list: Is designed to manage all kinds of reading lists, ranging from university course reading for academic libraries, through to best seller lists for public libraries, and current awareness lists for specialist libraries.

Red Hat: An American multinational software company providing open-source software products to the enterprise community.

Request Tracker: Ticketing system that receives and manages all your key enquiries. Teams can communicate with their customers and team members, track ticket statuses, and automate workflows.

SubjectsPlus: A free and open source tool to help you manage several interrelated parts of your library website.

Ubuntu: A free and open-source Linux distribution based on Debian.

Urungi: A lightweight open source business intelligence and reporting tool for PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle Databases.

VuFind: A library resource portal designed and developed for libraries by libraries. The goal of VuFind is to enable your users to search and browse all of your resources in a single interface.

Whatsapp: A freeware, cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP service owned by Facebook. It allows sending of text messages and voice messages, making voice and video calls as well as sharing images, documents, user location and other media.

WordPress for Libraries: A complete web presence for your library that you can manage and develop yourself using the simple, fully integrated, content management facility. Ideal for libraries that want the freedom to deliver their online services with minimum fuss and maximum impact.

Zotero: A free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials.

There are so many open source apps and projects around the globe and this is just a small snapshot. Continue to explore and be curious about new tech!