Koha How-To
Koha Question of the Week: How Do I Get Involved in the Community?
by Kalleen Marquise on Oct 15, 2021
Each Friday, we will bring you a new Koha Question of the Week. We will select real questions that we receive and share the answers with you!
Question: How Do I Get Involved in the Koha Community?
I'm a new staff member and not sure what the Koha community is or how to get involved. Can you tell me more about it?
Answer
Community is huge at ByWater Solutions and we talk about it A LOT. If you are new to open source or new to one of the communities of open source solutions that we support (Koha ILS, Aspen Discovery, Libki, CORAL, FOLIO) you may not be familiar with the community aspect of an ILS.
We think one of the most amazing things about open source is that people drive development and enhancements in the software. So, community is really the heart of the product that you use every day in your libraries.
Koha was first launched in 2000 in New Zealand. Since its launch, Koha has spread worldwide, been translated into dozens of languages, and has been used by millions of library users.
You can learn more about the global Koha community here:
There are many ways to get involved with the global Koha community, including testing, reporting bugs, working on the next major release, and documentation.
Get Involved in the Global Koha Community:
https://koha-community.org/get-involved/
Since ByWater Solutions is based in the United States, we also work closely with the Koha-US organization. You can learn more about Koha-US here:
Koha-US is user group dedicated to the ongoing communication, collaboration, and education of Koha users in the United States and beyond. They hold an annual conference, produce training resources, and support a number of events and initiatives each year.
Get Involved in the Koha-US Community:
https://koha-us.org/collaborate/
One great way to help out the community, without an official commitment, is to jump in and test bugs. We lovingly refer to enhancements, suggestions, and room for improvement in Koha as "bugs". The more people we can get to test bugs, the quicker and more robust the improvements are to Koha.
Learn How to Squash Some Bugs:
https://bywatersolutions.com/education/koha-bugsquashing-bonanza
As a part of the ByWater Solutions' family, you are automatically a part of a community of libraries supported by ByWater. You're one of our partners.
We have a Slack workspace for our Koha partners to interact with and share Koha tips and tricks. We have fun too, with spaces for #pets and #food. If you want an invite, please reach out and we'll get you added!
We also have a ByWater Partner ListServ where libraries can talk about general library questions and Koha Questions.
Access our ByWater Partner ListServ:
Email outreach@bywatersolutions.com to get an invitation to our ByWater Partner ListServ.
You can also stay in the know with news, information, and events going on in the ByWater and Koha Community, by signing up for our newsletter and selecting "I Want to Learn More About Koha".
Sign Up for our Newsletter:
https://bywatersolutions.com/newsletter
These are just some of the ways to get involved in the Koha Community! We hope you will join us in one (or all) of these ways. Every person is of value in the Koha Community and none of this would be possible without each and every one of you!
Additional Resources
Ways to Support Developments in the Koha Community
Be A Part of the Koha Community!
Read more by Kalleen Marquise