Koha Question of the Week: What Does the IndependentBranches System Preference Do?

by Hebah Amin-Headley on Mar 1, 2024

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: What Does the IndependentBranches System Preference Do?

Answer: IndependentBranches is a system preference intended to create barriers within Koha between libraries sharing one Koha instance but functioning wholly independently of each other. It is a preference that must be set before a library is live since it has so many implications that apply to library staff with non-superlibrarian permissions.

Some things controlled by IndependentBranches and its associated system preferences IndependentBranchesPatronModifications and IndependentBranchesTransfers include:

• Non-superlibrarian staff cannot search or modify other libraries' patron information (though finding the patron accounts is possible with the card number).
• Staff would need to override to check out to a patron from a different library.
• An override would also be needed to check out materials from another library to one's own patrons.
• Items from other branches cannot be modified by non-superlibrarian staff.
• Staff cannot log into any other branch than their home library.
• Approving non-home-library patron modifications and allowing branch transfers have a bit more configuration available with the subsequent addition of their respective system preferences.

The limitations do not apply to accounts with superlibrarian permissions, rendering the associated barriers both very inflexible for front-line staff and nearly non-existent for superlibrarians.

Because of this, we find most libraries can better address the need to limit staff access to other libraries' patrons and/or items through staff account permissions, rather than IndependentBranches. Consortia in particular have been driving Koha developments in the area of library-group-based permissions.

Additional Resources

Koha Question of the Week: How Do You Create a Staff Patron in Koha?

Koha 23.05: New Library Login Staff Permission

Monday Minutes: Limit Editing of Items Within a Library Group

Batch Patron Permissions Modifier Plugin