Monday Minutes: OPAC Updates

by Jessie Zairo on Jan 27, 2025

In this week's Monday Minutes, Nick and Jessie show off new OPAC enhancements in 24.11!

OPAC My Account

• Bug 26777 - Give the user the option to display their patron card barcode from the OPAC
  • This adds the option to display the patron's library card as a barcode within their library account, so it can be scanned at the circulation desk or a self check machine.

System Preference

• Bug 36453 - BlockExpiredPatronOpacActions should allow multiple actions options
  • This enhancement improves the BlockExpiredPatronOpacActions system preference to allow the specification of which OPAC actions are blocked for expired patrons.

• Bug 33317 - Add system preference to set meta robots for the OPAC
  • This enhancement adds a new system preference, OpacMetaRobots which allows libraries to tell search engine robots how to crawl and index OPAC pages.

My Account

Administration

The feature can be activated using the new system preference `OPACVirtualCard`.

1. Navigate to Administration --> System Preferences --> OPACVirtualCard
2. When set to Allow patrons to access the 'My virtual card' tab on their account page on the OPAC.
3. The second system preference is OPACVirtualCardBarcode
4. If set to allow, show a (dropdown with barcode options) barcode in the patron's virtual card.
   1. CODE128
   2. CODE39 (default)
   3. COOP 2 of 5
   4. EAN-13
   5. EAN-8
   6. IATA 2 of 5
   7. Industrial 2 of 5
   8. ITF-14
   9. Matrix 2 of 5
   10. QR Code
   11. UPC-A
   12. UPC-E
5. Click Save all OPAC Preferences.

OPAC My Account

Once the patron is logged into the OPAC, they will see a new tab labeled My Virtual Card in their account.

System Preferences

BlockExpiredPatronOpac

Before this enhancement, this system preference functioned as a simple "on" or "off" switch, where having it 'on' blocked both 'placing holds' and 'renewing an item' for expired patrons on the OPAC. The new enhancement provides 3 options to select from.

• Placing a hold on an item
• Placing an ILL request
• Renewing an item

Navigate to Administration --> System Preferences --> BlockExpiredPatronOpac

OpacMetaRobots

Control how search engines index the OPAC by adding a robots meta tag with (dropdown menu) options.

• nofollow: This option tells search engines not to follow any links on the OPAC. If you don't specify this rule, search engines may use links on the page to discover those linked pages.
• noindex: This option instructs search engines not to index the OPAC at all. This means the OPAC won't appear in search results. This might be useful for internal library catalogs that are not intended for public search.
• both: Search engines won't follow any links on the OPAC and won't index the OPAC itself.

Navigate to Administration --> System Preferences --> OpacMetaRobots

Additional Resources

Koha 24.11 Release Notes

Monday Minutes: 24.11 Preview

The Koha Community Announces 24.11 Release

Koha 24.11 Upgrades Hub