Koha Materials
Practice Exercises for Migrating Libraries
by Kelly McElligott on May 11, 2021
Whether you are a new migrating library or need practice exercises for a new staff member, here are some great ideas to practice Koha workflows! At the bottom of this section, there are resources available to help with these exercises.
OPAC
Log into the OPAC as if you were a patron.
Search the catalog for an author.
Put one item on hold, then Suspend your hold.
Turn on reading history.
Change your messaging preferences.
Update a piece of personal information.
Patrons - Creation
Create a patron from your favorite book or movie.
Duplicate that patron to create a second family/household member, and complete their record.
Create a guarantee/guarantor relationship between two patrons.
Self paced learning in Koha: Patrons
Patrons - Searching and Modification
- Search for one of the patrons you created above.
Search for another patron by their first name, then narrow your results by typing their last name in the Name column.
Search for a patron by card number.
Search for a patron by last name and category.
Search for a patron by William, then modify the search to look at the Surname field only. Finally, search for patrons whose last name starts with William.
Add a message to a patron’s account.
Add a circulation note to a patron’s account.
Flag a patron as having lost their card. Save the change, and exit their record. Then return to the patron record to give them a new card number and remove the Lost flag.
Add a manual restriction to a patron’s account.
Change your patron’s address.
Change your patron’s category.
Add checkout notices by SMS.
Add hold reminder notices by email.
Merge two patron accounts (try to find two actual duplicates).
Find a family or three (or more) patrons who share an address, and batch update their addresses.
Koha Manual: Patron search and Editing patrons
Searching and Catalog
Search for books about birds, then add multiple results to a cart.
Search for non-fiction books about Spain, then add two or more to a new list.
Search for cookbooks, then narrow your results to items held by your library. Finally, narrow your results to Adult Nonfiction.
Find the replacement price for a board book of your choice.
Mark an issue of a magazine owned by your library as Missing.
Repeat the searches above in the OPAC/Aspen.
Circulation
Check out a book to one of the patrons you created.
Check out another book and specify a due date.
Renew a book checked out your patron.
Find a patron with overdue items, and check out another item to them. Then, print a Slip and a Quick Slip and compare the two.
Check a book out to yourself. Renew it on the OPAC.
- A damaged item comes back to your library. Work through your library’s damaged item procedure in Koha:
Set statuses and add notes as appropriate.
Charge patron for the replacement cost.
Self paced learning in Koha: Circulation
Self paced learning in Koha: More Circulation
Holds
Locate, sort, and pretend to print the pick list.
Place a hold on an available item.
Trigger (check in) this hold.
Cancel a hold for a patron from their account.
Cancel a hold for a patron from the bib.
Find an item from the Holds Queue, and check it in to trigger the hold.
Find a bib with multiple holds on it, and move a patron to the top of its holds list (if you have permissions to do so).
Suspend a hold with an end date.
Suspend a hold indefinitely.
Place a hold on a book that is currently checked out, then check in an item on that bib and confirm the hold.
Change the hold expiration date for a hold that is waiting for a patron, then print a new hold slip.
Change the pickup location for a hold that hasn’t been filled.
Use the ‘Search to hold’ feature from a patron’s account, then place 3 holds at once from your search results.
Place an item level hold.
Find a title with item groups. Place an item group hold.
Log into the OPAC/Aspen. Place 3 holds for yourself/your test patron.
Suspend or cancel the holds above from the OPAC/Aspen.
Fines
Charge a manual invoice to one of the patrons you created.
Charge a patron for a damaged item, then pay the full fee.
Charge a patron for a lost item, then waive half of the fee.
Self-paced learning in Koha: Fines
Koha Manual: Patron accounting
Collection Management
Find a list of missing items at your library.
Find an existing record and add a brand new item for your library.
Search for a title with one or more copies at your library and duplicate an existing item your library already owns.
Find a record your library has multiple copies of; edit the items in batch to change the shelving location.
Move an item from one record to another.
Do an item search for items with a particular shelving location. Select all results. Use batch modification to change the shelving location.
Find a record with multiple items, or add many items to a record. Create item groups. Add items to item groups.
Advanced Cataloging
Use cataloging search to look up newly published book.
Use Z39.50 search to find and import a record.
Edit the new record - add a new tag (subject heading is an easy one!), and find a tag to delete.
Add an item to that record.
Practice creating an item template.
Add an item to a record using that template.
Upload a local cover image to a record.
Find a record that has multiple versions of that record using catalog search and merge those records. (Hint: Report 79 - List of records that may be duplicates based on ISBN will help!)
Create a private list of records needing some maintenance.
If you can think of a use for a MARC modification template, try creating one. (Hint: a useful one is a template to add a 942$c tag with an item type that can be used with vendor records that may not have it.)
Apply a MARC modification template to either a single record (under Edit menu on a record) or to a list of records. Check the final version - did the template do what you expected?)
Batch delete some items. Delete the record too if no items are left.
Batch delete some records. (Hint: Report 10 - Bib Records with No Items might help here.)
Self paced learning in Koha: Cataloging
Self paced learning in Koha: Cataloging Tools
Reports
Find a report for circulation statistics in saved reports. Run it for your branch.
If you have report creation permissions, find a report in the Koha Reports wiki and add it to the reports library. Run it.
Run a report and download the results as a csv.
Find a report that has itemnumbers, bilbionumbers, or cardnumbers in it - explore the batch options available with those.
Self paced learning in Koha: Creating Reports
Acquisitions
Search for a vendor and update the contact information
Add some purchase suggestions and mark them as accepted
- Create a new basket and add some orders by
Searching for an existing record
From a suggestion
By adding new record
Close the basket and receive some orders.
Search invoices and enter an adjustment.
Self paced learning in Koha: Acquisitions
Additional Resources
Self paced learning in Koha: Intro to Staff Client
Read more by Kelly McElligott