Preview of new features in Koha 23.05 and 23.11

Gathered together here are recordings from our upgrade webinars in March 2024. We used these webinars to give a preview of new features in Koha 23.05 and 23.11. If your Koha system is hosted by us, you will get all these features when we upgrade your site to 23.11.

• Staff interface
• Circulation
• OPAC and Patrons
• Cataloguing and Acquisitions
• Interlibrary loans
• E-Resource Management (ERM)

For more details on the new features, check out what’s new in Koha 23.05 and 23.11.

Staff interface

In this video Nason shows us a few of the enhancements in Koha 23.05 and 23.11 that aid library staff in their day-to-day use of the staff interface, including:

• Batch edit and deletion operations in the Item search
• Requiring staff to select a library when logging in
• A new permission to control the ability to change the logged in library
• Adding customizable areas to staff interface module home pages

Circulation

Janet demonstrates some new features related to circulation:

• The Bookings module – to allow booking items ahead of time
• New options in the circulation rules
• An update to the Holds ratio report

OPAC and Patrons

Aude talks about the OPAC, user experience and patron records; in particular:

OPAC

• How to show patrons’ ‘savings’ on the OPAC
• The ability for patrons to dismiss messages in their account
• Setting up your cookie consent banner for the OPAC
• The ‘Report a concern’ feature for patrons to report concerns about catalogue records

Patrons module

• Adding protected status to important patron accounts
• Automatic renewing of patron membership
• Changes to the Track Patron’s Last Activity feature

Cataloguing and Acquisitions

Lucy gives a preview of some new features in Koha 23.05 and 23.11 related to the Cataloguing and Acquisitions modules, including:

Cataloguing

• Add ability to limit editing of items to home library or library group
• How to add ‘Harmful content’ warnings to catalogue records
• A quick overview of the new Preservation module

Acquisitions

• Receiving multiple order lines at once in Acquisitions
• Ability to add vendor aliases, ordering interfaces and known vendor issues to Vendor records

Interlibrary loans

Pedro shows us a few of the enhancements in Koha 23.05 and 23.11 related to Interlibrary loans, including:

• Cancelling an ILL request sent to a partner library
• Adding per borrower category restrictions on placing ILL requests in OPAC
• Adding a disclaimer acceptance stage to the requesting workflow
• How to create batch requests

E-Resource Management (ERM)

Matt gives us an overview of the E-Resource Management (ERM) module and in particular the ability to manage usage statistics, an enhancement added to Koha 23.11.