Our TEST catalog has been upgraded to Koha version 3.6.0, so that means it is time to test, test, test!
From the Release Notes, I see that we already have most of these new features, but I will be looking more closely at these this week:
ADMINISTRATION and CATALOGING
- New permission for overdues report
- Z3950 results highlighting
- And a whole bunch of stuff that will make Heather dance for joy…
CIRCULATION
- Three-part Name Searching is Finally HERE!!! Wooty woot! We paid for this one…use it with love. Test with “Nancy Rene Fury Jr“
- Added a checkin tab to the patron search screen
- Added a checked out from column to list of checked out items (syspref controlled)
- We told you about this in October’s Upgrade Overview
- Add shelving location to checkin results screen
OPAC
- Paging on the OPAC detail page, allowing the user to move through search results. Notice, we also have the “What’s Next” database for series under “More Searches” AND we have added Facebook “Like” and Twitter “Tweet” buttons.
- Recent comments view – I think this is pretty cool…and I just approved five new comments in our catalog, so this feature is being used!
- Added user customizable html block under the facets in search results – Hmmm, more stuff for Liz to play with??
- Show number of comments on the “Comments” tab in OPAC -
- And a whole bunch of OPAC Customization options that made Liz dance with joy…and re-vamp our online catalog! Including these nice rounded corners:
- With the blessing of the Cataloging Committee, we are adding links to movie trailers to the Catalog. Go find One for the Money…
SEARCHING
- Added ISBN filter to advanced
- Analytic links search on full phrase title
- Control order in which facet categories display – Huh? Need to ask Liz about this one…
- For keyword searches where you ask Koha to complete a search term using either an asterisk (*) or the percent sign (%) as “wild cards,” you will get different results.
Example: Let’s say you are searching using the first letters of a popular author’s last name, EVANO. You can use different wild card symbols to search for:
EVANO* or EVANO%
The * is going to force an exact search of the first few characters. The asterisk will allow for an infinite number of characters in the search, as long as the characters designated by your keyword search are the same.
The % will treat the search term in the terms of “is like.” So a search of EVANO% will search for words like EVANO.
When you run a search on the NEKLS catalog using EVANO* you will see a list pretty much limited to Janet Evanovich (with a few exceptions like Evanoff, Evanore, etc., all of which contain the EVANO search term), but when you run EVANO% you will see a much longer list with much more variety (Evans, Evan, Evanovich–items like EVANO).
Bottom line: * is exact, % is like.
PERFORMANCE
- Koha should run faster and more efficiently. Test this with these searches:
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Holds for Explosive Eighteen
- Find your favorite power user Patron and pull them up, renew or check out fake books to them – is it faster?? (6 seconds…)
