Last week, the members of KIT had the opportunity to see a live demonstration of Koha . I was pleasantly surprised by the number of features Koha has that staff and patrons have on their “wish lists.” Here are 11 features that I found especially exciting:
- “Did You Mean” feature allows you to search the catalog even with a misspelled word.
- You can sort searches by popularity as well as by author, call number, dates, and title.
- A one-word title search brings up all titles that contain that word, not just the titles that begin with it.
- The library has the option to allow patrons to opt in to store their checkout history.
- A side bar allows patrons to easily refine their searches by availability, authors, series, and topics.
- Patrons can create public or private book lists (similar to Amazon’s Wish List feature) to print or email.
- Item availability is listed on the initial search results screen. You do not need to open the detailed record to see whether or not the item is checked in.
- “Browse Shelf” feature allows patrons to browse through other books shelved near the selected item.
- RSS feed feature allows patrons to subscribe to searches and be notified when we get new materials on a subject or author of interest to them.
- A “Search to Hold” button in the patron’s record allows you to search for and reserve a book without leaving the patron’s record.
- “Sent Notices History” keeps a record of notices sent to each patron.
Pioneer Consortium 