Mahesh Palamuttath, Author at MAHESH PALAMUTTATH

Khidmath Arts & Science College Moves to Koha ILS

The Library of Khidmath Arts & Science College, Ananthavoor (PO Pattarnadakkvu, Thirunavaya, Malappuram, Kerala 676301 moves to Koha ILS from E-Library Solutions (proprietary software). Around 6000 book records with patron data were successfully migrated.

Thanks to Mr. Afsal Abdulla, the librarian, for recommending me to the college authority for the implementation and migration to Koha ILS.

About Kidmath Arts and Science College

Kidmath Arts and Science College was established in May 2005 as a self-financing college affiliated to the University of Calicut. The college completed 16 years of its academic journey. It has emerged as one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the pattarnadakkavu locality.

Reference: https://www.khidmathcollege.ac.in/

Interview Experience at Sacred Heart College, Thevara

Recently, I had an interview at Sacred Heart college thevara, Ernakulam, for the post of Librarian at their east campus. It was yet another standard interview that I appeared in my professional life after EBSCO’s interview for the post of the Library Service Engineer (LSE).

The interview panel was led by the Rev. Fr. Jose John CMI (Principal), Dr. C.S. Francis Vice Principal (East Campus), Biju V. V. (Main campus librarian), and two subject experts Mr.Sanjo Jose, Librarian, St. Thomas College (Autonomous), Thrissur, and Ms. Vineetha Davies. V, Librarian, St. Aloysius College, Thrissur

Seventeen candidates (with/without NET) from various parts of Kerala were there for the interview. I was the third candidate, the panel took around twenty minutes for interviewing me, asking about myself, previous experience, subject knowledge, academics, publications, and expertise in various applications used in libraries, etc. Moreover, the panel requested me to present a session on any subject that I could. which was a nice experience to had a session with the panel.

I hope, I did perform my level best at the interview.

— Mahesh Palamuttath

Koha ILS upgradation at KMCT Medical College Manassery

KMCT Medical College Manassery library, Mukkam, Calicut, India- 673602 has upgraded their koha to the latest stable version (21.05.11) from 16.05 version. Thanks to Mr. Bhaskar, the librarian of the college for selecting me as the service provider.

About KMCT Medical College

KMCT Medical College was established in the year 2008 with an intake of 100 MBBS seats approved by the Medical Council of India. The College is affiliated with Kerala University of Health Sciences. The Central Government had accorded recognition for the MBBS course in the year 2013. Postgraduate courses were started in the academic year 2015-16 in Orthopaedics & Pharmacology and in the academic year 2020-21 postgraduate courses were started in other specialities (Microbiology, Community Medicine, General Medicine, General Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Paediatrics, ENT, Ophthalmology, Dermatology, Anaesthesiology, Psychiatry, Radiology & Pulmonary Medicine). From the academic year 2016-17, the intake of students in MBBS course was increased from 100 to 150 by the approval of Central Government.

Reference: https://www.kmctmedicalcollege.org/about-us/

Koha ILS upgradation at AKG Co-Operative Institute of Health Sciences

AKG Co-operative Institute Of Health Sciences, Kannur (AKGCIHS) library upgraded their koha to the latest stable version (21.05.11) from 18.05 version. Also implimented DSpace digital repository for archiving their contents.

It was my pleassure to be seleted as the support provider fot their Koha ILS & DSpace

About AKGCIHS

AKG CIHS, a new addition to the health education sector in the northern Malabar region of Kerala was initiated in the year 2017 as a memorial of Com. A K Gopalan.

Sri. A K Gopalan was a remarkable politician, a fabulous orator and a great Parliamentarian in the Indian history and a person who always had a heart dedicated for the upliftment of poor and downtrodden. Therefore, this college is aimed to be a noble deed for serving the community and empowering the students of this institution with meticulous knowledge in the field of health education.

The college functions at the native place of Sri. AKG – Mavilayi which is about 10 kms west of Kannur town and away from the buzz of the town. This institution was created to facilitate health education, training and research.

With the motto being “Exploring new horizons in health care” we aim to bring about an overall positive change in the health education system and provide knowledge in respect to people’s Health throughout all stages with the recently developed techniques.

The institution is fully equipped with the modern technologies and brilliant infrastructure so as to motivate the students to learn, develop and create their own ways of approach towards the society. The platform for research is always the utmost priority as the institution commits to refine recent advances in the field of health care.

The mission and vision of the institution is directed to bring the best out of the students and to contribute their part in bringing a new aspect to health care. The younger minds are being well trained with excellent knowledge and tremendous skills.

AKG CIHS comprises 7 diploma courses under the paramedical sector now . It is been approved by the Directorate of Medical Education. The information about other paramedical courses will be updated soon.

Reference: http://www.akgcihs.com/home/about

Archaeological Survey of India, Thrissur Circle starts using Koha

The library of Thrissur Circle of Archaeological Survey of India starts using Koha Integrated Library System for handling their collection. Mr. M. Mani, Assistant Library & Infomation Officer took the initiative and then consulted me to implement Koha in their library.

This is yet another client who begins the journey in the koha. anyway all the very best Mr. M Mani and the team.

About ASI, Thrissur Circle

In pursuance of recommendations of the Expert group on Archaeology (Ram Niwas Committee, 1989), para 67 Chapter XIII Thrissur Circle was formed in 1997. Thrissur Circle of Archaeological Survey of India was established in April 1997, separated from Chennai Circle with the Monuments/Sites in Kerala and adjoining districts of Tamilnadu viz. Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Nilgiri.

There are totally of 28 monuments and 9 sites protected under the purview of Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 and Rules 1959 are under the administrative control of the Circle. Most of these monuments and sites were under the protection of the erstwhile states of Cochin and Travancore.

The monuments protected include Temples, Jaina monuments, a church, Forts, and a Palace. Most of the Temples in Kerala are wooden edifies with granite or laterite plinth. The inner walls of the Mattancherry palace and outer walls of temples are generally covered with valuable mural paintings carried out in traditional Kerala style, while the sites are megalithic in nature.

Reference: http://107.189.6.64/about-us

Government College Mokeri moves to Koha ILS

Government college, mokeri, calicut moves to Koha ILS from BookMagic Software, around 25813 catalog records, patron data were successfully migrated to koha. Thanks to Mr. Lineesh sir, the librarian of the college for your cooperation and support.

My every implementation of koha comprises the following

Proper data extraction from the source software
Proper conversion of data into MARC21 format: merging unique records, adding bulk punctuation, custom fields from the available data + classification number, fast subject heading if ISBN’s are available
OPAC Customization
Various ready-made Koha reports
Daily automatic backup of Koha database to Google Drive
E-mail configuration
Gate register/inout integration with Koha
A full documentation with all codes and values I have used for the Koha

Things to do while you start using a fresh koha

The beginning of many’s journeys to the Koha often start either attending workshops or watching youtube videos. Of course, both will teach how to install koha and set up basic parameters in it. but it is just with a default preference, In the course of time, you will meet with some issues unless you enable the following system preferences in koha. Issues here don’t mean errors.

Let us see, few of those issues

Fines do not calculate/disappears ( even after properly setting up circulation rules and fines)
The renewal period starts after the overdue date, not from the date on which the book was renewed
Can not check-out/issue books to patrons, if they have more than 5 rupee fine.
Doesn’t auto-generate call numbers in item part even after providing class number and item number in the biblio/record

Following are the solution with a few more useful preferences. To enable those, go to koha administration and search each preference and make respective changes

Preference	Option to be enabled
finesMode (To calculate fine, if not)	Use "Calculate and charge"
RenewalPeriodBase (When renewing checkouts, base the new due date on the current date)	Use "the current date"
noissuescharge (To prevent the patron checking out items only if he/she has overdue fine more than 100 rupee)	Add the prefered amount eg:100
itemcallnumber ( To auto-create item's callnumber)	Add the tags "082ab"
AdvancedSearchTypes (To show tabs in the OPAC and staff interface advanced search for limiting searches on the itemtype, collection code and location code)	Add "itemtype\|ccode\|loc"
AmazonCoverImages (To display cover images from Amazon on search results and item detail pages on the staff interface)	Enable "show"
OPACAmazonCoverImages (To display cover images from Amazon on search results and item detail pages on the OPAC)	Enable "show"
OPACShowCheckoutName (To display the name of the patron that has an item checked out on item detail pages on the OPAC)	Enable "show"
dateformat (Use your prefered date format)	Use "DD/MM/YYYY"
patronimages	Enable "allow"
OPACpatronimages	Enable "show"
Display Accession number in OPAC uncheck "item_barcode"	Home -- Administration -- Table settings -- OPAC -- Table id: holdingst -- item_barcode

An Open-source Invoicing Application for Freelancers/SMBs

The crater is an open-source self-hosted invoicing application based on the Laravel PHP framework targeting individual users or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Crater Features

Invoice: Create and send invoices to clients
Estimate: make an estimate or offer a price
Track Payment: tracking transactions and payments
Expenses: record and track expenses
Reports: make a billing report
Taxes: set the type of tax
Mobile App: Android and iOS mobile versions available

Environment

OS: Debian 11/Ubuntu 20.04
Web Server: Apache
PHP: 7.4
Database: MariaDB 10.3
Subdomain: crater.opensio.co.in
SSL: Let’s Encrypt
Crater: v5.0.6

Install LAMP Stack

sudo apt install -y apache2 mariadb-server libapache2-mod-php php-common php-bcmath php-mbstring php-mysql php-tokenizer php-zip php-curl

Securing MariaDB installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Restart apache.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Download Crater

Download Crater on craterapp.com/downloads.

sudo wget https://craterapp.com/downloads/file/5.0.6 -O crater.zip

Unzip crater.zip

sudo apt install -y unzip && sudo unzip crater.zip

Move the crater folder.

sudo mv crater /var/www/html/

Change the ownership and permissions of the folder.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/crater/
sudo chmod 775 /var/www/html/crater/storage/framework
sudo chmod 775 /var/www/html/crater/storage/logs
sudo chmod 775 /var/www/html/crater/bootstrap/cache

Create virtual hosts file.

sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/crater.conf

Enter the virtual host configuration.

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName crater.opensio.co.in
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/crater/public
<Directory /var/www/html/crater/public>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/crater_error.log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/crater_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Activate the rewrite module, virtual host, and restart the apache web server.

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2ensite crater.conf
sudo systemctl reload apache2 && sudo systemctl restart apache2

Create database.

sudo mysql
create database crater;
create user ‘crater’@’localhost’ identified by ‘crater123’;
grant all privileges on crater.* to ‘crater’@’localhost’;
flush privileges;
exit

Install SSL using certbot.

sudo apt install python3-certbot-apache -y

SSL request for subdomain crater.opensio.co.in

sudo certbot –non-interactive -m info@opensio.co.in –agree-tos –no-eff-email –apache -d crater.opensio.co.in –redirect

Installation Wizard

Browse to the subdomain (crater.opensio.co.in)used for the installation wizard.

Click Check Requirements to check if the server meets the requirements to run Crater.

Crater System Requirements

If it meets the requirements click Continue.

PHP extensions

Checking directory permissions. Continue.

Directory Permissions

Configure Site URL and database. Enter the database name, username, and password that was created previously. Save & Continue.

Database Connection

Domain verification. Verify Now.

Domain Verification

Mail configuration, enter the name and email address as the identity of the email sender. Save.

Mail Configuration

Account information, enter your name, email, and password. Save & Continue.

Account Information

Company information, enter company name and country. Save & Continue.