Koha: IT Integration

Your hosted Koha LMS resides on a Prosentient server which sits outside  your corporate network.

The URL of your library's hosted OPAC is in the form http://MyOrg.intersearch.com.au while the form of the URL of the Staff Client is http://MyOrgadmin.intersearch.com.au.

Although your LMS is now hosted outside of your corporate network, your patrons will not notice any appearance or performance issues, provided some minor networking adjustments are made. 

For optimum performance Prosentient's hosting servers need to be recognised by your network as belonging to a trusted site as follows:

Email server trusts

Koha generates a range of client emails on behalf of your organisation. If the from address of the emails sent from the hosted server is the same as an address belonging to your corporate domain, it is possible that your mail server will reject these emails as “spoofed” emails. In this case it will be necessary for your IT Department to register Prosentient's mail server as a trusted email source for your corporate internal emails. Ask your IT department to make the Koha server (primary IP address   203.220.12.16 and secondary IP address 203.220.12.166 and domain name mail.prosentient.com.au) a trusted mail source.

Browser trusts

In some cases you may find that your browser settings are “locked down” to enforce corporate web browser policies and you are not able to change your browser settings yourself. In this case you will need to request your IT department to add the two Koha websites (the URLs of the OPAC and the Staff Client) - to the “trusted website list” of those browsers that require access to these sites.

 

Corporate subdomain for library web pages

While your LMS can always be reached by the default URLs at intersearch.com.au it is straightforward, if required, to set up your own virtual URLs for your patrons. For example, you may prefer to have your patrons visit the:

  • OPAC with a URL in the form http://library.MyOrg.com.au
  • Staff Client with a URL in the form http://libraryadmin.MyOrg.com.au

This requires your IT department to put the CNAME entries for your corporate virtual URLs in their Domain Name Server pointing to the names of the corresponding Prosentient servers:

  • http://MyOrg.intersearch.com.au
  • http://MyOrgadmin.intersearch.com.au

Corporate CSS hosting for library web pages

The look and feel (as opposed to the content) of your LMS HTML pages are controlled by a CSS file. By default, the CSS file lives on Prosentient's hosting server and is configured as part of site establishment with your corporate logo and colour scheme.

Some organisations may have their own web designers and prefer to finess the appearance of their LMS pages themselves. It is an easy matter to arrange for your organisation to take over responsibility for hosting and maintaining your CSS file on a corporate server where your web designer will have ready access.

If you have the necessary resources and a desire to maintain your own CSS file, we can send you a copy and change the code on the library site to point to its new location in your corporate network.

Access to Z39.50 servers

One of Koha's most powerful features is the ability to Copy Catalogue acquisitions by looking up existing biblio entries from a library Z39.50 provider. There are many Z39.50 providers that are public and freely available including Library of Congress, Australian National University, the Smithsonian Institution and Oxford Library.

If your library has membership of Libraries Australia you will be able to use their Z39.50 server. To enable Z39.50 through Libraries Australia, first contact their Helpdesk on 1800 026 155, and ask them to enable a Z39.50 connection for your site. As a matter of course they will ask you to perform a Z39.50 connection test with your software, to which you should respond that “the test has already been conducted by our IT service provider”.

Koha API

Koha has a REST API that can be used to extend the functionality of your Koha system, for example with integration to Apps or with integration to internal systems.

 

Disclaimer

While Prosentient Systems provides Koha hosting we do not represent the Koha community. It is represented by a diverse group of Koha hosting providers and Koha libraries around the world. Koha's community home page can be found at www.koha-community.org