Koha Implementation Guide

Plan the service before configuring the software

A dependable Koha implementation begins with library policy and working practice. Document branches, item types, patron groups, circulation rules, notices, permissions, cataloguing standards, reports, integrations, and the public discovery experience before configuration starts.

Implementation checklist

• Confirm ownership, stakeholders, branches, collections, users, policies, timeline, and acceptance criteria.
• Profile existing bibliographic, authority, item, patron, circulation, and fine data before migration.
• Define MARC frameworks, authorized values, classification, item types, locations, patron categories, and permissions.
• Design the OPAC around real discovery tasks, accessibility, mobile use, institutional identity, and useful account actions.
• Validate search indexing, notices, scheduled jobs, email, integrations, reports, security, backups, and restoration.

Migration deserves its own workstream

Never treat import as a single file upload. Map fields, normalize identifiers and dates, remove unsafe duplication, preserve relationships, rehearse the transformation, and compare source and target totals. Librarians should sample records across collections and edge cases before final cutover.

Prepare people for ownership

Train by role using the institution’s configuration and common scenarios. Administrators need more than feature demonstrations: they need to understand permissions, scheduled processes, indexing, backup, change control, troubleshooting, and escalation. Keep concise operating notes beside the system.

Launch with a recovery path

Before public release, confirm HTTPS, administrative access, privacy, monitoring, database and uploaded-file backups, retention, off-server copies, and a tested restoration procedure. Record who responds when search, circulation, notices, or the OPAC stops behaving as expected.