Open Fifth Koha & Aspen Discovery Development Updates – January 2026

Koha development highlights

1. Bookings improvements

We’ve been hard at work fixing bugs and refining features in the bookings functionality we recently introduced into Koha.  There’s plenty more to do, including exposing hourly bookings soon, but the foundations are considerably further along and more reliable than they’ve ever been before.

Primary developer: Martin Renvoize

Sponsoring library: ByWater Solutions and Open Fifth

Release: 25.11.x (maintenance releases)

Bugzilla – Bug 39916

2. GIR:LSL support for EDIFACT messages

We’ve added support for EDItEUR/BiC GIR:LSL (Library Sub-Location) field in EDIFACT processing to complement existing GIR:LSQ functionality, allowing flexible mapping of both fields to location and collection item fields with independent configuration.

Primary developer: Martin Renvoize

Sponsoring library: Bi-Borough Libraries & Archives (Westminster City Council and Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

Release information: 25.11

Bugzilla – Bug 40391

Coming soon to Koha

1. Patron self-renewal

An enhancement allowing libraries to decide whether patrons can self-renew through the OPAC. This can be done at category level so that only certain categories can be enabled for this. The time period that this is available for can also be customised as well as the ability to add verification questions, such as a confirmation of the patron’s details.

Primary developer: Matt Blenkinsop

Sponsoring library: Bi-Borough Libraries & Archives (Westminster City Council and Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

Release target: 26.05

Bugzilla – Bug 26355

2. Ability to assign staff to manage ILL requests

This development abstracts the existing ‘Managed by’ functionality currently utilised in suggestions to also be utilised by the ILL module.

User notes:

The staff member who creates a new ILL request is automatically assigned as its manager.

No manager is assigned to ILL requests made by users without ‘ILL’ permission e.g. patrons using the OPAC.

When an ILL request without a manager has its status changed, the staff member making the change is automatically assigned as its manager e.g. by clicking ‘confirm’ or ‘revert request’.

It is possible to manually update a request’s manager by clicking the ‘Edit request’ toolbar button when viewing a request. The patron search modal, ‘select manager’ button and all its functionality is shared with the ‘select manager’ present in the suggestions module. This means that when editing an ILL request, the ‘managedby’ defaults to the staff member editing the request, unless ‘Keep existing manager’ is clicked, like it happens in suggestions.

This is fully core built, all backends will automatically hook into this functionality, because:

• Automatic ‘managedby’ happen on status change, regardless of backend
• All requests have access to ‘edit request’ page, regardless of backend

Only if a logged in staff member exists does the auto behaviour set the manager. If no staff member is found, nothing happens e.g. an ILL request status was changed by a CLI command / cronjob

Primary developer: Pedro Amorim

Sponsoring library: UKHSA

Release target: 26.05

Bugzilla – Bug 40504

3. Flywire rewrite on new API

We previously refreshed the WPM / Flywire plugin, however this was using the outdated and “to be deprecated” API that was legacy from before WPM were acquired by Flywire. We’ve now completely rewritten the plugin to use the new Flywire API, which is much better and relies on newer, non-outdated standards.

Primary developer: Jacob O’Mara

Sponsoring library: Part-funded by University of Hertfordshire, with further funding from institutions using Flywire to be confirmed.

Release target: This development is a plugin that will be available following further customer testing.

4. Cash management enhancements

Work is also continuing on the point of sale reconciliation development, which will significantly enhance the cash management facilities within Koha by adding an optional two-phase workflow to the cash-up process allowing for reconciliation amounts to be recorded against registers.

Primary developer: Martin Renvoize

Sponsoring library: West Sussex Libraries, with essential testing from Debbie McCarthy, Ricky Theodosio and Lucy Morris, with further sponsorship from Open Fifth

Release target: 26.05

Bugzilla – Bug 40445