NEP2020 emphasizes the importance of education in regional languages, and the Government of India is actively promoting the translation and writing of books in these languages. This initiative holds great potential for libraries to diversify their collections by incorporating materials in multiple languages. However, the existing Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) search feature in Koha faces a notable challenge due to its limited number of Indian language search filters.
As of version 23.11, Koha’s advanced search options provide only 6 or 7 Indian language search filters. This shortfall poses difficulties for users seeking to explore available books in languages such as Oriya, Assamese, Malayalam, Sanskrit, and others. Many libraries have opted to categorize books by language in Integrated Library Management Systems (ILMS) like Koha, creating specific book types for each language. While this categorization may appear unconventional, it has been implemented to segregate books by language and generate reports based on language—a practice that may seem illogical.
To address this issue, one of the following step-by-step guide assists Koha ILMS users in configuring or creating languages not available by default. This enables a smoother browsing experience and facilitates the generation of reports on library collections based on language. It’s important to note that the current language filter in the advanced search of Koha considers the language code entered in MARC 008 and 041$a fields, as illustrated in the figure 1.
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