Asia
Koha for Libraries in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Across Asia
Asian libraries catalogue in more scripts than anywhere else. We set Koha up so your languages display, search and print correctly, on your own time zone.
What we hear
The problems libraries here bring us
“Our Hindi and Tamil titles show on screen but print on slips as empty boxes.”
“Search finds a title in English but not when a reader types it in our own script.”
“Our time zone is UTC+5:30, and the server keeps calculating due dates a day out.”
“We have branches in several cities and no one person who maintains Koha.”
How we set it up
Configured for where your library is
Whether we install a new Koha, migrate you onto one, host it, or support the Koha you already run.
Your languages, set up and checked
Koha’s community translations include Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Nepali, Sinhala, Urdu, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Khmer, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. We enable yours and check them on the screens staff use.
Your time zone, calendar and currency
Asia has half-hour and quarter-hour zones (Asia/Kolkata is UTC+5:30, Asia/Kathmandu UTC+5:45). A named zone, never a fixed offset, keeps due dates right. Calendar, public holidays and currency are set per library.
Scripts that search and print
Records are stored in Unicode, so any script can be catalogued. We test search with your own titles, and on Koha Cloud slips and labels print Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Urdu Nastaliq and Chinese, Japanese and Korean correctly.
Across the region
Configured for your country
| Country | Time zone | Koha interface languages |
|---|---|---|
| India | Asia/Kolkata (UTC+5:30) | English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese |
| Pakistan | Asia/Karachi (UTC+5) | English, Urdu, Sindhi |
| Bangladesh | Asia/Dhaka (UTC+6) | English, Bengali |
| Sri Lanka | Asia/Colombo (UTC+5:30) | English, Sinhala, Tamil |
| Nepal | Asia/Kathmandu (UTC+5:45) | English, Nepali |
| Indonesia | Asia/Jakarta (UTC+7) and two more zones | Indonesian |
| Malaysia | Asia/Kuala_Lumpur (UTC+8) | Malay, English |
| Philippines | Asia/Manila (UTC+8) | English, Filipino |
| Thailand, Vietnam | Asia/Bangkok, Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (UTC+7) | Thai, Vietnamese |
| China, Japan, Korea | Asia/Shanghai, Asia/Tokyo, Asia/Seoul | Chinese, Japanese, Korean |
Arabic-speaking Asia is covered on our Middle East & North Africa page. Translation completeness varies by language; we check yours before go-live.
Included
What we look after
Many scripts, one catalog
Records in several scripts side by side, each searchable.
Printing that works
Slips, receipts and spine labels in your scripts, not empty boxes.
Half-hour zones handled
UTC+5:30 and UTC+5:45 are named zones, so midnight is midnight.
Many branches
One catalog for a university with campuses in several cities.
MARC21 and Z39.50
Copy cataloguing from national and university catalogues.
Your currency
Fines and acquisitions in rupees, taka, ringgit, rupiah or pesos.
Koha Cloud pricing
Hosted Koha from $30 a month
Or $300 a year, saving $60. Up to 5,000 books, 5 staff and 300 patrons, with hosting, a subdomain, the public catalog, cataloguing, circulation, acquisitions, administration and training. The same price in every country; larger libraries get a tailored quote.
Already running Koha?
We support and fix the Koha you have, on your own server, and train your team in live sessions.
Koha supportMoving to Koha?
From another library system or a spreadsheet, validated and reconciled before go-live.
Koha data migrationYour team needs training?
Private live sessions for your staff on your own Koha, in your working hours.
Koha staff trainingFAQ
What libraries in the region ask us
Can one record carry titles in two scripts?
Yes. MARC21 is designed for it: the original script and a romanised form can sit in the same record, and both are searchable. We agree the approach with your cataloguers before migration, because changing it later means editing every record.
Will our local scripts print correctly?
On Koha Cloud, slips, labels and receipts print Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Urdu Nastaliq, and Chinese, Japanese and Korean correctly. On a Koha you run yourself, we install the fonts your printers and PDF output need and test every slip.
How is it priced?
Koha Cloud's Basic plan has a published price in US dollars, the same in every country, with the first three months free. Support, migration and training for a Koha you run yourself are quoted.
Related reading
Background reading
Koha and MARC21
Fields and frameworks, including vernacular script.
Read the guideZebra or Elasticsearch
Which search engine handles your languages better.
Read the guideKoha union catalogs
One search across a group of libraries.
Read the guideOur services
Get a quote
Talk to us about your library
Tell us where you are and what you run today. We reply in your working hours.