vufind-general Mailing List for VuFind®

Hello, everyone!

VuFind® 11.1.1 has been released today. This is a patch release containing around 70 minor bug fixes and some dependency updates. If you are using 11.1.0, it should be a painless upgrade, though note that a fix related to inconsistent capitalization of the getILLPickupLibraries method might impact users who have custom ILL configurations and use the ComposedDriver for their ILS connection (a very rare combination).

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or problems!

thanks,
Demian

Here are the minutes from today's Community Call:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call:minutes20261103

The next call will be Tuesday, December 1, 2026 at 9am Eastern Standard Time (14:00 GMT).

- Demian

Hello, everyone!



The October, 2026 VuFind® newsletter is now available:



https://vufind.org/wiki/community:newsletter:2026-10



Additionally, the next Community Call will be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time (13:00 GMT).



Here is the full agenda:



  1.  Development Planning
     *   Newsletter Highlights
     *
Follow-Up to Past Discussions
        *
Solr Upgrade
        *
Laminas MVC End of Life
        *
Dark Mode PR
        *
Extension Module Skeleton / Best Practices
     *
11.1.1 Release
     *
12.0.0 Progress
        *
Ticket/PR Review
        *
GVI Support
  2.
Accessibility SIG
  3.
Contributor License Agreement
  4.
Security Auditing
  5.
Open Q&A / Other Topics?
     *
php2shell



All are welcome to join the free online call, or to suggest additional agenda items. You can find information on joining here:



https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call



See you next week!



- Demian

Hello, everyone --

In case you're not already following the Solutions Showcase Series (which covers strategies for dealing with the aggressive crawler bots that have been causing trouble for many of us in recent years), you might be interested to see that a VuFind®-themed session is coming up next month! See below for details.

- Demian

________________________________
From: Arran Griffith <Arr...@ly...>
Hi All,

We are excited to share details about the next two Solutions Showcases in our series. This will make the 13th and 14th Solutions Showcases in the Series, and we couldn’t be more excited.

If you’re new to this event, The Solutions Showcase Series is a regular virtual event, bringing together individuals and institutions from across the cultural heritage sector to demo practical solutions they've implemented to mitigate the negative impacts of AI bot activity and harvesting on their systems, including repositories, websites, catalogues, and more.

Details:


Solutions Showcase #13 - How VuFind® Users are Blocking the Bots

Date: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026

Time: 10:00am Eastern

Location: Zoom - https://lyrasis.zoom.us/meeting/register/yobnJhWUSMOraw0JTebWUQ

  *   This session will feature a live demo and time for Q&A.

  *   Demos will span a diverse range of technical approaches, including open and non-open-source solutions.


The session will bring three VuFind® community users together to share how they are individually tackling aggressive bot traffic on their VuFind® instances at their institutions.

Demian Katz, Falvey Library - Falvey Library hosts multiple VuFind® instances (as well as various other PHP applications). They have built a custom PHP application-level firewall which can be included into the bootstrapper of any PHP application to perform checks to block bots. This tool allows us to quickly respond to changing behavior and implement custom solutions to urgent problems.

Maccabee Levine, Lehigh University Library - The library is using VuFind's built-in Rate Limiter including its integration with Cloudflare Turnstile. A brief overview explanation can be found here: https://vufind.org/wiki/administration:rate_limiting

Megan Schanz, Michigan State Library - Here, the library is making use of a layered approach for bot detection and blocking. They deploy the open-source tool go-away, which issues automated challenges that require no user interaction, alongside custom Traefik and Apache rules that filter out known bad URL patterns and checking against aggregated blocklists before requests hit our application layer.


Solutions Showcase #14 - Anubis Update with Xe Iaso

Date: Wednesday, December 2nd, 2026

Time: 1:00pm Eastern

Location: Zoom - https://lyrasis.zoom.us/meeting/register/PLCXoYLNRlKKJcaZFRWqbA


We are excited to bring Anubis back to the Solutions Showcase Series! Xe Iaso returns to provide an update what's new with the tool, and to talk openly about the hard parts of raising the bar for "bad" traffic without blocking the good. Xe will discuss the complications around detection, the dilemma of deploying tools that can become targets, and why accessibility tools and scrapers increasingly look alike.


To read more about the presenters, and see information about previous Solutions Showcases, check out our wiki space: https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/cmtygp/Solutions+Showcase

________________________________

The Solutions Showcase Series is organized by the AI Discussions Group, a collaborative initiative that emerged from shared concerns about the impact of AI-driven web harvesting on academic institutions. While our initial focus was on academic repositories, we’ve since expanded our scope to include all corners of the GLAM sector.

Read more about some of our working group here: https://wiki.lyrasis.org/spaces/cmtygp/pages/364743611/Community+AI+Discussions+Working+Group

Have a solution to share?
We’re actively looking for additional presenters! If your institution has addressed AI bot scraping in a creative or effective way, we’d love to feature your work. Please reach out to Arran Griffith at arr...@ly...<mailto:arr...@ly...> to book a presentation slot.

Cheers,
Arran Griffith, on behalf of The AI Discussions Group

---
Arran Griffith
Program Manager, Fedora Program
Lyrasis
Book a time to meet with me<https://calendly.com/griffith-lyrasis/new-meeting>


[A picture containing logo  Description automatically generated]
https://fedorarepository.org/

Here are the minutes from today's Community Call:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call:minutes20261006

The next call will be Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time (13:00 GMT).

- Demian

Hello, everyone!



The September, 2026 VuFind® newsletter is now available:



https://vufind.org/wiki/community:newsletter:2026-09



Additionally, the next Community Call will be held on Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time (13:00 GMT).



Here is the full agenda:



  1.  Development Planning
     *   Newsletter Highlights
     *
Follow-Up to Past Discussions
        *
Solr Upgrade
        *
Laminas MVC End of Life
        *
Dark Mode PR
        *
Extension Module Skeleton / Best Practices
     *
11.1.1 Release
     *
12.0.0 Progress
        *
Ticket/PR Review
        *
Items to Defer
        *
GVI Support
  2.
Accessibility SIG
  3.
Installations Wiki Page
  4.
Security Auditing
  5.  Open Q&A / Other Topics?



All are welcome to join the free online call, or to suggest additional agenda items. You can find information on joining here:



https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call



See you next week!



- Demian

Hi!
I'm a system administrator at The Music and Theatre Library of Sweden. We happen to have a VuFind setup that corresponds pretty closely to your use cases. You can find the instance at:
https://sok.statensmusikverk.se<https://sok.statensmusikverk.se/> (unless it's been geoblocked/rate-limited in your region because of bot traffic)
It's a coordinated effort including catalogues and archives from both The Music and Theatre Library of Sweden, The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research (Svenskt Visarkiv), and The Swedish Museum of Performing Arts (Scenkonstmuseet).
We have set up two tabs, "Catalogs & Collections" and "External databases".
If you do a blank search on "Catalogs & Collections", then you can look under the "Catalogs" facet and find, most significantly:
- "The Library Catalogue" - Our Koha library catalogue, showing status information from Koha for each record through the KohaRest plugin.
- "Archives & Special Collections" - Archival materials from our AtoM instance (which can be found at https://arkiv.musikochteaterbiblioteket.se<https://arkiv.musikochteaterbiblioteket.se/> ), harvested through OAI-PMH.
- "The Song and Tune Catalogue", "The Phonogram Collection" and "Sound recordings" - All indexed from the Xref catalogue for Svenskt Visarkiv
- "The Photograph Collection" and "The Object Collection", materials from Scenkonstmuseet, indexed from https://digitaltmuseum.org<https://digitaltmuseum.org/>, also via OAI-PMH.

If you do a blank search under the "External databases" tab, you'll find external databases we're subscribing to through EBSCO (patron registration required for full use).

IndexData has provided both hosting and most of the technical solutions to make it all work, though I was directly involved in certain parts of it, like the effort to map fields from our AtoM archive to VuFind via XSLT (including hierarchies). And I've spent some time familiarising myself with how VuFind works and how to configure it, as it is always useful to have some technical knowledge on staff even when we're using an external provider.

>From what we can tell, https://finna.fi<https://finna.fi/> showcases a fair bit of in-house customisation, which can make sense if you have the resources for it. But since we're a smaller institution with somewhat limited budgets, we've opted to keep our VuFind installation relatively standard, making as much use of its integrated features as makes sense.

Best Regards,

Palle Raabjerg

System administrator
Pal...@Mu...<mailto:Pal...@Mu...>
musikochteaterbiblioteket.se<https://musikochteaterbiblioteket.se/>

[Logotyp Musik- och teaterbiblioteket]

________________________________

En del av Statens musikverk

________________________________
Från: Demian Katz via VuFind-General <vuf...@li...>
Skickat: den 14 september 2026 16:18
Till: Inuwa Bukar <Inu...@we...>; vuf...@li... <vuf...@li...>
Kopia: (VuFind general support/discussion list) — cc: <in...@vu...>
Ämne: Re: [VuFind-General] [EXTERNAL] Inquiry: Using VuFind as a Unified Discovery Layer for a Multi-System Digital Library (Koha, AtoM/ArchivesSpace, Museum & Archaeology Collections)

Hello,

It is great to hear from you — thank you for your interest in VuFind®! I will answer some of your questions here in this public thread, but if you prefer to ask any follow-up questions privately, you are welcome to write to me directly.

The very short answer is that your use case aligns well with VuFind®, and I am confident that it can be made to meet all of your requirements. As in any project, there will of course be some parts that are easier than others!

To answer specific questions:

1.) VuFind® includes an example configuration for indexing ArchivesSpace content that has been harvested over OAI-PMH; this is used by my institution. We do not currently have any built-in examples for museum systems, though I know that museum content has been locally integrated in at least one place (the National Library of Finland), so it is possible they might have something they could share. Your archaeology database sounds like the most specialized piece of your use case and may require some custom work — but I do not anticipate that being a major obstacle so long as your existing system provides a mechanism for exporting the data in a well-structured format.

2.) Subscription content can be challenging due to licensing issues and possible additional costs. The software provides several options for dealing with this, but the best/most viable will depend on exactly which content providers you are working with. This wiki page provides a high-level summary: https://vufind.org/wiki/administration:searching_subscription_databases_in_vufind

3.) The primary Solr schema in VuFind® is designed to make it possible to index all of your records into a single core and then facet by type as needed. However, the system also supports connecting to multiple cores containing different types of data if separating things provides a more logical user experience. Bottom line: I think you can technically accomplish this however you like; you will probably want to have some conversations about information architecture and user needs to determine which approach is best.

4.) As noted above, the National Library of Finland has brought together very diverse content from multiple institutions into a single repository at https://finna.fi/ -- the scope of their collection is likely larger than yours (since they are representing an entire country rather than a single museum), but I suspect some of their lessons learned may be relevant to you. You can also find a list of known installations on this wiki page: https://vufind.org/wiki/community:installations -- there are several museums there. I am not personally familiar with all of these installations, but it may be worthwhile to examine them and potentially reach out to the organizations that maintain them for more information.

5.) Customization is one of VuFind®'s strengths. Adding custom branding is straightforward, and much deeper and more extensive customization is possible if desired. It is also straightforward to add and reorganize metadata fields. Internationalization is built in, and if you need to add support for languages that are not already included, I would be happy to work with you to include them in the project in the future, provided you could help with the actual translation part of the work.

6.) Since Villanova does all development internally, I do not have direct experience with contracting with a registered service provider. However, all of the RSPs listed at https://vufind.org/vufind/support.html have profile pages that talk about their specializations and scope. It does not hurt to reach out to them and see what they think about your project!

7.) Regarding costs: as noted above, I'm not sure about consulting costs for development; that will definitely depend on the scale and scope of the work, and potentially the geographic location of the RSP you decide to work with. Similarly, hosting and server maintenance costs could vary quite a bit depending on the scope of your project. The most resource-intensive part of a VuFind installation is generally the Solr index, and the cost of running Solr will depend on the size, complexity and number of records in your index. Some additional considerations: keeping VuFind® up-to-date is important in today's cybersecurity environment, so I recommend budgeting for future upgrades (and considering, when customizing things, whether a customization will have long-term maintenance costs associated with it). There has also been a problem in recent years with "crawler bots" harvesting content from cultural heritage institutions (possibly for AI training) — this bot traffic can increase hosting costs and impact performance; it is may be helpful to consider a bot strategy during planning.

8.) I've already recommended a couple of helpful pages above. The "VuFind® for Project Managers" page might also have some helpful suggestions: https://vufind.org/wiki/administration:vufind_for_project_managers. If you need anything that you can't find by searching the wiki, please feel free to ask at any time. The community is here to help!

- Demian

________________________________
From: Inuwa Bukar <Inu...@we...>
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 9:28 AM
To: vuf...@li... <vuf...@li...>
Cc: (VuFind general support/discussion list) — cc: <in...@vu...>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Inquiry: Using VuFind as a Unified Discovery Layer for a Multi-System Digital Library (Koha, AtoM/ArchivesSpace, Museum & Archaeology Collections)

You don't often get email from inu...@we.... Learn why this is important<https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
Dear VuFind Team and Community,
My name is Inuwa Bukar, Archivist and Library Manager at the Museum of West African Arts (MOWAA), based in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. We are planning a new e-library platform intended to serve as a single discovery and access point for a fairly wide range of collections, and VuFind's reputation as a flexible, open-source discovery layer has made it our leading candidate. I'm writing to ask about feasibility and best practices for our specific use case and to learn how the community typically handles this kind of integration.
Our platform needs to bring together the following systems under one search and discovery interface:

  *   Koha — our integrated library system (ILS), for catalogue records, holdings, and circulation status
  *   Open-access/open-source databases and repositories — for freely available scholarly and reference content
  *   Subscription-based (licensed) databases — requiring authenticated or proxied access for our patrons
  *   AtoM or ArchivesSpace — for archival finding aids and archival collection description
  *   CollectionIndex+ (or a comparable museum collection management system) — for our museum's object and collection records
  *   An archaeology collection/records system — for site, artefact, and excavation records

Given these circumstances, we'd be grateful for your guidance on a few specific points:

  1.  Existing connectors and maturity: Beyond the native Koha ILS driver, does VuFind (or the community) have documented approaches, plugins, or prior case studies for harvesting or indexing metadata from AtoM/ArchivesSpace, museum collection systems, and archaeology databases — via OAI-PMH, APIs, or otherwise?
  2.  Subscription content: What is the recommended approach for incorporating licensed/subscription database content and access control (e.g., OpenURL link resolvers, EZproxy, federated search, or similar) alongside locally indexed material?
  3.  Architecture recommendations: For an installation combining a library catalogue, archives, and museum/archaeological records in one index, are there architectural best practices you'd recommend (e.g., separate Solr cores vs. a unified schema, metadata crosswalks, record types/facets)?
  4.  Similar implementations: Are you aware of other institutions—particularly hybrid library/archive/museum organisations—that have implemented VuFind this way; whose experience could we learn from?
  5.  Customisation: How flexible is VuFind for customisation to fit an institution's specific identity and workflows—for example, branding and UI/theming to match MOWAA's visual identity, custom metadata fields and facets suited to museum and archaeological records, and any multilingual interface support we should be aware of?
  6.  Could you recommend registered service providers or consultants experienced in integrating VuFind with archival (AtoM/ArchivesSpace) and museum collection systems for potential paid implementation support?
  7.  Cost implications: While we understand VuFind itself is free and open-source, could you help us understand the likely cost drivers for a project of this scope—for example, typical consulting/implementation fees from registered service providers, hosting and infrastructure requirements, and any ongoing maintenance or support costs we should budget for?
  8.  Documentation: It would be very helpful if you could recommend any documentation, wiki pages, or mailing list threads as a starting point for a project of this scope.

We are at an early planning stage and ensureake sure our architecture and budget are sound before development begins, so any guidance — even pointers to prior discussions — would be much appreciated. We're also happy to schedule a call if that's easier for a project of this size.
Thank you for your time and for maintaining such a valuable open-source project.
Best regards,

Inuwa Bukar
Archivist and Library Manager
Museum of West African Arts (MOWAA)
inu...@we...<mailto:inu...@we...> | +234 803 320 0600
Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

Wearemowaa.org<http://wearemowaa.org/>
Instagram<https://www.instagram.com/mowaaofficial/> | LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/company/museumofwestafricanart/?viewAsMember=true> | X<https://x.com/mowaaofficial>

Museum of West African Art (MOWAA)
1 Benin Sapele Road, Benin City

[mowaa.png]

Dinesh,

Because of the deprecation of the laminas-loader module, local modules now require some additional composer configuration. From the 11.0 changelog:

"Local code modules should no longer include a getAutoloaderConfig() method. Instead, module autoloading should be configured through the autoload section of composer.json or composer.local.json. New modules created with the install.php command line tool will automatically update composer.local.json. For existing modules, manual updates are recommended. See pull request #4146<https://github.com/vufind-org/vufind/pull/4146> for examples of how to convert Module.php code into composer.json configuration."

Please let me know if you need more detailed assistance, and apologies for the inconvenience — 11.0 included a lot of breaking changes, many due to ecosystem changes like this one that were unfortunately beyond the project's control.

- Demian
________________________________
From: Dinesh Ranjan <ran...@gm...>
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 10:51 AM
To: vufind general <vuf...@li...>
Cc: Demian Katz <dem...@vi...>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Vufind 11.1 and Local Module Error

Hi,

We have recently installed the latest Vufid release 11.1.0 with the local module option. After the installation when we run the URL through the browser it gives an 500 Error message.
We are not able to locate the exact error through any of the logs.
However, when we commented the  VUFIND_LOCAL_MODULES settings line in the httpd configuration file generated by vufind, it worked fine.

Any suggestions for debugging this issue would be helpful.

Regards,
Dinesh

Dinesh Ranjan Pradhan
Scientist-D (LS)
INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar
(An IUC of UGC)

Dear VuFind Team and Community,
My name is Inuwa Bukar, Archivist and Library Manager at the Museum of West African Arts (MOWAA), based in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. We are planning a new e-library platform intended to serve as a single discovery and access point for a fairly wide range of collections, and VuFind's reputation as a flexible, open-source discovery layer has made it our leading candidate. I'm writing to ask about feasibility and best practices for our specific use case and to learn how the community typically handles this kind of integration.
Our platform needs to bring together the following systems under one search and discovery interface:

  *   Koha — our integrated library system (ILS), for catalogue records, holdings, and circulation status
  *   Open-access/open-source databases and repositories — for freely available scholarly and reference content
  *   Subscription-based (licensed) databases — requiring authenticated or proxied access for our patrons
  *   AtoM or ArchivesSpace — for archival finding aids and archival collection description
  *   CollectionIndex+ (or a comparable museum collection management system) — for our museum's object and collection records
  *   An archaeology collection/records system — for site, artefact, and excavation records

Given these circumstances, we'd be grateful for your guidance on a few specific points:

  1.  Existing connectors and maturity: Beyond the native Koha ILS driver, does VuFind (or the community) have documented approaches, plugins, or prior case studies for harvesting or indexing metadata from AtoM/ArchivesSpace, museum collection systems, and archaeology databases — via OAI-PMH, APIs, or otherwise?
  2.  Subscription content: What is the recommended approach for incorporating licensed/subscription database content and access control (e.g., OpenURL link resolvers, EZproxy, federated search, or similar) alongside locally indexed material?
  3.  Architecture recommendations: For an installation combining a library catalogue, archives, and museum/archaeological records in one index, are there architectural best practices you'd recommend (e.g., separate Solr cores vs. a unified schema, metadata crosswalks, record types/facets)?
  4.  Similar implementations: Are you aware of other institutions—particularly hybrid library/archive/museum organisations—that have implemented VuFind this way; whose experience could we learn from?
  5.  Customisation: How flexible is VuFind for customisation to fit an institution's specific identity and workflows—for example, branding and UI/theming to match MOWAA's visual identity, custom metadata fields and facets suited to museum and archaeological records, and any multilingual interface support we should be aware of?
  6.  Could you recommend registered service providers or consultants experienced in integrating VuFind with archival (AtoM/ArchivesSpace) and museum collection systems for potential paid implementation support?
  7.  Cost implications: While we understand VuFind itself is free and open-source, could you help us understand the likely cost drivers for a project of this scope—for example, typical consulting/implementation fees from registered service providers, hosting and infrastructure requirements, and any ongoing maintenance or support costs we should budget for?
  8.  Documentation: It would be very helpful if you could recommend any documentation, wiki pages, or mailing list threads as a starting point for a project of this scope.

We are at an early planning stage and ensureake sure our architecture and budget are sound before development begins, so any guidance — even pointers to prior discussions — would be much appreciated. We're also happy to schedule a call if that's easier for a project of this size.
Thank you for your time and for maintaining such a valuable open-source project.
Best regards,

Inuwa Bukar
Archivist and Library Manager
Museum of West African Arts (MOWAA)
inu...@we...<mailto:inu...@we...> | +234 803 320 0600
Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

Wearemowaa.org<http://wearemowaa.org/>
Instagram<https://www.instagram.com/mowaaofficial/> | LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/company/museumofwestafricanart/?viewAsMember=true> | X<https://x.com/mowaaofficial>

Museum of West African Art (MOWAA)
1 Benin Sapele Road, Benin City

[mowaa.png]

Dinesh,

The key detail is that you should have a composer.local.json file with autoload settings for your local module. If you ran the installer in a fresh installation of VuFind 11.1, then this should have been created for you. If you ran the installer on an earlier version, you'll need to update the file manually (or you can re-run the installer to regenerate it). Either way, you need to run "composer install" to rebuild the autoloader logic after the configuration is updated.

If your autoloading is all correct and you're still seeing 500 errors, then it's also possible that I have misdiagnosed your root cause, and there is some other issue in your local code that is causing a problem. If that's the case, you'll need to get more detail on the error message to figure out where the problem is coming from. Normally you should find a log message in your Apache or PHP-FPM error log when a 500 occurs. If you can locate the error message and share it with me, I can help diagnose the cause!

Please let me know if you need more assistance. 🙂

- Demian
________________________________
From: Dinesh Ranjan <ran...@gm...>
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 11:42 AM
To: Demian Katz <dem...@vi...>
Cc: vufind general <vuf...@li...>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Vufind 11.1 and Local Module Error

Thanks Demian for the details. I will check for the details suggested.

However, I have not created any new module but only assigned the name of the local module during the installation process which created the necessary files.
Since we are making a fresh installation and not adding any old files, do we need to make the changes manually as per the PR or there may be anything that we might have missed during the installation process.

Regards,

Dinesh Ranjan Pradhan
Scientist-D (LS)
INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar
(An IUC of UGC)



On Mon, Sep 14, 2026 at 8:27 PM Demian Katz <dem...@vi...<mailto:dem...@vi...>> wrote:
Dinesh,

Because of the deprecation of the laminas-loader module, local modules now require some additional composer configuration. From the 11.0 changelog:

"Local code modules should no longer include a getAutoloaderConfig() method. Instead, module autoloading should be configured through the autoload section of composer.json or composer.local.json. New modules created with the install.php command line tool will automatically update composer.local.json. For existing modules, manual updates are recommended. See pull request #4146<https://github.com/vufind-org/vufind/pull/4146> for examples of how to convert Module.php code into composer.json configuration."

Please let me know if you need more detailed assistance, and apologies for the inconvenience — 11.0 included a lot of breaking changes, many due to ecosystem changes like this one that were unfortunately beyond the project's control.

- Demian
________________________________
From: Dinesh Ranjan <ran...@gm...<mailto:ran...@gm...>>
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 10:51 AM
To: vufind general <vuf...@li...<mailto:vuf...@li...>>
Cc: Demian Katz <dem...@vi...<mailto:dem...@vi...>>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Vufind 11.1 and Local Module Error

Hi,

We have recently installed the latest Vufid release 11.1.0 with the local module option. After the installation when we run the URL through the browser it gives an 500 Error message.
We are not able to locate the exact error through any of the logs.
However, when we commented the  VUFIND_LOCAL_MODULES settings line in the httpd configuration file generated by vufind, it worked fine.

Any suggestions for debugging this issue would be helpful.

Regards,
Dinesh

Dinesh Ranjan Pradhan
Scientist-D (LS)
INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar
(An IUC of UGC)

Thanks Demian for the details. I will check for the details suggested.

However, I have not created any new module but only assigned the name of
the local module during the installation process which created the
necessary files.
Since we are making a fresh installation and not adding any old files, do
we need to make the changes manually as per the PR or there may be anything
that we might have missed during the installation process.

Regards,

Dinesh Ranjan Pradhan
Scientist-D (LS)
INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar
(An IUC of UGC)



On Mon, Sep 14, 2026 at 8:27 PM Demian Katz <dem...@vi...>
wrote:

> Dinesh,
>
> Because of the deprecation of the laminas-loader module, local modules now
> require some additional composer configuration. From the 11.0 changelog:
>
> "Local code modules should no longer include a getAutoloaderConfig()
> method. Instead, module autoloading should be configured through the
> autoload section of composer.json or composer.local.json. New modules
> created with the install.php command line tool will automatically update
> composer.local.json. For existing modules, manual updates are recommended.
> See pull request #4146 <https://github.com/vufind-org/vufind/pull/4146>
> for examples of how to convert Module.php code into composer.json
> configuration."
>
> Please let me know if you need more detailed assistance, and apologies for
> the inconvenience — 11.0 included a lot of breaking changes, many due to
> ecosystem changes like this one that were unfortunately beyond the
> project's control.
>
> - Demian
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Dinesh Ranjan <ran...@gm...>
> *Sent:* Monday, September 14, 2026 10:51 AM
> *To:* vufind general <vuf...@li...>
> *Cc:* Demian Katz <dem...@vi...>
> *Subject:* [EXTERNAL] Vufind 11.1 and Local Module Error
>
> Hi,
>
> We have recently installed the latest Vufid release 11.1.0 with the local
> module option. After the installation when we run the URL through the
> browser it gives an 500 Error message.
> We are not able to locate the exact error through any of the logs.
> However, when we commented the  VUFIND_LOCAL_MODULES settings line in the
> httpd configuration file generated by vufind, it worked fine.
>
> Any suggestions for debugging this issue would be helpful.
>
> Regards,
> Dinesh
>
> Dinesh Ranjan Pradhan
> Scientist-D (LS)
> INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar
> (An IUC of UGC)
>
>

Hi,

We have recently installed the latest Vufid release 11.1.0 with the local
module option. After the installation when we run the URL through the
browser it gives an 500 Error message.
We are not able to locate the exact error through any of the logs.
However, when we commented the  VUFIND_LOCAL_MODULES settings line in the
httpd configuration file generated by vufind, it worked fine.

Any suggestions for debugging this issue would be helpful.

Regards,
Dinesh

Dinesh Ranjan Pradhan
Scientist-D (LS)
INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar
(An IUC of UGC)

Hello,

It is great to hear from you — thank you for your interest in VuFind®! I will answer some of your questions here in this public thread, but if you prefer to ask any follow-up questions privately, you are welcome to write to me directly.

The very short answer is that your use case aligns well with VuFind®, and I am confident that it can be made to meet all of your requirements. As in any project, there will of course be some parts that are easier than others!

To answer specific questions:

1.) VuFind® includes an example configuration for indexing ArchivesSpace content that has been harvested over OAI-PMH; this is used by my institution. We do not currently have any built-in examples for museum systems, though I know that museum content has been locally integrated in at least one place (the National Library of Finland), so it is possible they might have something they could share. Your archaeology database sounds like the most specialized piece of your use case and may require some custom work — but I do not anticipate that being a major obstacle so long as your existing system provides a mechanism for exporting the data in a well-structured format.

2.) Subscription content can be challenging due to licensing issues and possible additional costs. The software provides several options for dealing with this, but the best/most viable will depend on exactly which content providers you are working with. This wiki page provides a high-level summary: https://vufind.org/wiki/administration:searching_subscription_databases_in_vufind

3.) The primary Solr schema in VuFind® is designed to make it possible to index all of your records into a single core and then facet by type as needed. However, the system also supports connecting to multiple cores containing different types of data if separating things provides a more logical user experience. Bottom line: I think you can technically accomplish this however you like; you will probably want to have some conversations about information architecture and user needs to determine which approach is best.

4.) As noted above, the National Library of Finland has brought together very diverse content from multiple institutions into a single repository at https://finna.fi/ -- the scope of their collection is likely larger than yours (since they are representing an entire country rather than a single museum), but I suspect some of their lessons learned may be relevant to you. You can also find a list of known installations on this wiki page: https://vufind.org/wiki/community:installations -- there are several museums there. I am not personally familiar with all of these installations, but it may be worthwhile to examine them and potentially reach out to the organizations that maintain them for more information.

5.) Customization is one of VuFind®'s strengths. Adding custom branding is straightforward, and much deeper and more extensive customization is possible if desired. It is also straightforward to add and reorganize metadata fields. Internationalization is built in, and if you need to add support for languages that are not already included, I would be happy to work with you to include them in the project in the future, provided you could help with the actual translation part of the work.

6.) Since Villanova does all development internally, I do not have direct experience with contracting with a registered service provider. However, all of the RSPs listed at https://vufind.org/vufind/support.html have profile pages that talk about their specializations and scope. It does not hurt to reach out to them and see what they think about your project!

7.) Regarding costs: as noted above, I'm not sure about consulting costs for development; that will definitely depend on the scale and scope of the work, and potentially the geographic location of the RSP you decide to work with. Similarly, hosting and server maintenance costs could vary quite a bit depending on the scope of your project. The most resource-intensive part of a VuFind installation is generally the Solr index, and the cost of running Solr will depend on the size, complexity and number of records in your index. Some additional considerations: keeping VuFind® up-to-date is important in today's cybersecurity environment, so I recommend budgeting for future upgrades (and considering, when customizing things, whether a customization will have long-term maintenance costs associated with it). There has also been a problem in recent years with "crawler bots" harvesting content from cultural heritage institutions (possibly for AI training) — this bot traffic can increase hosting costs and impact performance; it is may be helpful to consider a bot strategy during planning.

8.) I've already recommended a couple of helpful pages above. The "VuFind® for Project Managers" page might also have some helpful suggestions: https://vufind.org/wiki/administration:vufind_for_project_managers. If you need anything that you can't find by searching the wiki, please feel free to ask at any time. The community is here to help!

- Demian

________________________________
From: Inuwa Bukar <Inu...@we...>
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 9:28 AM
To: vuf...@li... <vuf...@li...>
Cc: (VuFind general support/discussion list) — cc: <in...@vu...>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Inquiry: Using VuFind as a Unified Discovery Layer for a Multi-System Digital Library (Koha, AtoM/ArchivesSpace, Museum & Archaeology Collections)

You don't often get email from inu...@we.... Learn why this is important<https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
Dear VuFind Team and Community,
My name is Inuwa Bukar, Archivist and Library Manager at the Museum of West African Arts (MOWAA), based in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. We are planning a new e-library platform intended to serve as a single discovery and access point for a fairly wide range of collections, and VuFind's reputation as a flexible, open-source discovery layer has made it our leading candidate. I'm writing to ask about feasibility and best practices for our specific use case and to learn how the community typically handles this kind of integration.
Our platform needs to bring together the following systems under one search and discovery interface:

  *   Koha — our integrated library system (ILS), for catalogue records, holdings, and circulation status
  *   Open-access/open-source databases and repositories — for freely available scholarly and reference content
  *   Subscription-based (licensed) databases — requiring authenticated or proxied access for our patrons
  *   AtoM or ArchivesSpace — for archival finding aids and archival collection description
  *   CollectionIndex+ (or a comparable museum collection management system) — for our museum's object and collection records
  *   An archaeology collection/records system — for site, artefact, and excavation records

Given these circumstances, we'd be grateful for your guidance on a few specific points:

  1.  Existing connectors and maturity: Beyond the native Koha ILS driver, does VuFind (or the community) have documented approaches, plugins, or prior case studies for harvesting or indexing metadata from AtoM/ArchivesSpace, museum collection systems, and archaeology databases — via OAI-PMH, APIs, or otherwise?
  2.  Subscription content: What is the recommended approach for incorporating licensed/subscription database content and access control (e.g., OpenURL link resolvers, EZproxy, federated search, or similar) alongside locally indexed material?
  3.  Architecture recommendations: For an installation combining a library catalogue, archives, and museum/archaeological records in one index, are there architectural best practices you'd recommend (e.g., separate Solr cores vs. a unified schema, metadata crosswalks, record types/facets)?
  4.  Similar implementations: Are you aware of other institutions—particularly hybrid library/archive/museum organisations—that have implemented VuFind this way; whose experience could we learn from?
  5.  Customisation: How flexible is VuFind for customisation to fit an institution's specific identity and workflows—for example, branding and UI/theming to match MOWAA's visual identity, custom metadata fields and facets suited to museum and archaeological records, and any multilingual interface support we should be aware of?
  6.  Could you recommend registered service providers or consultants experienced in integrating VuFind with archival (AtoM/ArchivesSpace) and museum collection systems for potential paid implementation support?
  7.  Cost implications: While we understand VuFind itself is free and open-source, could you help us understand the likely cost drivers for a project of this scope—for example, typical consulting/implementation fees from registered service providers, hosting and infrastructure requirements, and any ongoing maintenance or support costs we should budget for?
  8.  Documentation: It would be very helpful if you could recommend any documentation, wiki pages, or mailing list threads as a starting point for a project of this scope.

We are at an early planning stage and ensureake sure our architecture and budget are sound before development begins, so any guidance — even pointers to prior discussions — would be much appreciated. We're also happy to schedule a call if that's easier for a project of this size.
Thank you for your time and for maintaining such a valuable open-source project.
Best regards,

Inuwa Bukar
Archivist and Library Manager
Museum of West African Arts (MOWAA)
inu...@we...<mailto:inu...@we...> | +234 803 320 0600
Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

Wearemowaa.org<http://wearemowaa.org/>
Instagram<https://www.instagram.com/mowaaofficial/> | LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/company/museumofwestafricanart/?viewAsMember=true> | X<https://x.com/mowaaofficial>

Museum of West African Art (MOWAA)
1 Benin Sapele Road, Benin City

[mowaa.png]

Hello, everyone --

Just a reminder that if you want to participate in this year's VuFind® Summit, you can join the stream for free using the link and password found on this wiki page:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community:conferences:summit_2026

While the Summit is running, the green banner at the top of every page of vufind.org will show you the start and end times converted into your local time zone.

I hope to see you there!

- Demian

Hello, everyone!



The August, 2026 VuFind® newsletter is now available:



https://vufind.org/wiki/community:newsletter:2026-08


Note that there will be no September Community Call because of the VuFind®

Summit at WOLFcon. The Summit will include a free livestream; you can find schedule and access information here:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community:conferences:summit_2026

I hope to see you there!

- Demian

Hello, everyone!

I will be on summer vacation starting tomorrow (Friday, August 7), returning to work on Monday, August 17.

As always, I'll be checking email as much as possible while away, but I probably won't have time to address particularly complex problems or complete a lot of code reviews. If others can assist in these areas during my absence, I will be grateful!

I hope everyone has a good week or so - and I'll see you again later in the month!

- Demian

The State and University Library Hamburg is inviting you to the German
VuFind® User Meetup on November 16th and 17th 2026. Over the span of two
days, VuFind® users get together to exchange knowledge, discuss challenges
and take a collaborative look towards the future. Whether you are new to the
world of VuFind® or have been a dedicated member of the community for quite
some time: You are very welcome to come together and reflect on how
Discovery Systems, especially VuFind®, manage to live up to the
ever-changing expectations of users, workforces and institutions.

With the transition to the new library management system FOLIO, an
evergrowing landscape of specialized information services, as well as the
rising digitalisation of library processes, owning a Discovery system as a
service platform has become more important than ever.

For that reason, we would love to discuss these and other future endeavours
with you. Just like last year, we are going to combine hands-on workshops
with exciting talks.

For convenience, the workshops will mainly be held on Nov 16th, and the
talks on Nov 17th.

Please submit your application via e-mail (dis...@su...)
until September 30th 2026.

For your application proposal, we require the following information:

- what kind of lecture (workshop or talk)
- intended language (german preferred)
- title
- brief description
- lecturer(s) (as well as their contact details)
- estimated duration
- maximum attendee capacity
- required (technological) equipment

Best regards,
  David Maus

David Maus
Leiter Discovery-Systeme und BMS-Entwicklung
Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky
Von-Melle-Park 3, 20146 Hamburg
Tel.: +49 (40) 300393-341
Mail: dav...@su...

Die Geschlechtsidentität von Menschen ist weder über Aussehen noch 
über Namen verlässlich abzuleiten. Gerne können Sie mir mitteilen, 
wie ich Sie ansprechen darf. Meine Pronomen sind er/ihm (he/him).

#gerneperDu

Here are the minutes from today's Community Call:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call:minutes20260804

The next call will be Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time (13:00 GMT).

The September meeting has been canceled since it coincides with the VuFind® Summit at WOLFcon (which is free for all to join; see: https://vufind.org/wiki/community:conferences:summit_2026).

- Demian

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,  

vielen Dank für Ihre E-Mail. Ich bin einschließlich 05.08.2026 nicht erreichbar. Bitte wenden Sie sich in dringenden Fällen über die Hotline an meine Kolleginnen und Kollegen. 
 
Mail: op...@bi...

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Ekaterina Zinchenko




>>> Demian Katz via VuFind-General <vuf...@li...> 28.7.26 14:20 >>>

Hello, everyone!

The August, 2026 VuFind® newsletter is now available:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community:newsletter:2026-07

Additionally, the next Community Call will be held on Tuesday, August 4, 2026 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time (13:00 GMT).

Here is the full agenda:


  1.  Development Planning
     *   Newsletter Highlights
     *   Follow-Up to Past Discussions

                                                               i.      Solr 9.10 Upgrade

                                                             ii.      Laminas MVC End of Life

                                                           iii.      Improving Abstract Factories

                                                           iv.      Dark Mode PR

                                                             v.      Extension Module Skeleton / Best Practices

     *   11.1.0 Release
     *   12.0.0 Progress

                                                               i.      Git Management

                                                             ii.      Language Versions

                                                           iii.      Scoping / Roadmapping the Release

                                                           iv.      Solr JSON Facet API

                                                             v.      GVI Support

  1.  Accessibility SIG
  2.  Open Q&A / Other Topics?

All are welcome to join the free online call, or to suggest additional agenda items. You can find information on joining here:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call

See you next week!

- Demian

Hello, everyone!

The August, 2026 VuFind® newsletter is now available:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community:newsletter:2026-07

Additionally, the next Community Call will be held on Tuesday, August 4, 2026 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time (13:00 GMT).

Here is the full agenda:


  1.  Development Planning
     *   Newsletter Highlights
     *   Follow-Up to Past Discussions

                                                               i.      Solr 9.10 Upgrade

                                                             ii.      Laminas MVC End of Life

                                                           iii.      Improving Abstract Factories

                                                           iv.      Dark Mode PR

                                                             v.      Extension Module Skeleton / Best Practices

     *   11.1.0 Release
     *   12.0.0 Progress

                                                               i.      Git Management

                                                             ii.      Language Versions

                                                           iii.      Scoping / Roadmapping the Release

                                                           iv.      Solr JSON Facet API

                                                             v.      GVI Support

  1.  Accessibility SIG
  2.  Open Q&A / Other Topics?

All are welcome to join the free online call, or to suggest additional agenda items. You can find information on joining here:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call

See you next week!

- Demian

Dwar Demian,

Thanks a lot for your preparation. The definition from the KOHA team 
seems to be perfect.

Uwe

Am 23.07.26 um 21:07 schrieb Demian Katz via VuFind-General:
> Hello, everyone!
> 
> As previewed at the last Community Call, the VuFind® project's interim 
> AI policy is now posted: https://vufind.org/wiki/ai_policy <https:// 
> vufind.org/wiki/ai_policy>
> 
> If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to share them 
> with me (or any member of the Project Management Committee).
> 
> - Demian
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> VuFind-General mailing list
> VuF...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/vufind-general

Hello, everyone!

As previewed at the last Community Call, the VuFind(r) project's interim AI policy is now posted: https://vufind.org/wiki/ai_policy

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to share them with me (or any member of the Project Management Committee).

- Demian

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VuFind® 11.1 Released

Villanova, Pennsylvania - July 20, 2026 - Version 11.1 of the VuFind® Open Source discovery software has just been released. This minor release includes new features as well as many added configuration settings, accessibility enhancements and bug fixes.

Some key additions and changes:
- A configurable “Get This” service for highlighting options for obtaining items from the catalog in a pop-up window.
- The ability to configure global notices that display in the user interface.
- New and improved integrations, including support for Qualified Dublin Core records, a link resolver driver for EBSCO's LinkIQ, and added FOLIO and Koha features.
- A new user interface translation: Tamil.
- Improved compatibility with PHP 8.5.

Questions about the new release or VuFind® in general can be directed to Demian Katz, the chair of the VuFind® Project Management Committee and the Director of Library Technology at Villanova University. The software and its
documentation may be found at https://vufind.org.

Contact:
Demian Katz
dem...@vi...
Villanova University
Falvey Library
800 Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085

###

Here are the minutes from today's Community Call:

https://vufind.org/wiki/community_call:minutes20260707

The next call will be Tuesday, August 4, 2026 at 9am Eastern Daylight Time (13:00 GMT).

- Demian

Hello, everyone -

Just a heads-up that I will be traveling for the next week or so - I will be departing tomorrow (July 3) and returning to the office on Monday, July 13. In the interim, I will try to check messages periodically but will have limited time to reply or perform reviews. Apologies in advance if things slow down for a while.

If others have time to help with reviews and support in my absence, I'm always grateful for any assistance. If not, I'll do my best to catch up when I return!

thanks,
Demian