June 2025. Pride has arrived in Koha this month through a new plugin, the Homosaurus. The Homosaurus is an inclusive vocabulary for describing LGBTQ+ resources within the collections of libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions.
Earlier this month we were contacted by Catherine Small, Performing Arts Librarian at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), about adding alternative authorities to their library, including the Homosaurus. Like Catherine, we thought this plugin would be of interest across our library customers, and what better timing than Pride month to make it available!
The Koha library management system is open source, which means that this plugin is now available for all Koha systems, helping to spread more inclusive descriptions and increase the visibility of LGBTQ+ resources globally. Thanks to this integration:
- Library users will now be able to discover the LGBTQ+ resources they are looking for, using the terms they are familiar with.
- LGBTQ+ collections will be more discoverable and described with relevant, inclusive terms.
- Library teams will have better tools available at their fingertips for describing LGBTQ+ resources, reassured that the terms are utilised across libraries and cultural institutions.
Martin Renvoize, Head of Development and Community Engagement, shared:
"My team and I are thrilled to be working with RCS to bring Homosaurus integration into Koha. This new plugin will make it easier than ever for libraries to catalogue LGBTQIA+ resources accurately and respectfully, using a controlled vocabulary created by and for the community.
It's a fantastic example of how open source and thoughtful partnerships can empower libraries to better represent and serve everyone in their communities. I'm incredibly proud of our team for stepping up to deliver this work, especially with it becoming available during Pride month, and I hope it will inspire more libraries to embrace inclusive metadata and discovery."
Catherine Small, Performing Arts Librarian at the RCS, shared:
"As we were incorporating more diversity within our collections, we were concerned about content discoverability by only using the Library of Congress Subject Headings (which have not changed to reflect the terminology used within the LGBTQ+ community). We feel that Homosaurus is a great way for us to add vocabulary into our cataloguing records to help our students and staff find material.
When we approached Open Fifth about undertaking this work we were delighted that they decided to implement Homosaurus for the whole community. Thank you so much to our account manager Fiona and the team: this will make a huge difference to the discoverability of our LGBTQ+ content!"
How to access the Homosaurus on you Koha LMS
The new plugin relies on a bug we've been working on in the community that hasn't quite made it into the codebase yet. Open Fifth customers should already have it included in their system; however, if you're having any issues following the install steps below, then do drop us a support ticket to get your system updated to include the patch. (As always, sign-offs are appreciated for the upstream patch too!)
- Plugins and plugin search are both enabled
- Simply search ‘Homosaurus' inside the Koha Plugin Management page and hit the ‘Install' button, and then follow the Usage guidance in the documentation.
- Plugins are enabled, but Plugin search is not
The Homosaurus plugin is available on GitHub, where you will also find a guide on how to install and use it.
About The Homosaurus
The Homosaurus is an international linked data vocabulary of LGBTQ+ terms, intended as a companion to existing library, archive and museum subject term vocabularies, that supports more inclusive research through the discoverability of LGBTQ+ resources.
Initially created in 1997 as a Dutch and English gay and lesbian thesaurus, the tool has since been transformed into a widely used, inclusive common vocabulary across cultural institutions, with version 4 released earlier this year.
About Koha library management system
With over 18,000 systems worldwide, Koha is one of the most widely used library management systems (LMS) in the world. Koha is entirely web-based for both staff and public functions. This helps make the system light, easy to use, easy to deploy and easy to manage.
Koha's impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloguing, acquisitions, serials, course reserves, user management, interlibrary loans, and more.
About Open Fifth
Open Fifth Limited (formerly PTFS Europe Limited) is a UK-based company with the vision to make technology easy for libraries. We focus on enabling library users through high-quality, open source software solutions. Our way of working is characterised by listening, finding solutions, reliable delivery, and above all open communication. Our highly skilled team has a friendly and approachable style in delivering our quality implementation and support services.
We proudly work with customers across all library sectors, including public, academic, health, governmental, museum, law and special libraries. The reason so many customers continue to choose us is that we solve problems, we don't sell software. When libraries join us as a customer, they are gaining the expertise of our developers, trainers, data migration experts, and experienced account managers to support them throughout the journey. As an ISO/IEC 27001 certified company, you can also rely on the quality and integrity of the support we're providing.
More information on Open Fifth: www.openfifth.co.uk
About Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS)
RCS have been teaching the performing arts in Glasgow since 1847. Building on our roots as a national academy of music, we have grown over the past 175 years to be one of the most interdisciplinary and collaborative institutions in the world and are consistently ranked within the world's top 10 performing arts in