- Koha - lists.katipo.co.nz

Re: [Koha] Z39.50 and MARC (was Re: Questions about Koha)
by Baljkas Family 17 Sep '04

17 Sep '04

Friday, September 17, 2004 15:05 CDT Hi, Stephen et al., Just have to say: BRAVO, STEPHEN! I couldn't have said it better myself. And for Michael and the others who don't already know it: OCLC -- and I know this from practicum at what has become one of their cataloguing branches, where a lib tech friend of mine still works, following the same procedures I was taught when on my field placement, so I know this continues -- ***OCLC uses copy cataloguing techniques all the time.*** They think nothing of taking LC or NLC records or pillaging various consortia and then turning around and charging money for the records that could easily have been derived by in-house cataloguing staff in the same way!!! They have excellent cataloguers, to be sure, and they do create superb primary cataloguing, but the proprietary scripting they use to modify existing records quickly to keep up their productivity can be achieved by any dedicated cataloguing staff anywhere. As my cataloguing mentor said, it makes one consider what outsourcing is really about. Steven F. Baljkas library tech at large Koha neophyte Winnipeg, MB, Canada > From: "Stephen Hedges" <shedges(a)skemotah.com> > Date: 2004/09/17 Fri AM 07:51:25 CDT > To: "Koha Listserv" <koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz> > Subject: [Koha] Z39.50 and MARC (was Re: Questions about Koha) > > OK, now Michael has gone and pushed one of my buttons! Brace yourselves > for a rant! > > MARC records do not belong to OCLC. They are not copyrighted by OCLC. > They are not the intellectual property of OCLC. Why? Because OCLC did > not create them -- _librarians_ did! So they belong to librarians. > OCLC's attempted restrictions on the use of MARC records are just a > corporate bluff! > > Z39.50 is the library-world's early (and somewhat clunky) version of > Napster-style file sharing. Until there's something better out there for > us to share our cataloging work with one another, we should not be ashamed > to use Z39.50. And we should never let some company dictate to us from > their multi-story buildings in Dublin, Ohio what we can do with our MARC > records. > > (Just for the record, I have some respected friends who work for OCLC, and > the company does some good things. But fostering the mind-set that we > can't share our work with one another is not one of them.) > > Stephen > > Michael Watson said: > > The other problem with Z39.50 is that I know that some libraries consider > > it > > very poor form to do Z39.50 "record nabbing", since they may have had to > > pay > > for those MARC records from a source such as OCLC. I know that in the > > consortium to which our library belongs, the operational rules do specify > > that no member library will use Z39.50 to get catalog records without > > permission from the "target" library. > > -----Original Message----- > > From: koha-admin(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > > [mailto:koha-admin@lists.katipo.co.nz]On Behalf Of BWS Johnson > > Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 6:23 AM > > To: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > > Subject: Re: Re: [Koha] Re: Questions about Koha > > > > > > Salvete! > > > > I would once again like to stress that Z39.50 is a nice place to visit, > > but I wouldn't want to live there. It's kind of like that old game show > > with > > the curtains. You really should look at the records you end up with, which > > to me means that you may as well find the one most suited to your needs by > > hand in the first place. > > > > Point number 2 - since you're automating a rather small collection, I > > would certainly recommend Koha. I've entered about 2600 bibliographic > > records and about 1900 patron records. Phew! I have about 7,000 > > bibliographic or so to go. I've been working at automating since about > > last > > February. > > > > Point number 3 - Library of Congress stinks for records for Kid's Stuff. > > I > > use Access Pennsylvania or Maine Infonet or in a real pinch Ohio Link. All > > of these can be found on the Free MARC page brought to you by SKCLS. > > > > http://skyways.lib.ks.us/sckls/sysserv/tutorials/marc/freemarc.html > > > > If you type "Free MARC" into google, that will get you there, too. The > > great thing about that page is that they give you instructions on how to > > get > > the records themselves. > > > > Watch for redundant tags with Access Pennsylvania. Doesn't happen often, > > but it does happen. > > > > It is really, really worth it. Oooooh so much better than cards. > > > > Brooke @ Hinsdale MA > > > > > -- > Stephen Hedges > Skemotah Solutions, USA > www.skemotah.com -- shedges(a)skemotah.com > _______________________________________________ > Koha mailing list > Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha >

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Koha
by Library 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

[Koha] A quick question on biblioitems.dewey field's datatype wd) i also want to change he fieldtype for DDC no's like it explain in this mail, where i need to go to change it : So, I simply changed the fieldtype to varchar(15) and rerun misc/rebuildnonmarc.pl. Now, the dewey value is being correctly stored in biblioitems.dewey and properly displayed in the OPAC. So far, I haven't noticed any inconsistency due to the change. Kanwal -- ------------------------------------------------------------- Indranil Das Gupta, Project Lead, CASTLE Project [Computer Aided Studies, Teaching and Learning Environment] In collaboration with: West Bengal University of Technology Calcutta, INDIA www.wbut.net ------------------------------------------------------------- L2C2.ORG - Bringing Localized Low-Cost Computing to People ------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

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Summary of Docs Discussion
by etome-nsr＠mail.korksoft.com 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

Not so long ago, a person or two started a discussion about Docs... below is requested summary/notes from the offlist documentation conversation.... a little late (email hiccup on my part). [Those of you interested in the working-space for the formal manual, for some reason it seems to be offline, tho' Mike's server is up. Mike? :) please help??! : ) Thanks] --------- (Excuse the choppy-ness of below - the discussion wandered a bit.) A formal manual and most likely some other goodies do indeed "belong" in the docs/ dir for 2.0 The set in that dir (should) get(s) updated as part of the official-release process and should be generated from the wiki Mike Reavey's currently hosting, creating a docs set frozen with a Koha official release. The earlier, original Koha wiki is more a tool for development notes (being less rigid - the one Mike hosts is designed for documentation in XML/SGML). The working "online" help effort lives there as well [this is Paul's really good idea!). The manual wiki is very rough, and is a draft at best. Login info for those interested is available -- please drop me a line (more a function of keeping us from blowing up Mike's machine with our enthusiasm!). Whitepaper/installation/etc type contributions, plus long life stuff like architectural notes etc should eventually have a presence at the manual-wiki site. At the moment, useful material lives at: the Skemotah.com site (which archives the migration notes,etc for us right now) the Koha wiki Koha.org (but NOT the manual there, it is for pre 2.0 versions) ------ As usual, thanks to everyone who loans us hosted-space, Nick ..your (hopefully briefly) tool poor docs person.

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Re: Re: [Koha] Re: Questions about Koha
by Baljkas Family 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 20:20 CDT Hi, Amber, Joshua, et al., Depending on how fussy your standards are for the records that you get, Joshua's scripting solution may work well, but you may get some records that are real duds: all CAPS, title and statement of responsibility with errors, no imprimatur, no SH's, etc., etc. I don't know if it's possible, but Joshua, if it is at all practicable, it **might be a good idea to write the script to reject records that are too short (less than 10 tags).** (If you are still in the beginning process of writing it, it might also be worth your while to check with Terry Reese; I vaguely remember a statement of willingness to share code with other open source-rs.) Amber, LC is pretty good with its catalogue (and you can access it for free!), so you shouldn't have too much trouble trusting the script for it. But be careful with other sources, including NLC (also free) which used contributing libraries' cataloguing without screening them for quality. There can be quite a bit of junk that will be pulled up just by an ISBN. Also, please note, even with LC, sometimes the ISBNs are miscoded, so you may end up with what I was taught to call a false negative, where there is actually a record there, but it won't be pulled by a simple standard number search. Before coding a record from scratch, always check by title and/or author, just in case (this was standard practice at our local ISM, now an OCLC branch). In terms of MARC, one little addendum to Dave Bigwood's excellent advice: **_Understanding MARC Bibliographic_ off of the LC main MARC page -- URL <http://www.loc.gov/marc/umb/> -- ** is a really nifty e-booklet that deals with pretty much everything, even getting into the actual structure of a record in part XI. ** The Concise Bibliographic format pages -- main page at URL <http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdhome.html> -- detail the specs for each MARC field/tag and also provide LC examples of their proper use. ** Depending on your local cataloguing standards and budget concerns, that may be enough to spare you the expense of the MARC Format manual. One further minor addition to Dave's super advice on retrospective conversion (almost verbatim what we were taught in library tech training here) from my experience and that of my instructors: Conversion is an excellent time to introduce useful new perks that will impress patrons and justify the process. With the cataloguing, e.g., before you start, think about how detailed you want your records to be. Think carefully about what notes and added entries you would have wanted to make, ones that would have helped and would help your patrons, but aren't practical when trying to economise space in a card catalogue. In MARC, they are just extra lines of code. # From my experience and that of several of my local peers, **I would strongly recommend Contents analysis for anthologies and collections**. It has often been ignored in card catalogues because of space concerns, but online it really pays dividends in the long run and seems to be appreciated by patrons who can then tell -- sometimes without recourse to (expensive) short story or poetry indexing volumes -- what they will find inside. Whether or not you find that Koha is for you, best wishes with the recon and automation! It can feel really frustrating some days, but it really is worth it in the end. Steven F. Baljkas library tech at large Koha neophyte Winnipeg, MB, Canada > From: Joshua Ferraro <jmf(a)kados.org> > Date: 2004/09/15 Wed PM 05:02:32 CDT > To: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > Subject: Re: [Koha] Re: Questions about Koha > > Amber, > > If most of your books have ISBN numbers it should be fairly trivial > to write a script/form to grab the MARC records from LOC or somewhere ... > that way you can avoid adding all the fields for every item ... all > you'll need to specify in that case will be local holdings info like > barcode, etc. > I need to write such a script for a Koha installation I'm doing right > now and I'll release it when I've finished ... > > Good luck!, > > -- > Joshua Ferraro > http://kados.org > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 03:57:22PM -0500, Bigwood, David wrote: > > Amber, > > > > I can't say if it is the system for you, too many variables. Before you begin a retrospective conversion (fancy term for moving to an automated system) get your collection ready. > > > > 1st and most important: Weed the collection. No sense wasting time and effort on worthless items. See the SUNLINK Weed of the Month program page for some very helpful tips. http://www.sunlink.ucf.edu/weed/ > > > > Then get your collection in order. Make sure your cards have an ISBN, proper copy information, call number prefixes are standard, etc. if you will be working from the cards. Learn about MARC most importantly the holding field and what goes where there. There is some helpful advise at http://www.dgiinc.com/advice/main.html on getting ready. I'm sure there is plenty more. Read about other retrospective conversions and see what they wished they had done different. > > > > The tool MarcEdit has a very basic Z39.50 client as well as some useful tools. http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/index.html Download it for free. > > > > This work will pay off no matter what system you decide best fits your situation. > > > > Sincerely, > > David Bigwood > > bigwood(a)lpi.usra.edu > > Lunar & Planetary Institute > > http://www.lpi.usra.edu/library/whats_new.shtml > > Catalogablog > > http://www.catalogablog.blogspot.com > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: koha-admin(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > > [mailto:koha-admin@lists.katipo.co.nz]On Behalf Of Rosalie Blake > > Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 3:30 PM > > To: Amber Amland > > Cc: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > > Subject: [Koha] Re: Questions about Koha > > > > > > Hello Amber > > Welcome to the Koha community. I've taken the liberty of copying > > your email to koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz, because I know there are > > people there who can give you a better answer than I can on your > > specific question about transferring MARC records. My libraries are > > not yet using the new version, and we don't download MARC > > records, so I can't comment on that aspect, but I can tell you that we > > are very happy with Koha. It meets our needs as a public library, > > and it is quite flexible in terms of specific needs of school libraries. I > > am sure you will find it worth further investigation. > > Good Luck > > Rosalie > > > > > > On 14 Sep 2004, at 22:38, Amber Amland wrote: > > > > > Dear Rosalie Blake, > > > > > > I'm the secondary librarian at a small international school in > > > Southeast Asia that uses U.S. based curriculum. We have a card > > > catalog and would like to move to an automated library system. I > > > discovered Koha while doing some research online on library systems. > > > How is it working for you? We have about 6,500 titles in the high > > > school and would like to also automate our elementary library (fewer > > > titles) in the future and link it to the secondary library. Would Koha > > > be a good option for us? How is the new version working with > > > downloading MARC records and using the Z39.50 search tool? This is my > > > first time automating a library system. > > > > > > Thank you! > > > Amber Amland > > > Librarian > > > Mountainview ICS > > > amamland(a)yahoo.com > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > > > Do you Yahoo!? > > > Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. > > > > > > Rosalie Blake > > Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust

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Re: Questions about Koha
by Bigwood, David 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

Amber, I can't say if it is the system for you, too many variables. Before you begin a retrospective conversion (fancy term for moving to an automated system) get your collection ready. 1st and most important: Weed the collection. No sense wasting time and effort on worthless items. See the SUNLINK Weed of the Month program page for some very helpful tips. http://www.sunlink.ucf.edu/weed/ Then get your collection in order. Make sure your cards have an ISBN, proper copy information, call number prefixes are standard, etc. if you will be working from the cards. Learn about MARC most importantly the holding field and what goes where there. There is some helpful advise at http://www.dgiinc.com/advice/main.html on getting ready. I'm sure there is plenty more. Read about other retrospective conversions and see what they wished they had done different. The tool MarcEdit has a very basic Z39.50 client as well as some useful tools. http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/index.html Download it for free. This work will pay off no matter what system you decide best fits your situation. Sincerely, David Bigwood bigwood(a)lpi.usra.edu Lunar & Planetary Institute http://www.lpi.usra.edu/library/whats_new.shtml Catalogablog http://www.catalogablog.blogspot.com -----Original Message----- From: koha-admin(a)lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-admin@lists.katipo.co.nz]On Behalf Of Rosalie Blake Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 3:30 PM To: Amber Amland Cc: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: [Koha] Re: Questions about Koha Hello Amber Welcome to the Koha community. I've taken the liberty of copying your email to koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz, because I know there are people there who can give you a better answer than I can on your specific question about transferring MARC records. My libraries are not yet using the new version, and we don't download MARC records, so I can't comment on that aspect, but I can tell you that we are very happy with Koha. It meets our needs as a public library, and it is quite flexible in terms of specific needs of school libraries. I am sure you will find it worth further investigation. Good Luck Rosalie On 14 Sep 2004, at 22:38, Amber Amland wrote: > Dear Rosalie Blake, > > I'm the secondary librarian at a small international school in > Southeast Asia that uses U.S. based curriculum. We have a card > catalog and would like to move to an automated library system. I > discovered Koha while doing some research online on library systems. > How is it working for you? We have about 6,500 titles in the high > school and would like to also automate our elementary library (fewer > titles) in the future and link it to the secondary library. Would Koha > be a good option for us? How is the new version working with > downloading MARC records and using the Z39.50 search tool? This is my > first time automating a library system. > > Thank you! > Amber Amland > Librarian > Mountainview ICS > amamland(a)yahoo.com > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. Rosalie Blake Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust

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Re: Questions about Koha
by Rosalie Blake 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

Hello Amber Welcome to the Koha community. I've taken the liberty of copying your email to koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz, because I know there are people there who can give you a better answer than I can on your specific question about transferring MARC records. My libraries are not yet using the new version, and we don't download MARC records, so I can't comment on that aspect, but I can tell you that we are very happy with Koha. It meets our needs as a public library, and it is quite flexible in terms of specific needs of school libraries. I am sure you will find it worth further investigation. Good Luck Rosalie On 14 Sep 2004, at 22:38, Amber Amland wrote: > Dear Rosalie Blake, > > I'm the secondary librarian at a small international school in > Southeast Asia that uses U.S. based curriculum. We have a card > catalog and would like to move to an automated library system. I > discovered Koha while doing some research online on library systems. > How is it working for you? We have about 6,500 titles in the high > school and would like to also automate our elementary library (fewer > titles) in the future and link it to the secondary library. Would Koha > be a good option for us? How is the new version working with > downloading MARC records and using the Z39.50 search tool? This is my > first time automating a library system. > > Thank you! > Amber Amland > Librarian > Mountainview ICS > amamland(a)yahoo.com > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. Rosalie Blake Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust

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Re: [Koha] More questions for migrating to koha
by BWS Johnson 15 Sep '04

15 Sep '04

Salvete! I got all of my patrons into Koha. (Yea!) I can't seem to get the permissions straight for my clerks. (Boo!) I do not yet want my clerks doing any cataloguing. Most of the time they're okay, but when they're off you wouldn't want to see the grizzly results. So, I set up an account for them called staff. I then modified the user flags so that they could circulate borrowers reserveforothers borrow updatecharges But, when I go to add a borrower, Koha yells at me saying that it doesn't think I have permission to add a borrower from the staff account. I know that it will work if I check the superlibrarian box BUT I don't want my staff to bother with the MARC catalogue (confusing) or be able to add biblios. Your help would be appreciated! Cheers, Brooke @ Hinsdale MA

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Re: Re: [Koha] MARC Tags to MARC Format?
by Baljkas Family 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

Monday, September 13, 2004 21:20 CDT Hi, Andres, Marco, et al., As I've recommended to the list too many times now (and really, I don't get a commission from Terry Reese), MARC Edit can translate a human readable form -- usually called a tagged version -- into a true MARC record. That is, it can translated ITS tagged format into a true MARC record. How easy it is to get there then depends on what kind of tagged format you already have. For that matter, although it isn't pretty to read, with a little practice, you can read a true MARC record as it is. Your eye learns to catch the end of delimited fields once you get used to passing over all the directory information at the start. Just FYI. Cheers, Steven F. Baljkas library tech at large Koha neophyte Winnipeg, MB, Canada > From: Andres Tarallo <tarallo(a)ort.edu.uy> > Date: 2004/09/13 Mon PM 04:54:06 CDT > To: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > Subject: Re: [Koha] MARC Tags to MARC Format? > > Marco: > You mean translating a "human readable" representation > of a marc record into iso2709?, I'm not aware of an easy way of doing > that. Maybe your current ILS can give you the data in a way more > suitable for crunching it with PERL or some shellscripting magic. > > Andres > > > > Marco Antonio Castillo Arreozola wrote: > > > Hi! > > > > Can I convert MARC Tags to MARC Format? How to? How can I get a manual > > about it? > > > > Thanks! > > > > Marco > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Koha mailing list > Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha >

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Re: [Koha] Importing data into MARC
by Andres Tarallo 14 Sep '04

14 Sep '04

Scott: I haven't thought in your approach. I'm currently working from what CDS/ISIS (DOS version) exports that is very similar to ISO2709. I've decoded the information and unloaded it in a hash array, where I'm merging my databases and generating MARC records with MARC::Record. Andres Scott Scriven wrote: >* Andres Tarallo <tarallo(a)ort.edu.uy> wrote: > > >>We're currently finishing our mapping to import our database (CEPAL >>catalog in DOS/ISIS) to Koha. We have a question, and we want to know >>the best solution to feed data for bulkmarcimport.pl. >> >> > >For what it's worth, it's much easier to write MARC XML files than >regular MARC files, and tends to be less error-prone. You can >use these with bulkmarcimport.pl with only slight modifications, >once you've installed MARC::File::XML for perl. > >The LoC has much more info about the format: > > http://www.loc.gov/standards/marcxml/ > >Personally, I'm converting my records to MODS format, then to >MARC XML (using a LoC stylesheet). This is even easier for me, >though it isn't as powerful. > >I put some scripts online, as examples. I haven't done very good >mapping, but it's a start: > > http://toykeeper.net/tmp/koha/ > >

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MARC Tags to MARC Format?
by Marco Antonio Castillo Arreozola 13 Sep '04

13 Sep '04

Hi! Can I convert MARC Tags to MARC Format? How to? How can I get a manual about it? Thanks! Marco _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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