Hi there
Is anybody working on supporting Marc records at all? I've written a short perl script that will parse the data in a Marc records file, and could probably write something up that would insert records into the Mysql database, if work isn't being done on this already.
That I know of, no one is currently working on this. It would be great if you wanted too.
How are Marc records normally handled? Is biblio data entered in only for books that the library holds, or is an entire CD full of biblio data loaded into the library database? I'm thinking that a new table should be added that will hold the entire Marc record for a bibliography, as the Marc record will certainly contain more info than the Koha Mysql tables currently will contain. Storing the Marc records would mean that the record itself could be parsed and displayed on the screen for each biblio if more info was desired.
At the moment Marc records arent handled. The Horowhenua libraries dont deal with Marc at all (Rosalie could probably expand on this, as to the reasons why). So we didnt build any Marc handling into Koha. I think you are right tho, a new table should be made to contain the marc record, and a field added to the biblio table perhaps, that keyed into the marc record. Let me know if you need anything else, there are a couple of very rudimentary ERD's on developer.koha.org. Im hoping soon to have cvsweb, and/or anonymous cvs access running, so the latest version of the scripts can be obtained. So keep an eye on developer.koha.org. Chris -- Chris Cormack Katipo Communications Programmer/Sys Admin chris@katipo.co.nz 025 500 789 www.katipo.co.nz