Hi, Paul, and thanks for opening an interesting topic - I think that a strong acquisition component would be a very valuable asset for Koha. In fact, I think acquisitions are much more important than cataloging. That means that I support your idea of separating the two, so it would be easier (to my mind) to focus development effort on acquisitions. If they are not separated, then I think cataloging should at least be handled as a sub-task of acquisitions. My thoughts are based on my experience with library users and librarians. We have found that library users appreciate the ability to make purchase suggestions and see what the library has on order, even place reservations on items before they arrive at the library. In other words, a good acquisitions system allows users to see not only what the library has, but what the library WILL have, and also gives them the power to suggest and reserve things the library has not ordered. That means the acquisition system needs to deal in records that are nearly complete, so people can search for items by title, author, ISBN, subject, etc. Cataloguing, in that case, merely adds the "labeling" to the item once it arrives, i.e. barcodes, spine labels, etc. The item has already been cataloged in all other respects as soon as it is ordered. As for librarians, I had a conversation with the tech guy from Worthington Public Library who suggested that they might be willing to put money toward a really good Koha acquisitions system, one that would allow the librarian to automatically search for an item and compare prices from several different vendors and download any MARC records available from vendors with a minimum of effort on the part of the librarian. He had other thoughts, as well, because he had been wrestling with searching for a good acquisitions system for some time, but I unfortunately can't remember them now. Both of these experiences lead me to believe that any ILS that wants to be competitive in the future should pay close attention to its acquisitions component. I think both library users and librarians are going to demand much more functionality than what is currently available in most ILS acquisitions systems. Stephen H.
I want here share some ideas for the 2.0 version of koha, around cataloguing and acquisition.
Most ILS, in France at least, separate cataloguing and acquisition. * *cataloguing* is often done through a CDROM (from the BNF for example) : the librarian download from the cd the biblio in MARC format, which is included in it's ILS. The cataloguing refers only to BIBLIO notice, not items and how they arrive in the library. * *acquisition* referers to how "books" arrive in the library (and includes items)
In koha, at the moment, there is no distinction between those 2 topics : look at koha main page, there is only a "acquisition" picture, which includes cataloguing and acquisition in fact. I want to begin de debate to see if it's a good idea to distinct acquisition and cataloguing in 2.0. It would mean : * in mainpage => 2 links for cataloguing and acquisition * acquisition => works almost like the normal acquisition system of the old version : search for a supplier, enter a little part of the biblio... * cataloguing => - if marc is selected : works like the acqui.simple in 1.3.3 (see demo.koha-fr.org), - if marc is not selected : works like the 2nd part of the normal acquisition in 1.2 : enter the biblio details. this supposes a new parameter in the systempreferences table.
One other idea : it would enable a "suggestion" feature in the opac : readers could suggest books to add, which could be stored in the "acquisition" part of koha, in a "to validate" status.
From a developper point of vue, this means : * duplicating biblio table to acqui_biblio table * split normal acquisition in 2 parts * change normal acquisition to write acqui_biblio table and not biblio * create some screens to link the acquisition part and the cataloguing one. some work, but not too much i think (if someone wants to fund it, send me a mail :-) ).
Of course, if you create a book in the acquisition part, all what you typed would be auto-copied when entering the cataloguing part :-) So there should not be too much more work for the librarian/cataloguer (but a few, anyway : this would add screens, so, more clics)
-- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)