On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:15 PM, Linda Culberson <lculber@mdah.state.ms.us> wrote:
Once, again to build off Han's model. How would you handle the 300 (physical description) field (which is repeatable) for videocassettes or beta that have been digitized or converted to another format but are exactly the same information? Having multiple bibliographic records, such as Nicole describes doesn't work. There are also collections that contain multiple formats - 2 reels, 8 cassettes, 4 c.f. boxes.
Linda, Seeking clarification here, not wanting to assume anything. It seems to me you might be responding to Nicole's
Traditional cataloging rules state that you shouldn't be attaching multiple item types to one bib record.
As Ian pointed out, the idea of "material type" or "physical description" as described by various Marc data points, is completely independent of Koha's concept of "item type". Koha lets us use it to convey whatever meaning we like, with the proviso that it's the only way to set up circulation rules, charges & fines, etc. (in combination with patron categories and branches if we need to get complicated.) Other than that it's just like collection code, can represent whatever facet you like, and (for me) the nice thing is that both are item-level attributes, so a parent biblio can contain multiple items in any combination of the two, and either one can be used to filter advanced searches. There are obviously good applications for allowing different types of child items under a biblio parent, that do adhere to proper library science principles, and I don't think anyone's talking about Koha becoming **less** flexible here. I was in fact throwing out my opinion that Ian's idea of "Arbitrary Biblio Relationships"- which I interpret as making Koha **more** flexible - might make things needfully complex. Please understand that opinion isn't worth much, as A I don't know the details of Ian's ideas, they might have a lot of merit, and B I don't even understand Koha in any depth in its present state, much less where it might be headed. In other words, I'm really just talking off the top of my head, if not out of my hat. 8-)