We are just getting around to putting our serials in Koha and yes, I am baffled. I was hoping to use the system to help us better track the serials as they come in so we could claim missing issues in a timely fashion. But the couple attempts I made to set up a fairly simple subscription pattern didn't work as expected. So I'm adding my voice to the appeal - if anyone really understands this, expanding the manual to include more examples and more thorough explanations would really, really help. On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Hernandez, Heather < heather_hernandez@nps.gov> wrote:
Hi!
I have to admit that we find the serials module to be rather baffling. Although we are using it to check in new issues so that our patrons can get an email notification when new issues arrive, I couldn't really tell you why it's doing what it's doing, and I have to say that I'm far from understanding it. And I'm no serials system newbie--I've been using such systems since the days of Innovacq way before ILS's were twinkles in the eyes of developers--but getting our subscriptions to behave in a 'good enough' manner on Koha seems to have been rather hit and miss, and I haven't taken the time to fine tune them.
I also haven't taken the time to figure out claiming, since I wasn't sure it would be a better solution than just walking around our Reading Room every now and then to eyeball what hasn't come in and just shooting an email off to the publisher to get our missing issue(s). Granted, we don't have a lot of current subscriptions! We also gave up on using Koha for acquisitions except for storing subscription vendors, since it doesn't meet our needs--federal purchasing is a bit byzantine, and we have no money to contribute towards developments.
I'll keep my eyes open when receiving issues for subscriptions that could benefit from some work, and will try to compare things with the manual--if I can contribute anything, I'd be happy to do it--but I may just be contributing more questions!
Cheerio, heather ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heather Hernandez Technical Services Librarian San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center heather_hernandez@nps.gov 415-561-7032 (voice) 415-556-3540 (fax) http://www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/museum-collections.htm
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