Thanks for the pointer, it seems to work more or less as expected. I just set up a couple branches and a group on our test site. In retrospect, I think we should have thought this through more carefully before we chose the url (catalogue.efdss.org), but that can be fixed with aliases. The groups feature seems especially useful if you want to limit your search by geography, or perhaps specialization. It will be interesting to see how independent these branches can be, as we are dealing with very independent organizations. I know for certain there will be objections to having our logo and colour scheme all over their catalogue (the site has been 'skinned' by an outside marketing company). But all this came about as an after thought, as we began to understood how powerful Koha is, and it's an exciting prospect, if a rather low priority at the moment. Still, it has great potential in bringing information together, which is what it's all about in the long run. Elaine On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 12:25 PM, <hansbkk@gmail.com> wrote:
Elaine,
Wherever you see in Koha the term "branch", substitute "member library" in your thinking and planning; I believe it's actually labeled "library" rather than "branch" in some places, but these refer to the same fields in the database, which are designed to accommodate your needs.
In the sysadmin/sysprefs area, there are two different types of groupings to set up, before you start creating the branch/library objects in your database. I did a bit of research on their meaning/purpose, and posted a question to the list, which I've just now followed up on after not having received an answer. If we still don't get one, I believe the information I posted is "close enough" to true, at least from a practical POV. Here's the history in the archives:
http://koha.1045719.n5.nabble.com/library-quot-categories-quot-groups-td3404...
Hope this helps a bit to get you started,
Hans
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 6:03 PM, Elaine Bradtke <eb@efdss.org> wrote:
Now that we've got our system up and running, we want to reach out to other small libraries with similar collections. Our idea is to build up a little online consortium based in Koha, with us providing filespace and managing the system.
We would like the OPAC user to be able to search all libraries at once, or choose a specific library (or perhaps more than one, but not all). What is the best way to set these up? The libraries themselves would also have to be independent as far as patrons, loans, and other policies.
I'd love to hear from other library consortia out there who could offer some pointers.
-- Elaine Bradtke Data Wrangler VWML English Folk Dance and Song Society | http://www.efdss.org Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London NW1 7AY Tel +44 (0) 20 7485 2206 ext 36 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Registered Company No. 297142 Charity Registered in England and Wales No. 305999 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" --Elvis Costello (Musician magazine No. 60 (October 1983), p. 52)