On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, Denise Sharp wrote:

Pate,

I came across your web site that said you are Koha's Kaitiaki, but the last date any updates were listed was over a year ago. I don't know if you can help me, or at least point me in the right direction for getting help, but my son just installed the latest version of Koha on my computer at home. I want to learn as much about Koha as I can because he and I are giving a presentation on it at a conference in February. I just started graduate school to get my library degree so I don't know much about MARC records, but in order to play with Koha, I want to enter some books in it.

The first thing you probably want to do is sign up on the koha mailing list (look at www.koha.org/mailing for directions). You'll find the people on the list to be helpful and friendly. The next step is to ensure that you're running a current version of Koha. 1.2.3 (the last stable version) is fine for normal use, but probably won't fill your needs as it's not MARC compatible. 2.0.0RC1 (the first release candidate for the 2.0.0 release) is probably what you want. It's pretty well tested (in use at a number of libraries), and is fully MARC compatible.

I've found Library of Congress's MARC records, but how do I import them into Koha?

The Z39.50 tool is what you're looking for. It will allow you to query Z39.50 servers (like the LoC) for MARC records that ou can then import into the system. If you have an existing collection cataloged, you might be able to use the bulkimport tool to load it into Koha as well.

Please answer soon as I only have a few weeks to learn everything I can before I get caught up in classes again.

Good luck! Please do use the mailing list, it's a great resource.

Thank you!

--Denise Sharp

-- "We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails."