Friday, September 26, 2003 15:28 CDT Hi, all, Stephen Hedges noted that at NPL they

have in the past used [the] catalog to store pieces of information that were not physical items, like names and addresses of local social agencies, and websites (before we had Koha). That would allow people to search for something like "poverty" and get hits not only on books about poverty, but websites about poverty and the names of local agencies that deal with poverty.

That is super! I tried to convince a social service agency that this was a feasible thing to do with a library catalogue when I was a volunteer library coordinator years ago. (For the MARC'ists in the Koha community, you may note: while websites can be coded in 'regular' MARC21 (electronic resources, I believe still), so can agencies and individuals. The MARC fields are slightly different from normal (i.e. a book), but the information is online at the LC website under the rubric Community Information at URL <http://www.loc.gov/marc/community/eccihome.html> )

If the catalog is used to store information that does not relate to a physical item, then the barcode should not be mandatory.

As for non-physical items like websites: that is an excellent point, Stephen. I ran into a problem with the Athena system because it was nigh impossible to convince it that websites didn't need a barcode and we ended up creating fake ones just so it would let us be. Plus the listserv already received the example from a barrister in the UK about libraries that had 24-7 potential patrons but not 24-7 library circ service. The military library where I last worked as a cataloguer had that situation and we actually used manual (logbook) circ instead of the system's circ module. This also allowed us to allow students/staff to sign-out newly received items if needed before cataloguing could be completed. Luckily, our MicroCat system didn't require a barcode.

However, I think the templates for adding and editing items should then be set to return a warning, in case someone mistakenly enters a physical item without a barcode.

Also an excellent idea! Cheers, Steven F. Baljkas library tech at large Koha neophyte Winnipeg, MB, CANADA