Re: [Koha] Having more than one 'barcode' for an item
James Weinheimer wrote:
Once you start to barcode--which is a unique number, I think there will be little reason to continue the accessions numbers. I have discovered that this can be very difficult for staff to accept, but maintaining multiple unique numbers is even more difficult in the long run.
I don't think our library staff have any particular attachment to accession numbers, so changing over to a different system would not be an issue.
Barcoding should not be seen only as more work. They can take the place of old processes as well. And if you are definitely going to barcode, then it should begin as soon as possible, since everything you do today will need a barcode sooner or later. It's easy to put a barcode on an item while you process it, but believe me: afterwards, it becomes *very difficult!*.
The issue isn't so much the work of sticking barcodes on items, although even just buying appropriate labels to print barcodes on is difficult in Nigeria! It was more to reduce manual data entry, barcode readers are going to be expensive and difficult to procure here and when they fail (as they inevitably will) it will take time to get replacements. Kevin -- Kevin O'Rourke ICT Coordinator, National Teachers' Institute, Kaduna, Nigeria 062 316972
The issue isn't so much the work of sticking barcodes on items, although even just buying appropriate labels to print barcodes on is difficult in Nigeria! It was more to reduce manual data entry, barcode readers are going to be expensive and difficult to procure here and when they fail (as they inevitably will) it will take time to get replacements.
Our library just recently got our barcode reader (single!) going. In my own opinion, it's not the fact that the number can be read by a mechanical device or not, it's the workflow requirements for placing the same unique number on the physical item and in the catalog record. When you do the loan, the number can be put in manually by the library assistant (as some of our people do), or mechanically (where the one lucky person sits!). I worked at a very large library for many years where approximately 90% of the collection was not barcoded, and this equalled millions of items. The task of matching a specific item with the specific record in the catalog is an additional task and turned out to be very difficult. And, once you have gone live with the circulation system, there is an incredible time constraint: people don't like to wait while you find the record and place the barcode on it. So, they had a unit that added barcodes to the records after the items returned. Boring! In my library, I have a slightly different problem. We have a small collection, so everything is barcoded, but when I converted everything from an older catalog into Koha, I managed to get everything EXCEPT the barcodes. (Problems of a proprietary database! They wouldn't extract the barcodes for me!) I'm trying to figure out a workaround, but it can be rather hectic at times. It is just much easier for the cataloger to add the barcode during processing. A few extra keystrokes and it's done, but doing it afterwards takes 10 times as much work. Ciao, Jim James Weinheimer j.weinheimer@aur.edu Director of Library and Information Services The American University of Rome via Pietro Roselli, 4 00153 Rome, Italy voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 327 fax-011 39 06 58330992
participants (2)
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James Weinheimer -
Kevin O'Rourke