How to use Item callnumbers and Branch categories
Hi everybody, I am a newbie to Koha, and I am practicing with Koha 2.2.0RC5 (installed and removed several times) under RedHat 9.0, before starting using it to run a branch of a university library. While I am getting acquainted with most of its features, some details are still obscure to me. Some issues have been already addressed to earlier in this mailing list (whose archive I tried to consult, before posting the message), but I was not able to apply the answers found there to 2.2.0RC5. Let me therefore state again a couple of problems I have, presently. 1) Shelving location/Item callnumber. I am assuming that both these terms mean "where a particular book is located" (i.e., at which position, in which shelf, given a particular library branch). From the Catalogue Search of the Administrator interface, I see that a Call Number is searched in the items.itemcallnumber kohafield. However, browsing the MARC/Koha association table (mysql table: marc_subfield_structure), I see that items.itemcallnumber is not associated to any kohafield, and is thus ignored by Add biblio. I tried linking items.itemcallnumber to the 852c MARC subfield, with tab "10", so that it is displayed in the "items" tab (which I think it should, since I would like to have one-to-one correspondence between callnumbers and items, as it is with barcodes), but "Marc check" complains that the "items" kohafield should contain only MARC entries belonging to the same tag, i.e. 952. On the other hand, no other free (i.e., not already linked) subfield in tag 952 seems appropriate, and if I link 852c to some other kohafield (say, biblioitems.classification, as was suggested in a previous posting) it would apply to a "biblio", and not to an "item", which I do not think would be appropriate. (One can have several items of a given book, located in different positions.) My question is therefore, how should I link items.itemcallnumber so that it is properly searched by the Catalogue Search pages? 2) I spent some time to define appropriate "branch categories" for a given "branch" (from the Parameters menu in the Administrator interface), but I don't see any place where they can be used to classify a biblioitem. For example, an "Item type" window menu pops down when adding a new biblio at tab 5 (MARC tab and subfield: 942c, "Biblioitem information, item type"). The same kind of menu is available in the Catalogue search page to select "Item types". I wouldn't mind having my "branch categories" as possible options for MARC tag 650a (Subject added entry-topical term), currently linked to kohafield bibliosubject.subject, searched for as "Subject" by the Catalogue search page. Should I define a new Authority for that? On the other hand, if 650a must be left free of taking any value (not just those listed in the user-defined branch categories), where can I take advantage of my branch categories in classifying _and_ later searching my own records? Thank you for any suggestion. Giuseppe.
Giuseppe.Angilella@ct.infn.it said: <snip>
2) I spent some time to define appropriate "branch categories" for a given "branch" (from the Parameters menu in the Administrator interface), but I don't see any place where they can be used to classify a biblioitem.
I have to admit, I don't understand how a branch category relates in any way to bibliographic information. "Branch category" defines the relationship between your library buildings (i.e. Main Library, Branch Library, Mobile Library). I can't see any way that such information could affect the bibliographic information about your books. (I assume that the bibliographic record for book "A" is the same regardless of which library owns it, right? It has the same author, the same subject headings, the same title regardless of where it is.) Am I missing some connection here? -- Stephen Hedges Skemotah Solutions, USA www.skemotah.com -- shedges@skemotah.com
Hi,
My question is therefore, how should I link items.itemcallnumber so that it is properly searched by the Catalogue Search pages?
this is a short followup to my problem above, which I think I solved as follows. In brief, I added a new (unused) subfield to the MARC tag 952 (same as the other ones linked to items.*), say 952w, and linked it to items.itemcallnumber. In detail (for future newbies, like I am presently!), from Koha's admin page, select: 1) Parameters 2) Biblio framework (MARC structure) 3) Move on to the MARC subfield structure admin for 952 (last of all; 952 is reserved for items; each "biblioitem" can have several "items", e.g. several copies of a given book). 4) Add a new subfield 952w (say; 952w was unused), link it to items.itemcallnumber, and group it under Tab 10 (I also select "Mandatory", here.) 5) Edit any previously inserted item, by specifying its "call number") 6) Enter both barcode and call number every time you'll add new items in the future. "MARC check" from the Parameters admin menu does not give any error message (yeah!), and indeed the Search page now lists both the holding branch and the call number (in parentheses) for each item found. (I can also search by call number, now.) Whereas I am very happy about the solution above, I wonder whether you know any simpler way. I am aware that I had to add a new subfield to the MARC structure - something that should and indeed does make any newbie shiver! - but given all the constraints I met, I found no other way. Please, advice. Giuseppe. P.S. I am using Koha 2.2.0 on RedHat 9.0 (running httpd-2.0.40-21). Still having problems with Z39.50 on RedHat 9.0, and with the access to Koha's scripts in general on Fedora Core 3. (I guess these are problems with apache's configuration, albeit standard, or with the system - not with Koha itself.) See my previous postings to this mailing list.
participants (2)
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Giuseppe.Angilella＠ct.infn.it -
Stephen Hedges