Looking for more Serials Documentation help
Hello all, With the new serials module in Koha 3.14 we have a lot of questions coming in and my documentation is not thorough enough because I admit I haven't had time to really dig deep in to it. I'm wondering if I could enlist some of you to submit patches to the manual for this section and/or send me documentation in other formats that you'd like me to include in the manual. The big issues are: * The lack of the 'rollover' is very confusing to people - rollover made sense and people have been using it for ages so now the 'inner counter' is causing all kinds of questions and while I know how to fill it in to make things work (sometimes) I don't really understand it either. * This email I got: "My staff reports, and I confirmed sitting next to them, going through the steps, that the manual for the serials module is not as helpful as hoped for. In particular, it would be very helpful to have several step by step examples on how to setup a serial (a couple or three, with different publishing patterns) that could be applied to our subscriptions. For example, the manual has a section for setting up new numbering patterns, but the screen shots are blank. A concrete example with explanations on every field to fill out -- say for a pattern that is year/volume/issue would go a very long way and should address most questions. Of course, we were and are further confused by the fact that data we enter and save in the patterns isn't actually saved, but that seems to be a broader problem affecting us right now and not specific to the serials module." * The fact that you can't edit the manual history unless you have the 'manual history' box checked when creating the subscription - when before we could edit it at any time .... also confusing. So, if you understand and/or use the current serials module in 3.14 or 3.16 I'd love to hear from you with edits to the manual to help Koha users around the world. The sections are: http://manual.koha-community.org/3.14/en/serials.html and http://manual.koha-community.org/3.14/en/sampleserialsapp.html Thanks in advance, Nicole
Hi! I have to admit that we find the serials module to be rather baffling. Although we are using it to check in new issues so that our patrons can get an email notification when new issues arrive, I couldn't really tell you why it's doing what it's doing, and I have to say that I'm far from understanding it. And I'm no serials system newbie--I've been using such systems since the days of Innovacq way before ILS's were twinkles in the eyes of developers--but getting our subscriptions to behave in a 'good enough' manner on Koha seems to have been rather hit and miss, and I haven't taken the time to fine tune them. I also haven't taken the time to figure out claiming, since I wasn't sure it would be a better solution than just walking around our Reading Room every now and then to eyeball what hasn't come in and just shooting an email off to the publisher to get our missing issue(s). Granted, we don't have a lot of current subscriptions! We also gave up on using Koha for acquisitions except for storing subscription vendors, since it doesn't meet our needs--federal purchasing is a bit byzantine, and we have no money to contribute towards developments. I'll keep my eyes open when receiving issues for subscriptions that could benefit from some work, and will try to compare things with the manual--if I can contribute anything, I'd be happy to do it--but I may just be contributing more questions! Cheerio, heather ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heather Hernandez Technical Services Librarian San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center heather_hernandez@nps.gov 415-561-7032 (voice) 415-556-3540 (fax) http://www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/museum-collections.htm "The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail."--Gustaf Lindborg
We are just getting around to putting our serials in Koha and yes, I am baffled. I was hoping to use the system to help us better track the serials as they come in so we could claim missing issues in a timely fashion. But the couple attempts I made to set up a fairly simple subscription pattern didn't work as expected. So I'm adding my voice to the appeal - if anyone really understands this, expanding the manual to include more examples and more thorough explanations would really, really help. On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Hernandez, Heather < heather_hernandez@nps.gov> wrote:
Hi!
I have to admit that we find the serials module to be rather baffling. Although we are using it to check in new issues so that our patrons can get an email notification when new issues arrive, I couldn't really tell you why it's doing what it's doing, and I have to say that I'm far from understanding it. And I'm no serials system newbie--I've been using such systems since the days of Innovacq way before ILS's were twinkles in the eyes of developers--but getting our subscriptions to behave in a 'good enough' manner on Koha seems to have been rather hit and miss, and I haven't taken the time to fine tune them.
I also haven't taken the time to figure out claiming, since I wasn't sure it would be a better solution than just walking around our Reading Room every now and then to eyeball what hasn't come in and just shooting an email off to the publisher to get our missing issue(s). Granted, we don't have a lot of current subscriptions! We also gave up on using Koha for acquisitions except for storing subscription vendors, since it doesn't meet our needs--federal purchasing is a bit byzantine, and we have no money to contribute towards developments.
I'll keep my eyes open when receiving issues for subscriptions that could benefit from some work, and will try to compare things with the manual--if I can contribute anything, I'd be happy to do it--but I may just be contributing more questions!
Cheerio, heather ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heather Hernandez Technical Services Librarian San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center heather_hernandez@nps.gov 415-561-7032 (voice) 415-556-3540 (fax) http://www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/museum-collections.htm
"The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail."--Gustaf Lindborg _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
-- 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 (This number is for the English Folk Dance and Song Society in London, England. If you wish to phone me personally, send an e-mail first. I work off site) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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)
Hi-- I *think* I may have a nice (I hope!) serial pattern for one of our serials that's published four times a year, and for which we wanted the supplied abbreviations to be "v." and "no." It was a little wacky, but I *think* I got it right. (I hope!) I created a little video that scrolls down the screen, so folks could see it all: http://www.screencast.com/t/rtM0267Acq This is the serial in our opac: http://keys.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=14... Nicole--if this actually looks good and you'd like to use it for the manual, feel free to log into our catalog and grab examples for screen shots. BTW, we're on 3.16 (and loving it!). Cheerio! heather ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heather Hernandez Technical Services Librarian San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center heather_hernandez@nps.gov 415-561-7032 (voice) 415-556-3540 (fax) http://www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/museum-collections.htm "The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail."--Gustaf Lindborg
participants (3)
-
Elaine Bradtke -
Hernandez, Heather -
Nicole Engard