A very basic librarian question
As I try to setup our church library, it's been helpful for me to have a programming background as I work with Koha. Unfortunately, I don't have a librarian background, which is causing me to have to learn a lot of things that are probably obvious to anyone who's done this kind of thing before. Here's one such problem. I had thought I would simply enter all my DVDs into Koha, generate labels that contain the title of the DVD and the barcode #, and stick those labels on the DVD cases. Then items would be shelved in numeric order by barcode #. What finally occurred to me is that if we have several, say, VeggieTales videos as barcodes 11,12,13,14, then buy a new one later, the new DVD will have a barcode something like 104, and be shelved nowhere near the other ones. So obviously I need a different way to sort my items on the shelf that isn't based on the barcode. I'm guessing this is a "call number", right? (told you this was a really basic question!) So, my questions are: * How should I go about developing a system for creating a call number? Is there a "best practices" way of doing this? (The vast majority of these videos are from fairly small publishers, or are even created in-house, so they won't have any official Dewey or LC numbers or anything. So, I'm going to have to create a system from scratch, and I'd like to figure out the best way to do it. * Where do I store this information in Koha? I see fields that look like possibilities in 942h,i,k,m , but there are a lot of 0xx fields that look like possibilities as well. I'm not sure which is the best field to use... (or maybe that information is part of the "Item", not the "Biblio"? In which case I should maybe put it into "o - Koha full card number" on the "Add Item" screen that follows the "Add MARC Record" page?) Thanks for some basic help. :-)
I recommend you using a bit of the title or author in your call numbering scheme. So to use your Veggie Tales example maybe vegg1, vegg2, etc. That way they sit together. It may also be easier if you user years or some sort of number that's on the DVD itself as the second number. For cataloging, call numbers go in the 090 field. As for Koha I'm pretty sure it goes in the 949 subfield a spot. I know that was a pretty brief answer - but does it help? -- Nicole C. Engard Open Source Evangelist, LibLime (888) Koha ILS (564-2457) ext. 714 nce@liblime.com AIM/Y!/Skype: nengard http://liblime.com On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 12:34 PM, George Adams <g_adams27@hotmail.com> wrote:
As I try to setup our church library, it's been helpful for me to have a programming background as I work with Koha. Unfortunately, I don't have a librarian background, which is causing me to have to learn a lot of things that are probably obvious to anyone who's done this kind of thing before. Here's one such problem.
I had thought I would simply enter all my DVDs into Koha, generate labels that contain the title of the DVD and the barcode #, and stick those labels on the DVD cases. Then items would be shelved in numeric order by barcode #.
What finally occurred to me is that if we have several, say, VeggieTales videos as barcodes 11,12,13,14, then buy a new one later, the new DVD will have a barcode something like 104, and be shelved nowhere near the other ones. So obviously I need a different way to sort my items on the shelf that isn't based on the barcode.
I'm guessing this is a "call number", right? (told you this was a really basic question!) So, my questions are:
* How should I go about developing a system for creating a call number? Is there a "best practices" way of doing this? (The vast majority of these videos are from fairly small publishers, or are even created in-house, so they won't have any official Dewey or LC numbers or anything. So, I'm going to have to create a system from scratch, and I'd like to figure out the best way to do it.
* Where do I store this information in Koha? I see fields that look like possibilities in 942h,i,k,m , but there are a lot of 0xx fields that look like possibilities as well. I'm not sure which is the best field to use...
(or maybe that information is part of the "Item", not the "Biblio"? In which case I should maybe put it into "o - Koha full card number" on the "Add Item" screen that follows the "Add MARC Record" page?)
Thanks for some basic help. :-) _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
A call number can go in fields 050, 082, 090, 092 and many others in the bibliographical record. That is the Library of Congress Classification number, Dewey number, National Library of Medicine number, etc. Not necessarily the number you or any library, is using. The call number for your item goes into the item record. 852 in many systems, maybe 949 in Koha. As for your numbering system.... Having different numbers won't matter if folks can't browse the shelves. Do you let users browse? If not than having different copies of a video with 48 and 218 as call numbers would be OK. If people browse, then how do you want them arranged on the shelf? By title? Then a classification system that arranges by that would be best. Maybe by topic? That is more complex. Deciding on just what the topic is can be tricky. Creating a classification scheme for a topic is a complex task. Finding one that works a chore. A good tool to generate numbers if shelving by title would be the free Windows OCLC Dewey Cutter Program. http://www.oclc.org/dewey/support/program/ You should give all copies of a title the same call number and use the barcode to distinguish among them. The barcodes should be different for each item. David Bigwood dbigwood@gmail.com Catalogablog http://catalogablog.blogspot.com
Bigwood, David wrote:
the item record. 852 in many systems, maybe 949 in Koha.
Just curious. I thought the 852 summary of holdings tag was now pretty universal. I haven't heard of anyone's using the 949 tag for this purpose since the days of the Geac library automation system (GLIS, not Advance), in the 1980s and early 90s, which as far as I know introduced this practice. I thought that the 9xx tags were originally intended for multi-lingual support. But I haven't had much to do with this stuff in a while. I would be interested, as a sort of historical footnote, to know. Thanks Chris Brown-Syed
Hi George * How should I go about developing a system for creating a call number? Is there a "best practices" way of doing this? (The vast majority of these videos are from fairly small publishers, or are even created in-house, so they won't have any official Dewey or LC numbers or anything. So, I'm going to have to create a system from scratch, and I'd like to figure out the best way to do it. I use Koha for a church library - well I have a theological college library, and the church library is treated as a branch. Just to confuse things they use different classification systems (Library of Congress for the college and Dewey Decimal for the church.) I also have a lot of in-house created DVDs. I have chosen not to use either classification system for the audiovisual items. As you say, it is near impossible (and certainly painfully slow) to do original cataloguing for in house items. I also do volunteer work for the local public library where my current job is changing the classification of their dvds in the catalogue. They have metre and metres of shelving full of movies all shelved at 791.4371 followed by the first three letters of the director's name. As no one knows (or gives a toss) who the director is, it was impossible to find anything. They are now shelving by genre (subject type). Each record will have the genre listed in the 650 or 655 fields so they will show in a catalogue sort. The genre also appears in the location. The item will now be shelved (in their genre groups, eg science fiction, comedy, western, etc) with identifying icons for the genre then a spine label saying dvd then first three letters of the title (ignoring the, de, and, a, etc) for example Once were warriors shelved at dvd ONC. In my own library, the DVDs are listed chronologically as you originally started yours as they are mostly in sets and even though the subject matter within may change, I want to keep the sets together. Most of them are conferences where each message relates to another. The borrower can browse the whole set or search in the catalogue. This has meant watching most of them myself to ascertain their subject headings (630, 650). I will leave those like that. The videos are currently numbered chronologically as you had but I will be changing those to the system used in the public library. I do not want to use Dewey as half my collection will be at 248.845 and therefore cause as much confusion as being un-catalgued. I have a separate children's collection and so the Vege tales would be there separate from heavy theological works anyway. Sumo of the opera would be dvd SUM, the several Larry Boy works would all be at dvd LAR but there probably wouldn't be enough of them to worry about that. If you do have several copies of each then (lucky you), you could number them, eg Larry Boy and the bad apple dvd LAR1, Larry Boy and the Rumor weed dvd LAR2, etc. I won't be numbering mine. * Where do I store this information in Koha? I see fields that look like possibilities in 942h,i,k,m , but there are a lot of 0xx fields that look like possibilities as well. I'm not sure which is the best field to use... (or maybe that information is part of the "Item", not the "Biblio"? In which case I should maybe put it into "o - Koha full card number" on the "Add Item" screen that follows the "Add MARC Record" page?) I have found in koha that 852a is the field that shows the borrower where to find the item on the shelf (and you can put anything you like in there - 050 and 082 are designated spots for LCC and DDC). 852 b) the collection name (e.g.videos or junior) and e)the branch name don't seem to show in the OPAC record. However, the information in 942 a) and c) must be filled in too as they do show in the OPAC (how ours is set up anyway) also, the item will not issue correctly if they are blank. Example of current video at www.tsbc.org.nz/library search by barcode R00185 then select MARC view. I have found the book "Learn descriptive cataloguing" by Mary Mortimer, DocMatrix 2004, 252 p., 30 cm., ISBN 1876283432 very helpful. Good luck with your decision making. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Rae (Rachel) Jones Librarian The Shepherd’s Bible College 354 Te Aute Road, Havelock North 4172 P.O. Box 8229, Havelock North 4157 New Zealand Ph. +64 6 877-8013 Fax. +64 6 877-5821 Mob: +64 21 059 7464 Email: library@tsbc.org.nz TSBC Homepage: www.tsbc.org.nz Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.7/1286 - Release Date: 18-02-2008 18:49
participants (5)
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Bigwood, David -
Christopher Brown-Syed -
George Adams -
Nicole Engard -
TSBC Librarian