Good Morning All, Am after some kind words of advice from anyone who may know how to do this. On IRC, I spoke with Chris and asked the question, "Can I insert direct into Koha's database for migration, or does it have to be MARC format?" Chris' response implied that since v.1.3, that its not easy to insert direct into MySQL with the information and that I should contact the list as Paul may have some advice on either how to do it or, how I can create MARC from the structure I have. At the moment, I have tab delimetered file (as per attached (column headings up the top), but with quite a few more records in the file :)). Presently, I'm just seeking to get the library up by the end of the week and superfluous data fields (cost, the 'extent' column, acquisition year etc) are irrelevant if they'll be difficult to implement. FYG, my plan is to send off MARC requests (we have a request and receive type of system for MARC records from the Department of Education), put them in the breeding farm for those records with ISBN's so we can get some more information on the books than is currently stored in the system. If anyone has any ideas and or thoughts - or could be kind enough to point me in the direction of either: a. How to import the data direct into the MySQL tables - which tables and fields? (and I do have a pretty good knowledge of MySQL etc etc) b) How to create MARC from this data (limited knowledge of PERL, PHP etc but willing to learn to make it happen) Or, if anyone had the time to create the script required that would be tops. Thanks for your time and I'm really glad to be one of the people supporting Koha in our Government education department (primary school) as an Open Source alternative to the proprietary programs out there. Photos and documentation of the implementation will be available once completed :) (BTW, currently running pre3, and will be putting pre4 on tonight) Thanks/Best Regards, Luke Ottrey, Purple Lion Ph: 0408 675 648 Fax: +61 3 9886 7349 Email: luke@purplelion.net Web: www.purplelion.net
Luke Ottrey said:
If anyone has any ideas and or thoughts - or could be kind enough to point me in the direction of either: a. How to import the data direct into the MySQL tables - which tables and fields? (and I do have a pretty good knowledge of MySQL etc etc) b) How to create MARC from this data (limited knowledge of PERL, PHP etc but willing to learn to make it happen) Or, if anyone had the time to create the script required that would be tops.
Luke - Re: a.) One issue you will run into right away is generating the "control" numbers for your data: the biblionumber, biblioitemnumber, and itemnumber. While it would be fairly easy to map your data to the corresponding Koha tables and columns, it would be difficult to generate the control numbers with the correct relationship. (i.e. the items table would not only have a unique itemnumber for each item, but also the correct corresponding biblioitemnumber and biblionumber.) The bulkmarcimport script handles all of this for you -- if you have MARC records. Re: b.) You could use the Perl MARC::Record module to build MARC records from your data, but you would need to know not only Perl but MARC. There are some functions in the Koha C4/Biblio module that do this (I think they work), but they assume that you already have your data in the Koha tables and are building MARC records from that. Seems like you're caught between a rock and a hard place. I hope someone else can be more helpful... -- Stephen Hedges Skemotah Solutions, USA www.skemotah.com -- shedges@skemotah.com
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Stephen Hedges