Connexion client alternatives
It seems like the OCLC Connexion client has been orphaned over the past few years. It's a pain to maintain/install and deal with and we're looking for alternatives from the post-1999 CE era. Anyone using alternatives for creating/uploading/downloading records and printing item labels? Is it possible to replace with MarcEdit? Thank you! -- Chad Roseburg Assoc. Director / IT Automation Dept. North Central Regional Library
The OCLC client is still being updated, but is a client server product. There is a newer OCLC Connexion browser product that is a web based interface. I really haven't used it (not in Koha yet). https://www.oclc.org/support/services/connexion/documentation/browser.en.htm... Training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFmuWk0gh70 Judy Chalmers, MLS Law Librarian-Cataloging Sacramento County Public Law Library 609 9th Street Sacramento, CA 95814 916-874-5745 -----Original Message----- From: Chad Roseburg [mailto:croseburg@ncrl.org] Sent: Thursday, April 5, 2018 1:11 PM To: partners@lists.bywatersolutions.com; koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: [Koha] Connexion client alternatives It seems like the OCLC Connexion client has been orphaned over the past few years. It's a pain to maintain/install and deal with and we're looking for alternatives from the post-1999 CE era. Anyone using alternatives for creating/uploading/downloading records and printing item labels? Is it possible to replace with MarcEdit? Thank you! -- Chad Roseburg Assoc. Director / IT Automation Dept. North Central Regional Library _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Hi, Chad-- I'm just mucking along with Connexion Client. When OCLC really cuts it off, then I think I'll move to using Koha's advanced bib editor for original cataloging, & probably importing/exporting via the Connexion web interface (I'm not a fan of their newer product). My future workflow may be, e.g., Copy cataloging: produce & export a bunch of records in Connexion, import them into Koha, edit, then any record that I've significantly enhanced & want to upgrade in OCLC, export it to Connexion & replace record. Original cataloging: key in Koha, export, import into Connexion & produce, then edit Koha record with new OCLC number. I just print labels using Microsoft Word with the call numbers copy/pasted into a Word document--Koha doesn't break LC call number lines correctly for us & can't assemble a whole sheet of labels to laser print. But we don't have a large volume of cataloging!:) I have to admit that I really don't like MarcEdit--I find it cludgy and clunky and too slow. I want to just key a MARC21 record as FAST as possible with key strokes--mousing just slows me down. And MarcEdit is yet another interface in between Koha & OCLC, so I view it as just slowing me down that way, too. This is all very much my own personal opinion & workflow desires, and we do have a low volume of highly-specialized cataloging with mostly original cataloging, so my setting may not be similar to yours or, really, many others! For what it's worth, though, hope it's helpful! Best, h2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heather Hernandez Technical Services Librarian San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center 2 Marina Blvd., Bldg. E, 3rd floor, San Francisco, CA 94123-1284 415-561-7032, heather_hernandez@nps.gov Library catalog: http://keys.bywatersolutions.com/
N.B.: Although I'm my library's cataloging department, I'm not a real cataloger and I add maybe 100 books per year to our collection. You should probably take that into consideration. I use the web interface (connexion.oclc.org) to search and assemble my records. Then I download them to my computer, changing the .dat extension to .mrc, then convert them to text using MarcEdit's MARC Breaker. You could do further tweaking in MarcEdit, but for whatever reason I prefer to use Notepad. Then I recompile to .mrc using MarcEdit, upload to Koha, and take it from there. You could probably add the 952 field in Notepad/MarcEdit (I do that for my Authors' Catalog), but I add the item information after I've imported the records into the catalog. Item labels: if those are what I call spine labels, you can do those in Koha from the Tools menu. You can configure a template (I have one for regular circulating books and another for books that need their collection code listed), then scan your barcodes into a batch, print the batch, and there you are. There's also a tool for printing just spine labels, but I haven't used that one. One problem I've had with the labels is that they tend to break lines in odd places. For example, what should be WD 130 .AA1 E78 VOL 2 1999 might come out as WD 130 .A A1 E78 VOL 2 1999 Anyone have a solution? As for creating records, on the very, very few occasions that I've had to create one, I've used the Cataloging > New Record > Default Framework function in Koha. Fred King Medical Librarian, MedStar Washington Hospital Center fred.king@medstar.net 202-877-6670 ORCID 0000-0001-5266-0279 MedStar Authors Catalog: http://medstarauthors.org It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. --Douglas Adams -----Original Message----- From: Koha [mailto:koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Chad Roseburg Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2018 4:11 PM To: partners@lists.bywatersolutions.com; koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: [Koha] Connexion client alternatives It seems like the OCLC Connexion client has been orphaned over the past few years. It's a pain to maintain/install and deal with and we're looking for alternatives from the post-1999 CE era. Anyone using alternatives for creating/uploading/downloading records and printing item labels? Is it possible to replace with MarcEdit? Thank you! -- Chad Roseburg Assoc. Director / IT Automation Dept. North Central Regional Library _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__koha-2Dcommunity.org&d=DwIGaQ&c=RvBXVp2Kc-itN3g6r3sN0QK_zL4whPpndVxj8-bJ04M&r=vKh6XwOmjyC51IkP1OfsdjQZoWT2vpi6VZl8El8EPRI&m=AJ499j-CghKjD_KVhqXRrMLXfi9izWqQ-KLBz2PNeWY&s=ob9GCWM-bioywOedqeykXMh9ujzd1W4n6Cz8oZxgHHM&e= Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.katipo.co.nz_mailman_listinfo_koha&d=DwIGaQ&c=RvBXVp2Kc-itN3g6r3sN0QK_zL4whPpndVxj8-bJ04M&r=vKh6XwOmjyC51IkP1OfsdjQZoWT2vpi6VZl8El8EPRI&m=AJ499j-CghKjD_KVhqXRrMLXfi9izWqQ-KLBz2PNeWY&s=CiqZk1_ldEtwnd0V7hSOQwO3e5hKvXIxhwzyLvDAHto&e=
Hi, all-- Pamela--I'm glad I'm not alone in my peculiar workflow! ::high-five!:: And, Fred, Koha's breaking of lines in odd places is exactly why I just copy the call number from the 050/090 field into the into the 952 $o on the OCLC Connexion Client record, remove the $b & full-stop & correct the spacing, then I copy that reformatted 952 $o call number & paste it into an MS Word template and add correct line breaks for printing. When I fill the MS Word template of spine/item labels, then I print out the sheet & put that sheet with the items for processing. For serial issues, we copy the call number from the item record in Koha & paste it into the MS Word template & add correct line breaks. I don't know if it's possible to replace any of this workflow with MarcEdit since MarcEdit is an unnecessary component of my workflow--I need to get our holdings into OCLC for ILL purposes & need to get our holdings into Koha, so I try to eliminate any other interfaces in that workflow. If there were a system preference where I could tell Koha where to insert line breaks into LC call numbers so I could just copy, i.e., this into the MS Word template (actual example--not made up): G 4362 S22 P5 1859 U5 1859b That would rock! And, IMO, anyone who catalogs is a "real cataloger"--sure, we differ in how long we've been cataloging, & how & how much we've learned, but anyone who catalogs is a real cataloger to me. Cheerio, h2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heather Hernandez Technical Services Librarian San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center 2 Marina Blvd., Bldg. E, 3rd floor, San Francisco, CA 94123-1284 415-561-7032, heather_hernandez@nps.gov Library catalog: http://keys.bywatersolutions.com/
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 12:11 PM, Hernandez, Heather < heather_hernandez@nps.gov> wrote:
And, Fred, Koha's breaking of lines in odd places is exactly why I just copy the call number from the 050/090 field into the into the 952 $o on the OCLC Connexion Client record, remove the $b & full-stop & correct the spacing, then I copy that reformatted 952 $o call number & paste it into an MS Word template and add correct line breaks for printing. When I fill the MS Word template of spine/item labels, then I print out the sheet & put that sheet with the items for processing.
In case you're wondering, the line breaking is based on items.cn_sort and items.cn_source. The field items.cn_sort is a normalized call number broken apart into sections which are left padded with 0s or spaces depending on whether the section is alpha or numeric. The perl library that does this for Library of congress actually lives outside of Koha: Library::CallNumber::LC You can find the documentation here: https://metacpan.org/pod/Library::CallNumber::LC I've filed a bug report regarding maps: https://github.com/libraryhackers/library-callnumber-lc/issues/10 (that sounds like one of yours, hh) If you know of other things that need to be fixed with the way that call numbers are split or ordered, please let me know so that we can get bugs filed :-)
Hi-- Yes, Barton, that bug report about map call numbers is from our problems with...map call number sorting! I don't know of anything that needs to be "fixed"--Koha just doesn't put line breaks in call numbers where we'd like it to, but that doesn't mean anything's "broken." We have no money for enhancements, so we just find workarounds to get functionality that we would like. Thanks for keeping an eye on getting that G-class call number problem fixed, Barton! Cheerio, h2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heather Hernandez Technical Services Librarian San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center 2 Marina Blvd., Bldg. E, 3rd floor, San Francisco, CA 94123-1284 415-561-7032, heather_hernandez@nps.gov Library catalog: http://keys.bywatersolutions.com/
participants (5)
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Barton Chittenden -
Chad Roseburg -
Hernandez, Heather -
Judy Chalmers -
King, Fred