[Koha] See and See Also References in Koha

[paul POULAIN]

Larry Currie wrote:

>Dear Paul et al.,
>
>We are one of the libraries in the U.S. that are keenly interested in
>the development of Koha versions 1.3.x and 1.4 as a replacement for our
>current automation system, and we are working closely with Ron
>Wickersham in Santa Rosa, CA on this.  But one of the features our
>current system has that is very important is the ability to have "see"
>references and "see also" references in the catalog that result from
>subject and name authority work done by our cataloguers and by the
>Library of Congress.  Has any thought been given on the developers list
>to having this ability in Koha?
>
>Larry Currie
>
David Bigwood wrote :

>There is a separate database holding MARC authority records. These records
>can control all access points, authors, titles and subjects. Most of the
>time they have SEE and SEE ALSO references. At times they have longer
>explanations. They also may contain notes to the cataloger. For example, a
>authority record for a series might contain a note telling the cataloger if
>they are each classed by subject or if they are collected and classed as a
>group. They are structured very much like MARC bibliographic records.
>http://www.loc.gov/marc/authority/ecadhome.html In the more costly systems
>the authority records are linked to the bibliographic record, so that a
>change in the authority file automatically changes instances in the
>bibliographic file.
>

Hi from France, everybody,

Happy to see that so many libraries are interested in koha.

I'm happy to answer positively to your question :
the "uptodate-unstable-koha" on my computers begins to deal nicely with 
authorities, and "see" links...

Some details :
* The authorities/thesaurus table exists.
* In the authority table, you can define as many category of 
authorities, and as many entries for each category as you want. Every 
entry can be "hierarchised" (for example : you can have "Geography", 
then "Geography -- Europe", then "Geography -- Europe -- France", then 
"Geography -- europe -- France -- Marseille", and find where I live  :-) )
* When you define your own MARC use, you can link a subfield to a 
"authority category". If you do, the subfield must be entered through 
the authority table. I'll add soon (next week) a parameter that says if 
you can or can't enter a "non-authority value" in a subfield, and if the 
librarian can "on the fly" add a value in the authority table.

All of those functionnalities ARE in CVS. They should be in the 1.3.2 
version coming soon (before nov. 15, hoping nov. 8)

What's is not done but should be added soon is :
* MARC search
* "see" links in MARCdetail of a biblio.
But the DB handle this, so it should be easy to do.

For David :

In the more costly systems
the authority records are linked to the bibliographic record, so that a
change in the authority file automatically changes instances in the
bibliographic file.

You'll have to change this sentence soon, as i'm planning to have this 
in koha, and it won't become costly ;-))). Not very easy, but not too 
hard neither...

FYI : My roadmap : version 1.4.0, stable with all MARC functionnalities 
is expected for 2003, january.

Note i haven't "import MARC authority" functionnality planned (except 
for frenchies, but that's another story...)
--
Paul