[Koha] :-( and conclusion with cataloguing and acquisition thread

[Micheas Herman]

Paul

As someone using koha for a smallish(~30,000 volume) more or less
private library I would like to belatedly add three extra low priority
wish list feature requests that I haven't seen discussed:
        
        1. A way to use koha to order from book sellers that we have a
        standing relationship with ( Amazon.com or Powells.com for
        example )
        
        2. the opac in xhtml so that someone contemplating an
        acquisition at a book store could see if the book is already in
        the library via internet enabled phone.  Having the acquisition
        in xhtml would not help me, because there is no way the book
        will get entered in the catalog until it arrives in the
        library.  This is probably not something that larger libraries
        care about, but would be nice for personal libraries. 
        
        3. The ability to add items without a barcode. so that barcodes
        don't have to be set aside for books that have not yet arrived.
        (This may already exist but I'm not aware of it.  This would be
        of greater importance if acquisitions was in xhtml and there was
        a chance that someone would add a book from their cell phone. 
        But others might find it useful.

Note: A webpage has to be written in valid xhtml to be readable by cell
phones that are advertised as "Internet Ready" in the USA. So people can
read "accessible by cell phone" for "xhtml". 


Micheas

On Fri, 2003-01-24 at 02:31, paul POULAIN wrote: 
> Hi everybody,
> Here is Paul, from the old Europe ;-)
> 
> i just spended 20mn to read all those answers to my request, and I'm not 
> happy because what i've read is NOT RELATED to my question.
> 
> 1st : my question was a LIBRARIAN question. And i think almost all 
> answers are related to DEVELOPPERS problems !
> 2nd : my question was to imagine a solution to get the best possible 
> acquisition and cataloguing process ! not to do a code -or db- 
> revolution in koha !
> 
> and what are you speaking about ? DB normalization, and other 
> -interesting but not in the scope- question.
> 
> The most interesting thought, imho, comes from Stephen, from NPL (which 
> funded MARC support, so, is always right :-) )
> 
> I think that a strong acquisition component would be a very valuable asset for 
> Koha.  In fact, I think acquisitions are much more important than cataloging.  
> That means that I support your idea of separating the two, so it would be 
> easier (to my mind) to focus development effort on acquisitions. If they are 
> not separated, then I think cataloging should at least be handled as a sub-task 
> of acquisitions.
> 
> 
> Incidentally, this is my opinion too :-)
> 
> So, my proposal for acquisition and cataloguing is the following :
> *ACQUISITION*
> During acquisition,  you define as few datas as possible. You can define 
> less than ISBN, title, author and editor if you want. The acquisition 
> part does NOT deals with marc (ie : from a librarian point of vue. the 
> mySQL DB is something else !).
> when the book is recieved, the librarian will note this in the 
> acquisition part of koha, then, will automatically reach the cataloguing 
> chapter
> This WILL be in the 2.0, it's almost the normal acquisition of the 1.2. 
> this acquisition process will be the same wether MARC or non-MARC.
> 
> Acquisition in a future will also get :
> - suggestions
> 
> *CATALOGUING*
> - The library can use MARC or non MARC cataloguing.
> - The cataloguing can be called after an acquisition, or as a specific 
> and single task
> - The cataloguing means : entering biblio and entering items.
> 
> All those will be in the 2.0. It's part from acqui.simple in MARC for 
> MARC, and part from normal acquisition of the 1.2
> 
> cataloguing in a future version will also get :
> - z39.50 support
> - import of "commercial" MARC cdroms like "electre" or "Rameau", in France.
> 
> I think that everybody agrees to say that books that will arrive soon in 
> the library can be shown on opac or catalogue search part of koha, with 
> a specific flag. So, that will be done too.
> 
> I hope that at least every LIBRARIAN will be happy with those proposals.