[Koha] Koha Presentation; a few questions on Koha and MARC

[Steven F. Baljkas]

Friday, July 23, 2004     00:50 CDT

Hi, all,

First things first - Joshua: I tried getting to those links you posted in
your July 14th message.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joshua Ferraro" <jferraro at athenscounty.lib.oh.us>
To: <koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>
Cc: <koha-devel at lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 8:16 AM
Subject: [Koha] Koha Presentation


> Hi all,
>
> I've got a Koha presentation at the OLC annual conference
> (http://www.heightslibrary.org/webmaster/olc_showcase/annual.php) and
> I'd like to put together a list of Koha features that folks are working
> on.  I'll probably write up a brief synopsis of features similar to the
> one I did last time I presented on Koha
> (http://kados.org/LibraryScience/koha_at_a_glance.html).
> So if you're working on something exciting let me know and I'll include
it.
> Other than that I'll be relying on release-notes, etc.

 I don't know what I am doing wrong, but I can't get to them. (I had a
similar problem with the link Ed Estka tried to offer).

 Any suggestions?

            * * * * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * * * *                  *
* * * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * * * *

I have a few questions that have sort of crystallised out of my (so far
poor) efforts to help out Christian Calle with his Koha questions. Please,
anyone more conversant in Spanish, pitch in. (I'd have better luck writing
him in Latin.)

I played around online with the test version of Koha, not realising that any
changes I made there would remain. I apologise if I've screwed anything up
for anyone.

At the time, I was intending to delineate the complete MARC21 field
structure, but then I thought (erroneously?) that it wouldn't be available
for anyone actually to use so what would be the point.

Now, Christian is asking for a delineation of MARC tag structure (I think he
was expecting that it was included withinn Koha to begin with, which I
understood is not the case), so ....

* Question 1: For his sake and for the sake of others, if I and/or
interested others 'fix' what is available in the test version online, would
it be possible for him/others to simply download it somehow?

# From looking at this, it dawned on me that I wasn't seeing the Leader or the
001 defined (and had forgot to try to add them myself when mucking about),
hence ...

* Question 2: What is the relationship of the MARC record data within Koha?
What I mean is, what does Koha actually do with the information in the
fixed-length fields if anything?

(BTW the current connection in the 003 test drive is wrong according to what
I was taught/have seen).

I had thought that Koha cataloguing could be worked without reference to the
underlying database. If not, (follow-up questions): how do we connect all
the potential MARC fields to whatever fields are in the core of the Koha
database? Does Koha just turf info that doesn't fit into those, i.e. are
records deconstructed and fields lost once imported?

Devolving from this worry about MARC cataloguing and the integrity of
records within the database (again: important for sharing and any future
migrations), I realised I had never seen an answer to a rather
straightforward OPAC matter, thus:

* Question 3: What is the correspondence between the MARC structure and the
actual records displayed in the Koha OPAC?

I have to try to explain what I mean by analogy.

The systems I am most familiar with (TKM MicroCat, Athena, Voyager) allow
the library administrator/s to decide how to display information retrieved
by OPAC searches. Librarians assumed a default non-MARC record display
(which is almost certainly right) and the systems allowed decisions to be
made about which fields to display, which to suppress, and in what order
elements from tags should appear, and (with 2 of the systems), the label
that would appear for the user beside the information (e.g. Author(s):,
Title:, etc.).

For that matter ...

Question 4: How/Where does one set which MARC fields one wants searchable
for a given search type? Is this adjustable?

Just a few 'light' questions. ;-)

Any and all answers appreciated (good ones, especially so ;-) ).

Cheers,
Steven F. Baljkas
library tech at large
Koha neophyte
Winnipeg, MB, Canada


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