[Koha] Biblio records as book set "container" records - hierarchical groupings, et seq.

[Hans Henderson]

Steven,

Thanks so much for your response!

>my head is still swimming slightly ;-) ...
Sorry, as my girlfriend says, sometimes I think too much <g>

> What I would propose as a 'counter-offer' is using a series tag 440 
(or 490 - 830 if necessary), based on the understanding that these 
sets of books really are parts of series that are meant to be used in 
the way that you are doing.
> If you created/imported a simpler MARC record for each title, you 
could make the links with their hierarchical series by creating a 
useful local 440 (series tracing). 

Yes, here's an example of how Oxford University does it with a 440:
440 0$a Oxford reading tree.$n Stage 1,$p Kipper stories

In this case it *is* a *real* series - they are all books. How does 
Koha make use of this entry? Can the user just click and pull up a 
list of all the other books in that series? So if I have a CD-ROM 
designed to work with all the Stage 1 Reading Tree books (not just 
the Kipper stories), could I add:

440 0$a Oxford reading tree.$n Stage 1

to the CD's MARC record before importing into Koha, and Koha will do 
something meaningful with it? Note the CD-ROM would be an entirely 
different Itemtype, different shelving location, different call 
number series, etc.

> Granted, this may not be a perfectly kosher use of the 440 -- what 
you choose might not be recognised anywhere else as a series --, but 
what you are proposing otherwise really would require detailed 
Analytics (library jargon) that would give any cataloguer a headache.

I'd love to learn more about "Analytics" - even though it is jargon 
(I've seen it in the MARC specifications), twenty minutes of browsing 
with Google didn't show much of use - any pointers to online Library 
Science tutorials?

>In any case, what I am proposing would allow OPAC users the ability 
to find each individual title without necessarily making each 
individual record overwhelming (20-30 title- and/or author-title 
added entries plus the problem of deciding a legitimate 245 entry). 
Each record would have the 440 showing what group it belongs to as 
well as the call number which would show where it is 
collocated/located on the shelves.

So 440 (mapped to an appropriate Koha field - any suggestions?) 
becomes a searchable field in the OPAC, returning all resources 
containing matching strings?

That's (more than <g>) enough for now to inflict on everyone in the 
list, discussion of the your call numbering system ideas to continue 
off-list.