[Koha] Simple MARC reference information

[Kevin O'Rourke]

Thanks to everyone for their input on this, it's helping.

I can see the benefit of all this complexity and of making sure that all
the catalogue records are as complete as possible.
>
> You usually enter the author's name in the 100a field - this is not
> true of corporate authors or organisational authors, but generally,
> you aren't dealing with that. Nor do you put more than one author in
> this field together. Additional authors go in the 700a field, provided
> they aren't corporate authors or organisational authors, too. You add
> a new 700a field for each additional author.
This is the problem, I'm sure I could understand all the rules after a
while.  However I'm not going to be the one doing the data entry and so
far the library staff are completely bewildered by MARC.
> The 650a field is _terribly_ important. These are your subjects. The
> 500a and 505a are also very important, but you'll use those more as
> you become a better cataloguer.
The LoC tutorials seem to suggest that sometimes the subjects are in a
different 6xx field (such as 600 or 610).  So I need to tell the staff
that the subject always goes in 650a, except when it doesn't?

What exactly is the 505a for?  The examples I've found aren't very
informative.
> Don't feel completely lost at sea. I do think that most people copy
> catalogue, and that cataloguing in general is very similar to an
> elementary school classroom. There are 2 or 3 very smart kids at the
> front of the room like Steven B. that know what they're doing.
> Everyone behind him tries to catch a glimpse of what he's doing to
> copy off of him. Needless to say, the records at the back of the room
> aren't so great.
>
> I really think that the easiest way for you to learn to catalogue is
> to hit the Nelsonville Library's Catalogue (Or any other library that
> has a MARC view, but I'm picking on Nelsonville because it's a Koha
> library). Look up your favourite books. Click on the MARC view button
> and try to understand the MARC record. After looking at enough of
> these, they'll start to make sense. Eventually, your brain gets dented
> enough to be able to read a raw MARC record, but that's after a while.
It's back to the same problem, after a while I'll be able to understand
MARC records but everyone who will be entering records will also need to
understand.

So what it comes down to is: should I persist with MARC and then spend
(a lot of) time training the library staff or would I be OK reinstalling
without MARC?  The library is just one aspect of my work here, I don't
have much time to help the staff and I'll be gone in September next
year, so they need something they can look after themselves.

Kevin

-- 
Kevin O'Rourke
ICT Coordinator, National Teachers' Institute, Kaduna, Nigeria
062 316972