[Koha] Thumnail images in catalog search results? (Was: details automatically from the internet)

[Steven F.Baljkas]

Wednesday, January 16, 2008      00:38 CDT

Hi, Joshua, Fred, et al.,

Sorry for taking so long to chime in on this, but years and versions ago, Stephen Hedges sent me an example of what would need to be changed to have one's own image bank (the issue I had mentioned at the time was the fact that Amazon cycles through what images it keeps currently available, which kind of defeats patrons' expectations of always being able to see the cover).

I don't know how applicable it would be to the current state of the coding, and Lord knows I don't know if the message containing it has survived the multiple traumas my computer has suffered since then, but if there is still interest, I am more than willing to spend some time looking for it.

Anyone interested can let me know either on the listserv or off and I'll get to it pronto.

BTW, I know the Mandarin system works in the way that Joshua explained: in the options for set-up there is a radio button menu to allow the library manager to choose whether an image will be linked to ISBN or to another field. It seems best to me to make use of an arbitrary non-used linking field so that one can set up one's own number. That way, items without ISBNs could be made to display something (now or in the future, as one chooses) e.g. CDs, websites. Items with ISBNs could have their numbers copied over into the linking field using a utility like MARCEdit, etc. to make such global changes easier.

Very excited about the new release, Joshua. Congratulations to you and all the programmers and developpers who've made this great step forward possible!

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


============================================================
From: "Joshua Ferraro" <joshua.ferraro at liblime.com>
Date: 2007/12/30 Sun AM 09:11:39 CST
To: "Fred.King at medstar.net" <Fred.King at medstar.net>
CC: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
Subject: Re: [Koha] Thumnail images in catalog search results? (Was: details
	automatically from the internet)

On 12/28/07, Fred.King at medstar.net <Fred.King at medstar.net> wrote:
>
> This question finally prompted me to post my own comments and questions to
> the list. I've been experimenting with Koha for the past couple of
> months--I've set up Koha for Windows on a couple of computers, and I have
> the Ubuntu VM version on a couple of PCs to play around with as well. Our
> library (8000 or so books, plus a few thousand bound journals) is
> considering changing ILSs, and I've been looking into both Koha and
> Evergreen.
>
> However, that doesn't have a lot to do with my current question: is there a
> way to link a locally-stored thumbnail image to a record so that it displays
> in a catalog search? I'm thinking of putting a photo archive into Koha as a
> way to teach myself how to use it. (If we do switch ILSs at work, I'm going
> to know a lot more about structures, etc., than I do know, and the best way
> I learn is by wading in doing it.) I know it's possible to include a link to
> a URL in the 856 tag, but that's not quite what I want. I'm looking for
> something a bit more like the Gallery View of the photo collections in the
> Library of Congress' American Memory project (see
> http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html
> for an example).
It's not hard to do, but will require some customization of the
template ... and you'll
have to have a web space to store the images and name them by ISBN or some other
identifier (like biblionumber).

There's been talk of fully-integrating a image upload feature into
Koha, but I'm not sure
if anyone's working actively on it.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

--
Joshua Ferraro                       SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS
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