[Koha] Koha 3.0 : item types or CCodes (again - sorry ..)

[Nicole Engard]

> This is a troublesome issue: the icons that display in XSLT search
> results are connected to the material type of the MARC record. Those
> icons are not configurable in Koha administration. They don't have any
> relation to your records' item type.

Just as an FYI to go along with Owen's note - there is a document in
the manual to help with this part:
https://sites.google.com/a/liblime.com/koha-manual/Home/Table-of-Contents/opac/opac-details-page/xslt-item-type-display

---

Nicole C. Engard
Open Source Evangelist, LibLime
(888) Koha ILS (564-2457) ext. 714
nce at liblime.com
AIM/Y!/Skype: nengard

http://liblime.com
http://blogs.liblime.com/open-sesame/



On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Owen Leonard <oleonard at myacpl.org> wrote:
>>> I do want to assign icons to item types which indicate Format ie DVD,
>>> Book, and will want those to display on the OPAC search results too,
>>
>> currently the itemtype icons that display for the search-results are
>> 16x16 silk.
>
> This is a troublesome issue: the icons that display in XSLT search
> results are connected to the material type of the MARC record. Those
> icons are not configurable in Koha administration. They don't have any
> relation to your records' item type.
>
> Joann, you wrote to me that your scheme "hinges on the icon, CCode,
> Shelved at and Call number
> fields all being displayed in the OPAC search results, and the CCodes
> set for Advanced Search options."
>
> Unfortunately neither the icon, CCode, or Shelved at information is
> displayed in search results. Getting shelf location into search
> results seems pretty doable, but the new architecture of items in Koha
> 3 creates a problem for displaying ccode and/or item type information
> in search results.
>
> Now that ccode and itemtype are stored at the item level rather than
> the biblio (title) level there can be any number of ccodes and
> itemtypes attached to one bibliographic record. Even if this isn't the
> case for your library, the very possibility makes it difficult to
> imagine a system for displaying them accurately in OPAC search
> results. Would you have to display an icon for every kind of
> itemtype/ccode which were attached to each record?
>
> Cab Vinton wrote:
>> The one major problem that I see, that we've bumped against as well,
>> is that Koha currently forces you to choose between Item Types &
>> Collection Codes for searching purposes.
>
> The whole itemtype/ccode issue is really confusing. I'm still learning
> the ins and outs of it even though I've been working on Koha 3 since
> the beginning. Here's as much as I know:
>
> collection codes are good for defining, you know, collections. And if
> you choose you can set those as a search point in the OPAC. But you
> can't use collection codes to set circulation policy, so I can't set a
> collection code and then limit my patrons to only checking out 10 of
> that collection code. And though you can associate an icon with a
> collection code, the effort is pointless: Koha doesn't display that
> icon anywhere.
>
> Item types /can/ be used for defining collections. Like with ccodes,
> you can choose to use itemtype as a search point in the OPAC. But as
> Cab points out it's an either/or proposition. Unlike ccode, you can
> use itemtype to set circulation policy. This makes it useful for
> defining broad categories of materials which share the same policy.
>
> For instance, we use itemtype to define "AV materials," under which
> various ccodes fall: Adult videos, juvenile videos, adult DVDs,
> juvenile DVDs, etc. The AV itemtype allows us to set a circulation
> policy which says that our patrons can only have 10 AV materials at a
> time. The broadly-defined itemtype allows us to "collect" multiple
> categories (ccodes) under one policy.
>
> Unfortunately, displaying an icon in the OPAC for "AV Material"
> doesn't make much sense when the patron really wants to know whether
> it's a kids video, a grownup DVD, etc. If it weren't for the circ
> policy issue (in particular the "Current Checkouts Allowed" aspect of
> issuing rules), we'd be better served to covert our ccodes to
> itemtypes and use ccodes as broad category definitions for statistical
> use only.
>
> What steps could be taken to make this work well for everybody?
>
> - Enable display of collection code icons in places where information
> about individual items is displayed: the holdings table of
> opac-detail, lists of checkouts, lists of holds on specific copies,
> lists of waiting holds.
> - Add the ability to define circulation policy based on ccode as well
> as itemtype?
>
> I don't know what a broadly-applicable solution to the icons in search
> results problem is.
>
>  -- Owen
>
> --
> Web Developer
> Athens County Public Libraries
> http://www.myacpl.org
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