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

[Joe Atzberger]

Adrea --

I think it is worth reiterating one of the major points Owen mentioned and
Josh fleshed out in detail.

The search results page does not display individual items (and imho should
not).  It displays summary level information about items.  Wanting to use
icons from the item-level data (items.ccode or items.itype) on the results
page requires the implementer to resolve something like this problem:

A biblio with N items can map to N different itype (and N different ccode
values).  How would you pick which one(s) you want on the results page?

You probably think, "well all our items would be the same itype", but this
is just a coincidence of your data.  The problem is more obvious in larger
systems or consortia with a lot of independently minded members, where you
can have hundreds of items on a record with many different itypes.  Building
a system to show the title-level hit with any *one* item-level icon is
essentially setting it up to be "wrong".  But do we want a half dozen or
more different icons (i.e., one for each)?  Probably not.

Nobody has suggested a logical solution to that problem except using the
title-level data, despite the consensus is that the MARC representations are
inaccurate and unweildy.  But without a logical fix, there isn't any point
discussing what technology to use to implement it.

--Joe

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Adrea Lund <adrea at moablibrary.org> wrote:

>  Our library would also really like icons to show up on the search results
> page in the OPAC - 1 icon for each bib record – it would drastically improve
> searchability of the catalog for our patrons.  Right now we have the XSLT
> stylesheet turned off on the OPAC results page and unless you read the “fine
> print” it is difficult to tell if you are looking at a book or a dvd or a
> book on cd.
>
> We are not satisfied with the icons that the XSLT stylesheet currently
> pulls from the MARC record – it does not distinguish btw a juvenile book and
> an adult book, a dvd and a video, a book on cassette or a book on cd.
> Regarding Joshua's comments about displaying icons based on MARC records
> (bib level icons) - we can not figure out a way to achieve the icons we
> want based on our MARC records (an icon pulled from the bib record would
> have to be based on format, audience and language – and I’m not even sure
> this would be enough to get the level of specificity that some libraries may
> want).  Our bib records currently have incomplete info for audience so
> these types of icons would not work for us without major work on our MARC
> records.
>
> An added problem to assigning icons based on the format info in the 007
> field from the MARC record, is that currently we are unable to edit this
> field in our KOHA installation (bug 3013).
>
> It is also important to note that it would take quite a few other changes
> to get our library to want to use the current default stylesheet – the
> availability info is too brief and the other data displaying from the MARC
> record leader is unwanted.
>
>
>
> So… given that assigning icons to bib records based on the MARC record
> seems very difficult for our library – we still want icons on our search
> results page.  We already have icons assigned to both item types and
> collection codes.
>
> We would like to suggest a system preference that allows libraries to opt
> in or opt out of item type icons or cccode icons on the search results page.
> You could then choose icons based on ccodes, item types, or no icons at
> all.  I think flexibility is the key, since there seem to be many different
> types of ccode and item type setups in the KOHA community.
>
>
>
> so with a new system preference....
>
> Libraries migrating from version 2 who have icons set up for their ccodes
> would be happy.
>
> Libraries using icons for item types would be happy – my library J
>
> And libraries with multiple item types and collection codes for one bib
> record can turn off this feature
>
> hmmm... maybe there could be a fourth option - if you want to base your
> icons on bib level data from your MARC records
>
>
>
> Our other option would be to rework the XSLT stylesheet for our library,
> but that doesn’t help any other libraries in the same situation and more
> importantly we don’t have anyone at our library who can do this kind of
> work.
>
>
>
> We are working with Liblime and getting ready to go live, and we really
> want to introduce this to our patrons with the icons on the search results
> page working, so any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
>
> Thank you,  (We really appreciate all the folks contributing to this
> discussion)
>
> Adrea
>
> Adrea Lund
> Head of Adult Services
> Grand County Public Library
> 257 E. Center St.
> Moab, UT 84532
> 435-259-1111 ext11
>
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