[Koha] Koha Cataloging Archives

[Elaine Bradtke]

Though not strictly an archival collection, we face many of the same
issues with our own collection.
Especially the analyticals.  Our archival material is in a completely
different system, and it's possible the data there will never
interface with our collection of published material.  Confusing to
potential users, but at the moment, the only way we can do it, given
the different way archivists and librarians have approached
description.
It is possible (though probably not desirable) to squeeze EAD into
MARC.  But you have to make heavy use of the linking fields (773 and
774).  Some of the archival material I work with goes down six levels
in EAD, which is more than I would want to think about in MARC.
However, Collection level records, and even down to the box level
should be possible without too much trouble.
Koha's potential for tracking  location is very attractive. Right now,
a lot of that is in the archivist's head!
Elaine

On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Linda Culberson
<lculber at mdah.state.ms.us> wrote:
>  There are three standards central to archival description: DACS
> (Describing Archives: A Content Standard), MARC, and Encoded Archival
> Description (EAD). Koha can handle 2 out of three, plus allow us to
> track in-house use of our materials and link to digitized copies of the
> originals where they exist.   So, I like Koha.
>
>  The real problem we have with Koha is the lack of analytic record
> support  ( http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Analytic_Record_support )
> because many of our collections have item-level descriptions which are
> handled as analytics.  We also have a number of journals which have
> analytic records for specific articles in certain issues and we need to
> be able to tie the analytic record to the particular issue of the
> serial's record.
>
> Another problem is that Koha seems to only allow for the borrower to
> make only one hold request per title - a real problem with serials (and
> collections with linked item level analytical records)  - because a
> person may really want to see the Spring and Fall issues of 1994 and the
> Summer issue of 1995 of a serial.  Hopefully, I'm wrong about this being
> a problem and somebody can tell me how to do this?
>
> On a personal note, I  would be very interested in sharing ideas with
> other archives or libraries with archival materials about how to best
> use Koha for archival collections.
>
> Thanks for asking, Nicole!
> Linda
>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Is anyone on list using Koha to catalog archive collections? Someone
>>>> asked me for examples of libraries using Koha for this purpose and I
>>>> was just wondering if any of you happened to be doing this and if so
>>>> how have you found it to work?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks a bunch,
>>>> Nicole C. Engard
>>>>
>>>
> --
> Linda Culberson                 lculber at mdah.state.ms.us
> Archives and Records Services Division
> Ms. Dept. of Archives&  History
> P. O. Box 571
> Jackson, MS 39205-0571
> Telephone:  601/576-6873
> Facsimile:  601/576-6824
>
>
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>



-- 
Elaine Bradtke
Data Wrangler
VWML
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