[Koha] Looking for more Serials Documentation help

[Hernandez, Heather]

Hi!

I have to admit that we find the serials module to be rather baffling.
Although we are using it to check in new issues so that our patrons can get
an email notification when new issues arrive, I couldn't really tell you
why it's doing what it's doing, and I have to say that I'm far from
understanding it.  And I'm no serials system newbie--I've been using such
systems since the days of Innovacq way before ILS's were twinkles in the
eyes of developers--but getting our subscriptions to behave in a 'good
enough' manner on Koha seems to have been rather hit and miss, and I
haven't taken the time to fine tune them.

I also haven't taken the time to figure out claiming, since I wasn't sure
it would be a better solution than just walking around our Reading Room
every now and then to eyeball what hasn't come in and just shooting an
email off to the publisher to get our missing issue(s).  Granted, we don't
have a lot of current subscriptions!  We also gave up on using Koha for
acquisitions except for storing subscription vendors, since it doesn't meet
our needs--federal purchasing is a bit byzantine, and we have no money to
contribute towards developments.

I'll keep my eyes open when receiving issues for subscriptions that could
benefit from some work, and will try to compare things with the manual--if
I can contribute anything, I'd be happy to do it--but I may just be
contributing more questions!

Cheerio,
heather
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heather Hernandez
Technical Services Librarian
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Research Center
heather_hernandez at nps.gov
415-561-7032 (voice)       415-556-3540 (fax)
http://www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/museum-collections.htm

"The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail."--Gustaf Lindborg