[Koha] e-books as Koha items

[Elaine Bradtke]

Just to clarify
You have e-readers with e-books loaded on them already.
Is the content of each e-reader different or the same?

It sounds like you have an assemblage. Components that are separate
publications, but  housed in one physical unit. We have a similar situation
with bound together collections of pamphlets.  We made a parent (host)
biblio for the bound volume and individual records for each of the
pamphlets child (component records).  We  list all the children in the
formatted contents note of the parent record and link from the child
records to the parent record using the 773.
This is a child record, with link to the parent record Political pamphlets
from 1820.
http://catalogue.efdss.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=13278 -

 It is true we can't browse the shelf from the individual components
(children), but by looking at the contents note in the host (parent) record
it is possible to see what else is in that volume.
If the call number for the e-reader reflected the subject area of its
contents, that might help in browsing.

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 9:59 PM, Giuseppe Angilella <
Giuseppe.Angilella at ct.infn.it> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> soon after posting my message below, I realized that Koha indeed possesses
> this feature (to some extent). While on the e-book record, I can "Link to
> host item", and then select the barcode of the e-reader's specific item
> which actually contains that e-book.
>
> This should fix the main issue of keeping track of loans.
>
> The only drawback is that the call number of the e-reader would be the
> same for all the e-books contained in it, which would therefore not show up
> appropriately in the "Browse shelf".
>
> Giuseppe.
>
>
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2017, Giuseppe Angilella wrote:
>
> Hi,
>>
>> I've just started populating my library's catalog with e-book readers and
>> e-books.
>>
>> I've defined different item types for either e-readers and e-books, and
>> classified the former as "equipment" and the latter as "monographs" in the
>> appropriate MARC record fields (leader etc).
>>
>> For a given e-reader type (Kindle, say) I may have several items. These
>> are distinct, as they have a different serial number, and receive therefore
>> a distinct barcode. Similarly, they can be borrowed individually.
>> Therefore, they perfectly qualify as "Koha items".
>>
>> On the other hand, an e-book is entered as a specific record (which is
>> distinct from the record of the corresponding hardcopy, if also available),
>> with a cross-link to the e-reader's record in the 773 MARC field.
>>
>> Originally, I thought that no physical item should be attached to an
>> e-book, since it is the e-reader, and not the e-book, which can be
>> borrowed. However, this prevents the e-book to appear in the "Browse shelf"
>> feature, close to books with similar topic (which is very useful for
>> patrons).
>>
>> One solution might be that of restricting the e-book type to "no loan",
>> but then the cross-link to the appropriate e-reader would be contained in
>> the record (Koha's biblioitem), and not in the item (Koha's item), which
>> might be confusing for the patron.
>>
>> Another solution might be that of devising some kind of "virtual items".
>> Several "virtual items" (say, several e-books) could be mapped onto a
>> single (physical) "item", so that whenever the (physical) item is on loan,
>> all of the "virtual items" contained by it are also set "on loan". A
>> "virtual item" could then be shelved, receive a call number etc
>> appropriately, and therefore show consistently in Koha's "browse shelf"
>> feature.
>>
>> I would very much appreciate receiving your feedback on my thoughts above.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Giuseppe.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>



-- 
Elaine Bradtke
Data Wrangler
VWML
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