[Koha] Advice for how to update huge numbers of bib records, for former Millennium user

[Ian Bays]

Hi Tasha (and Eric)

I see Eric has responded and I just wanted to encourage you to persevere 
as I think the facilities are there in Koha and with the selection using 
SQL your selection can be very precise.

I wanted to draft up some (fixed) SQL that pretty much does what you ask 
(which was why Eric beat me to it :-)

SELECT biblionumber
FROM biblio
WHERE biblionumber not in
     (SELECT biblionumber
      FROM aqorders
      WHERE orderstatus not in ('cancelled',
                                'complete'))
   AND biblionumber in
     (SELECT biblionumber
      FROM items
      WHERE LOCATION in ('BOOK',
                         'OPENACCESS'))
   AND author not like '%TODD%'
   AND biblionumber not in
     (SELECT biblionumber
      FROM items
      WHERE itemnotes_nonpublic like '%FREE%')

The above selects the biblionumbers for all orders not closed or 
complete, that don't have any items at the chosen locations, do not have 
TODD in the author statement and do not have "FREE" in the staff note 
for any items.

Running this report allows you to choose "Batch operations with 1000 
visible records" at a time. The action can either be "Batch Record 
Modification" or "Add to List".  I would suggest from what you say it 
would be good to create a list for each such global change.  That way 
you can add 1000 at a time to the list so you end up with a list (in 
your example) of around 40,000 records.  This way someone else can cast 
their eye over the SQL in the report and the titles in the list before 
committing the change.

Once you are happy with the list then you can use the "Batch Record 
Modification" in Tools to select your MARC Modification Template and use 
the list that has been created to make the change.

Do feel free to ask either on the list or off-list if you want any more 
help with it.

I have seen a few library management systems and facilities for batch 
bibliographic changes always seem complicated.  I think this is mainly 
because you have to be very careful in what you are doing.  The more 
practice a person gets with a particular way of doing it the easier it 
will become.

Good luck and ask if you need to.

Ian


On 21/01/2021 18:14, Bales (US), Tasha R wrote:
> What would be the Koha equivalent to Millennium Create Lists* (or Alma Normalization Rules and Record Sets)?
>
> So far, I see that lists and carts can be used to update records in Koha, but this seems to demand working with a pre-determined list of record numbers, or else by manually adding items to a cart.  What if I need to update a huge number of "unknown" records meeting specific criteria?
>
> Can anyone suggest what the approach would be to accomplish an objective like this:
>
> A non-administrator with limited technical skills needs to gather and update 40,000 bib records in Koha that can't be identified by any single unifying attributes.  My Millennium query might have looked like this:
>
> *         Bib record not attached to order AND
>
> *         (Location is Y or Location is X or Location is Z) and
>
> *         Author is not TODD and
>
> *         Note doesn't have FREE
>
> *Millennium Create Lists allows you to create a Boolean Search, with up to about 20 statements, to query the entire database (various methods to search subsets or existing result sets also exist) and saves it to a file that can then be exported, or operated on (to apply global updates to fixed or variable fields, for instance).  No knowledge of SQL is needed.
>
> Thanks in advance for any tips.  As an administrator, I could conceivably do this with SQL, but that's not feasible for cataloging staff.  We update large quantities of records all the time.
>
>
> Tasha R. Bales
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-- 
Ian Bays
Director, PTFS Europe Limited
Content Management and Library Solutions