[Koha] FW: How to link authority data via existing number?

[Michael Kuhn]

Hi Ray

Thanks for your message! Today you wrote:

 > Has anyone else responded- I don't see anything in the Koha List, and
 > I am a bit shy (zurückhaltend?) to respond on-list.

No, unfortunately noone has responded until now. Thus I was looking 
through the mailinglist archive and eventually found posting 
https://lists.katipo.co.nz/public/koha/2021-January/055713.html where 
Katrin Fischer said to her knowledge there is currently no way to avoid 
this renumbering.

 > I've never quite liked the policy of the bibliographic record control
 > number in Koha being 999$c rather then being in MARC 001. So most of
 > our records moved from the Voyager LMS had the old Voyager RCN remain
 > in 001 (and so were utterly useless), and the new RCN
 > (biblio.biblionumber) was added as 999$c as the record was added at
 > migration. But the authority record control number appears to be
 > different. Unlike it being in the AUTH 999$c (there's nothing so nice
 > as consistency!) it appears to be the MARC 001.
 >
 > So is it a situation that when the authority records have been loaded
 > into Koha, the authid written to the authority 001 starts at 1 and
 > increased sequentially has over-written the local (former LMS)
 > authority control number?

No it does not overwrite a number already existing in MARC 001. An 
authority record with content in MARC 001 just remains unlinked.

If MARC 001 is empty the linker adds a new number and links title data 
records to that new number.

With "linker" I mean the Perl script "link_bibs_to_authorities.pl" using 
the following system preference (standard) settings:

* CatalogModuleRelink: Don't
* LinkerKeepStale: Don't
* LinkerModule: default
* LinkerOptions: (empty)
* LinkerRelink: Do

 > If that's what's going on, and if the authority for Ralph Lansky is
 > the 704th authority record loaded, the AUTH 001 will be 704 and
 > STA101744 will be thrown away? Then when the relinker runs it will
 > create an biblio 100 thus:
 >
 > 100 1\$9 704$a Lansky, Ralph
 >
 > You ask: "How can we successfully link title data records via existing
 > numbers in MARC 001 of the authority record?". I have no idea... maybe
 > you can't, and you have to accept the Koha-assigned authid.

For the moment I believe it is not possible to load existing authority 
data with given numbers and link them in a proper way to existing title 
data records using these numbers. Instead it is only possible to use the 
linker which indeed produces links but not according to the original 
linking. So the produced links are in many ways wrong and the linker 
leaves many authority records unlinked.

Of course this will be a problem for example when you have two (or more) 
identical names which don't identify the same person/corporation/topic. 
It is an even bigger problem in other cases but I won't go deeper into that.

Best wishes: Michael
-- 
Geschäftsführer · Diplombibliothekar BBS, Informatiker eidg. Fachausweis
Admin Kuhn GmbH · Pappelstrasse 20 · 4123 Allschwil · Schweiz
T 0041 (0)61 261 55 61 · E mik at adminkuhn.ch · W www.adminkuhn.ch



 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Koha <koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz> On Behalf Of Michael Kuhn
 > Sent: 18 March 2022 20:43
 > To: Koha <koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>
 > Subject: [Koha] How to link authority data via existing number?
 >
 > Hi
 >
 > In our library we are migrating from our current system to Koha 21.11.
 >
 > We have migrated existing authority data and created for example
 >
 > Title data record
 > * MARC 100$9 STA101744
 > * MARC 100$a Lansky, Ralph
 >
 > Authority data record (PERSO_NAME)
 > * MARC 001 STA101744
 > * MARC 100$a Lansky, Ralph
 >
 > Both kinds of records were successully loaded, after that we tried to 
link these records using script "link_bibs_to_authorities.pl" but it 
failed. We expected this would create a link between title record and 
authority record via number STA101744 but instead the content of MARC
 > 001 of the authority record was surprisingly replaced by a new number 
and it linked only to one title record that didn't have content in MARC
 > 100$9 but did contain (another) "Lansky, Ralph" in MARC 100$a. While 
the actual records containing MARC 100$9 STA101744 were not linked to 
the authority record and seem to have been ignored.
 >
 > How can we successfully link title data records via existing numbers 
in MARC 001 of the authority record?
 >
 > Best wishes: Michael
 > --
 > Geschäftsführer · Diplombibliothekar BBS, Informatiker eidg. 
Fachausweis Admin Kuhn GmbH · Pappelstrasse 20 · 4123 Allschwil · 
Schweiz T 0041 (0)61 261 55 61 · E mik at adminkuhn.ch · W www.adminkuhn.ch