[Koha] Re: marc and stuff!

[Lora Morgaine]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking on this list for a while but would like to put in my two
cents. 

I work for a non-profit organization called the Technology Resource Center,
based in Seattle, Washington. We try to find ways to help alleviate the
digital divide, and are very involved in libraries in the USA and in Latin
America.

A small group of us have been working on making KOHA compatible with MARC
records and in general with libraries in North and South America. We are at
the point where we successfully import MARC records in full, and allow
editing on over 200 most-utilized fields and subfields. One can also create
a new MARC record, but cannot export records yet. 

We also altered the database structure significantly to import successfully
all fields, subfields, and indicators, and also changed the OPAC interface.
It was rewritten in PHP for more flexibility, as well. Because we have
changed so much of the system, we renamed ours to "OpenBook" - but it's
still an open-source system with code available to everyone. Our ultimate
goal is to help small libraries who wish to automate or move to less
expensive automation options.

Now, that said, it's not quite ready yet for public input and
troubleshooting. We will be ready for beta testing as of the US ALA
convention, on June 15 2001. I can send the link to the OPAC to anyone who
wants to try that out though. It does have problems still, we know, and
we're working on them. 

If you have questions or etc, please let me know. We give full credit to the
folks in New Zealand - without their structure this never would have come to
completion! We just hoped to change it for the N. American MARC standards in
cataloging, and change the OPAC to be more like US-based OPACs.

Right now, we only have OPAC and cataloging modules done. Circulation will
be forthcoming around September, possibly a bit later.

I hope that the members of this list will be interested in trying out the
OPAC and doing testing on cataloging for us...

Sincerely,

Lora Morgaine
TRC