[Koha] Re: user comments

[Chris Cormack]

Hi Ed

On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 11:41:22PM -0500, Ed Haskell said:
> Here in the USA we are concerned that keeping this kind of information about 
> patrons' reading habits might be subject to examination by outsiders as the 
> result of a court order. If we don't keep it we can't reveal it.

A valid point, but the point i was attempting to make is we keep it whether
we make it displayable from a link in the librarians interface. Or whether
we dont.

The only way to not keep it, would be to delete an issue record when an item
is returned. Which would involve a big drop in functionality in koha. IE you
couldnt run any kind of reports over what items where issues where in a give
date period, or how many items where issued in branch such and such in the
last month say.

It could certainly be done, but youd have to make sure you had mysql logging
turned off as well, else you could retrieve all the data from there anyway.

Making the reading record not easily accessible could be done as a
configuration option easily. Making it completely unaccessible would involve
a fairly major rewrite.

I hope this makes sense (its friday afternoon my brain isnt running at
optimum capacity :) )

> 
> At the same time we wish our current system permitted it as a user option. 
> For example I would love to have a list of what I've read and I am 
> unconcerned about a court looking at the list. Another patron may not feel 
> that way.
> 
So only keep issues data for certain people? This also could be done, but
would involve a lot of work. However only presenting the data to certain
users would be an easy option.
And in fact is something HLT would like as well.

Chris