[Koha] support for LC call numbers, authority cross-references?

[baljkas at mb.sympatico.ca]

Tuesday, September 9, 2003    16:15 CDT

Hi, Robert,

Welcome to the list. I'm sure you'll find, as I have, that this is a great
little community of helpful folk. I'll attempt a quick answer to your
questions.

1) LC -- no, not *yet*. Ed Sharpe and many of the rest of this would like
to see it, and it is probably being worked on since the Koha cognoscenti
realise that it is in demand. Maybe Paul Poulain will be able to tell us
what stage LC-readiness is at.

2) Cross-reference authorities - this question was asked a while ago and I
think the answer was still no. There is an authority table, though, I
haven't had to use because I'm working with Koha on a family library
collection.
   I know it breaks the rules, but -- for those of us who've had to work
with systems that had no authorities, this was the only choice --there is a
way to 'rig' dummy bibliographic records that redirect patrons to other
headings.

3) Farsi (Persian) script support - I am sure that the answer to this would
be, 'Would you like to do the coding?' ;-) Seriously, I don't think Koha's
close to that level yet. Only a few costly ILS are capable of it, as far as
I've learned. Wouldn't it be serviceable to use the ALA-LC transliteration
tables for the mean time, though? There was someone asking about Arabic a
while ago now so perhaps there is some work being done on that. Pat Eyler
would probably now.

Best wishes to your librarian as she heads off to Afghanistan. What a great
project for your university to attempt, official or not! A friend of a
friend of mine was there last year with the UN helping set up their
government's economics stuff and he had a good experience (despite the lack
of running water at the time). All the best to her.

Cheers,
Steven F. Baljkas
library tech at large
Koha neophyte
Winnipeg, MB  CANADA