[Koha] some thoughts about cataloguing and acquisition (important)

[Chris Cormack]

Hi All

[Big snip]

What I think the system should do is not force anyone to conform to
another's method of cataloging if at all possible :-)

One big reason the data is stored in marc and the non-marc koha format. Is
that HLT for whom the system was originally written, have no desire to ever
have to deal with MARC.

I think it would be a real shame if they lost that, so what my aim as a koha
developer is, is to make sure that those who want to see bibliographical
data in terms of a MARC record can. And those who dont dont have to.
> 
>     I think it is wasteful to have records in two different formats - one
> MARC and one non-MARC.  It means that if you want to move information from
> one to the other that you have to convert the data. Storing the information
> in one standard format makes much more sense to me.  In this I strongly
> agree with Regula!
> 
The computer scientest in me agrees also. We should have a fully normalised
database with no redundant data.
But there are many other considerations, the main one being speed of
searching. Data will undoubtedly need to be duplicated in order to achieve
fast search results. The trick is making sure the routines that handle the
data keep it all in sync.
Disk is cheap .. users patience with slow searches isnt :-)

Just some thoughts.

I must say im really enjoying the discussions on the lists lately. Lots of
positive input from many people.

Chris
--
Chris Cormack                                                     Programmer
025 500 789                                        Katipo Communications Ltd
chris at katipo.co.nz                                          www.katipo.co.nz