[Koha] Koha questions on MARC setup

[Stephen Hedges]

Lee, I'll try to answer a couple of questions:

Harvey Lee said:
> 1. biblio-to-biblioitems relationship.
> I have read about the biblio-biblioitems-items relationship that Koha
> uses. But from what I can see, there seems to be a strict one-to-one
> relationship between every biblio record created and every biblioitems
> record created. In other words, for every book I enter there is always one
> biblio record and one biblioitems record created. It seems there is no way
> to have 2 biblioitems associated to the same biblio. Looking at the code,
> it looks like with the configuration MARC=on and acquisition=simple, this
> will always be the case. Is this true, or am I missing something?

No, you're not missing anything, it's true.  This comes about because of
the nature of MARC records, which are "two-part":  the basic bibliographic
information tags, plus some tags for holdings information.  When your try
to fit such records into the three Koha tables, the basic bibliographic
information gets split into the biblio and the biblioitems tables.  So
when you use MARC records, you end up with a one-to-one relationship
between your biblio records and your biblioitems records.  (When you don't
use MARC records, this doesn't happen.)

> 2. MARC links
> I've seen in previous posts/documents on the topic of creating links from
> MARC subfields to Koha fields that, for the items table, all MARC
> subfields must be in the same tag. This raises some questions:
> a- Can the other subfields of this tag that is not used for linking to an
> items field be used in other Koha fields (for instance, for a field in the
> biblioitems table)?

I think not.  Nelsonville actually splits it's MARC holdings tag into two
separate tags before records are imported (using the MARC::Record module)
to work around this.

> b- Is it legal to map the same subfield to 2 different Koha fields? For
> example, to map Dewey 082$a to both biblioitems.dewey and items.bulk?

Nope, Koha will keep the mapping that was defined last, not both.

> c- Out of curiousity, what MARC tag are people using for the items fields?
> I've seen both 852 and 952 mentioned, but 952 seems very limited in the
> number of subfields that can be used given the number of items fields that
> are available t be mapped.

I mentioned that Nelsonville splits theirs.  The original records before
import contain a 952 tag, but part of that information is split out into a
942 tag, which is then mapped to some biblioitems columns.

> d- I think I saw it mentioned that subfields of the same tag cannot be
> spread across more than one of the 10 tab pages; they must reside on the
> same tab page. Is this true?

The tabs are for displaying your MARC records, so I'm not sure why you
would want to split the display of any single tag.  (Do you mean like
having 245a in one tab and 245b in another?)  But I really don't know the
answer to this question.

> 3. editing an items record for an existing entry
> One field that I would like to have available to the librarian for editing
> is items.itemnotes. However, it seems that the items configuration page
> (additem.pl) is hidden behind the MARC configuration page (addbiblio.pl);
> one must select a biblio to edit and then save it before the items
> configuration page is shown. Is this the only way to reach this page?

So far as I know, unless you are willing to do some template
modifications.  (Someone else may have devised a secret shortcut.)

-- 
Stephen Hedges
Skemotah Solutions, USA
www.skemotah.com  --  shedges at skemotah.com