[Koha] Re: Questions about Koha

[Bigwood, David]

Amber,

I can't say if it is the system for you, too many variables. Before you begin a retrospective conversion (fancy term for moving to an automated system) get your collection ready.

1st and most important: Weed the collection. No sense wasting time and effort on worthless items.  See the SUNLINK Weed of the Month program page for some very helpful tips. http://www.sunlink.ucf.edu/weed/

Then get your collection in order. Make sure your cards have an ISBN, proper copy information, call number prefixes are standard, etc. if you will be working from the cards. Learn about MARC most importantly the holding field and what goes where there. There is some helpful advise at http://www.dgiinc.com/advice/main.html on getting ready. I'm sure there is plenty more. Read about other retrospective conversions and see what they wished they had done different.

The tool MarcEdit has a very basic Z39.50 client as well as some useful tools. http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/index.html Download it for free.

This work will pay off no matter what system you decide best fits your situation.

Sincerely,
David Bigwood
bigwood at lpi.usra.edu
Lunar & Planetary Institute
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/library/whats_new.shtml
Catalogablog
http://www.catalogablog.blogspot.com


-----Original Message-----
From: koha-admin at lists.katipo.co.nz
[mailto:koha-admin at lists.katipo.co.nz]On Behalf Of Rosalie Blake
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 3:30 PM
To: Amber Amland
Cc: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
Subject: [Koha] Re: Questions about Koha


Hello Amber
Welcome to the Koha community. I've taken the liberty of copying 
your email to koha at lists.katipo.co.nz, because I know there are 
people there who can give you a better answer than I can on your 
specific question about transferring MARC records. My libraries are 
not yet using the new version, and we don't download MARC 
records, so I can't comment on that aspect, but I can tell you that we 
are very happy with Koha. It meets our needs as a public library, 
and it is quite flexible in terms of specific needs of school libraries. I 
am sure you will find it worth further investigation.
Good Luck
Rosalie


On 14 Sep 2004, at 22:38, Amber Amland wrote:

> Dear Rosalie Blake,
> 
> I'm the secondary librarian at a small international school in
> Southeast Asia that uses U.S. based curriculum.  We have a card
> catalog and would like to move to an automated library system.  I
> discovered Koha while doing some research online on library systems. 
> How is it working for you?  We have about 6,500 titles in the high
> school and would like to also automate our elementary library (fewer
> titles) in the future and link it to the secondary library. Would Koha
> be a good option for us?  How is the new version working with
> downloading MARC records and using the Z39.50 search tool?  This is my
> first time automating a library system.
> 
> Thank you!    
> Amber Amland
> Librarian
> Mountainview ICS
> amamland at yahoo.com
> 
> 
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Rosalie Blake
Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust