[Koha] Re: repeating fields and dropped subfields

[kim at mad-seumas.net]

Carol,

Koha is very flexible and meets most library's needs.  The developers are
working hard towards making it MARC-compliant. The good news is that some
things can be tweaked. :)

For example, the repeating subfields you mention.  As you noticed, no repeated
subfields display in the OPAC, nor are they indexed.
Concatenating the string of subfields would be better than repeating the 650
field to get the number of subfields needed.
(It also better maintains the essence of the complete subject heading;  making
separate 650's breaks the relationship among the terms.)

Make a copy of your MARC record files, and use an intermediary conversion tool
such as MARC Maker/Breaker, to concatenate each 650 into one string.
Save the files and load them into Koha.
(There is a batch process to do all this. it's very easy).

This way, at least each word is now getting indexed and is searchable.
See, for example, the record for "Stop Aging Now" in Nelsonville's catalog.  The
subject heading "Herbs--Therapeutic use" is concatenated into one subfield, and
searchable by keywords "herbs" and "therapeutic use".

Whereas "Llewellyn's Herbal Almanac 2006", which also has the subject heading
Herbs-- Therapeutic use, but in separate subfields, is not found by that
keyword search.

Kim Scannell