[Koha] New to KOHA

[Joshua Ferraro]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 08:29:18AM -0600, Marie Wardall wrote:
> So the Dolphin Scanners that we have right now that we use 
> for inventory could be re-programmed to work with the KOHA 
> system if we had someone do that for us. Our Network Manager 
> I'm thinking could do this.
In fact, you wouldn't strictly need to re-program them. Koha
could certainly handle the full 10-digit barcode. It all 
depends on what you want it to look like when you manually
type the barcode in. Feel free to catalog a book in the 
LibLime demo to prove to yourself that the barcodes will
work. Or if you send me a couple of your MARC records I will
import them into the demo so you can try them out.

Of course, you could also program Koha to remove those last
three digits as well... (it's a one-line change in two
places).

Joshua


> Marie J. Wardall
> IMC Coordinator
> Rothschild Elementary School
> 810 First Street
> Rothschild, WI  54474
> mwardall at dce.k12.wi.us
> Phone: 715-359-3186 ext.5424
> FAX: 715-355-3723
> Fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.
> Arthur Schopenhauer
> 
> >>> "Stephen Hedges" <shedges at skemotah.com> 2/26/2006 3:06 PM >>>
> Marie Wardall said:
> [...]
> > *Barcodes-Our current barcodes are 5 digits long with a leading T for a
> > material barcode and a leading P for a patron barcode.
> 
> Joshua noted that Nelsonville Public Library still uses the Follett patron
> barcodes, so I can give you some extra information here.
> 
> Follett uses Interleaved 2-of-5 symbology in their barcodes, but the
> scanned codes are then manipulated by their system so the user only sees a
> "T" or a "P" and no more than five digits.  If you scan these barcodes
> with a non-Follett scanner in a text editor, you will see that the
> barcodes are actually always 10 digits long:  the visible digits (no "T"
> or "P") with leading zeros to pad the number to 7 digits, plus three more
> digits that tell the Follett software a little more about the barcode
> (such as if it is a "T"itle or a "P"atron barcode).  For example, if the
> Follet library card had the number "P 1234" printed on it, an
> off-the-shelf scanner would read something like "0001234999."
> 
> Most vendors of barcode scanners know how to program their products for
> Follett systems, so they can sell to schools that use Follett.  Those same
> vendors can help you program your scanners to simply remove the last three
> digits.  Then the barcode example above would look like "0001234" when
> scanned into Koha.  Staff quickly get used to making this conversion in
> their heads if they need to type in a number manually.  Works fine.  (But
> don't expect the Follett folks to help you with the scanner programming,
> of course!)
> 
> -- 
> Stephen Hedges
> Skemotah Solutions, USA
> www.skemotah.com  --  shedges at skemotah.com 
> 
> 
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-- 
Joshua Ferraro               VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS