[Koha] Investigating Koha: import formats

[Joe Tho]

Hello Lucy,
 
Your problem is fairly typical.
 
If you import data in some non-marc format, and map the pertinent fields to
their matching tags in the resulting marc records, you still wind up with
bad marc records. "Bad" meaning there is a complete marc record for that
material somewhere in the world and yours looks bad compared to it.
 
However, it would get you up and running. With bad records.
 
The value of a full complete marc record (in my opinion) is all the
additional data in it. Subject headings, etc. Also, since it is an
international standard, full marc records will allow you to make your
catalog searchable by other libraries using the marc standard (through z39
communication between servers). Non-marc or incomplete marc records don't
allow that. For example, if your incomplete marc records don'[t have any
subject heading tags, you can't search by that.
 
Alternatively, you can do a "full retro" where you find the correct marc
record for the material, download it into your system, add any local
information (torn pages, shelf location, call #, etc), slap on a barcode and
go on to the next one. Hiring a company to do a retro for you might be fifty
cents a record or so (at least), and they will need a shelf list with
whatever additional local info you can provide.
 
Perhaps a better solution would be to import your csv and turn it into marc
records, albeit incomplete marc records, and then fix those records as time
allows. As long as you don't share out your catalog (as a z39 server) with
other libraries, who's to know? Your patrons would only be able to search
via the information in those csv/incomplete records, which would improve as
you improve those records.
 
You need some more funding, girl. And automating your catalog is an easy one
to sell, in terms of grant proposals (are you in the US?). Aim high, include
$ for additional equipment (a lot), and include fat money for additional
staff salaries. You could hire a part-timer for like a year or two, and
teach them to do what needs to be done. 
 
Good luck!  
-Joe
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz
[mailto:koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Lucy Pearson
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 5:02 AM
To: Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
Subject: [Koha] Investigating Koha: import formats



Hi all,

I'm new to the list, and have only just begun investigating Koha, so
apologies if I ask any silly questions! I'm at the stage of investigating
Koha to see if it is suitable for my needs, and I'd really appreciate it if
I could draw on your collective expertise. I have a specific question about
Koha, but I'll also give a bit of detail on my circumstances, in case anyone
has any more general ideas which can help me.

A bit of background: I work for a new archive which has a relatively
substantial book collection (c. 20,000 items). Up until last year, these
were completely uncatalogued and unlisted, so we've been working on a
project to list our holdings. The plan is that once we have a handlist we
can assess the collection, weed substantially and then put in place a formal
cataloguing strategy. This last will include identifying a suitable LMS - we
use DServe's CALM for the archive material, and may also put the books on
there, but as it's primarily a museums / archive platform we have some
reservations about that. To get a handlist quickly, we've catalogued using
Readerware <http://www.readerware.com/>  , which lets you scan barcodes and
searches the web for the data associated with those ISBNs. Now we're at a
point where we would really like to make it easy for people outside our
library site to access this list, even though it's not a proper catalogue.
So, we basically need a web OPAC - Readerware is not at all equipped to
supply this. In the long term  it would be really good to be using a
standards-compliant library catalogue. so if I can migrate my data over to
Koha that would be great for forward-planning.

My Koha question: Is it possible to import data to Koha in CSV or
tab-delimited format? Unfortunately, none of my existing data has MARC
records - I can export into those tewo formats, so I need a database which
can accept those.

I strongly suspect the answer is no, but I wanted to be absolutely sure
before I abandoned Koha completely. In addition, I'm hoping that if this
isn't possible, this list of tech-savvy librarians might have good advice on
alternatives. At this stage, I don't actually need a full-scale LMS - I just
want a web app I can import my data to and which will allow users to seacrch
by title, author, etc. (I've already explored LibraryThing, but for various
reasons it's not really suitable.) It needs to be free software or very
cheap, because we're so low on funds and this is an interim project.If I
could get my data into Koha,a it would be perfect, because the full-scale
LMS features are there if we need them, and the organisation would be able
to buy in support if they found themseves without enough tech-savvy in
house.

Any advice? I'll be most appreciative of any and all help!

Thanks!

Lucy



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