[Koha] A very basic librarian question

[TSBC Librarian]

Hi George


* How should I go about developing a system for creating a call number? 
  Is there a "best practices" way of doing this?  (The vast majority of
  these videos are from fairly small publishers, or are even created
  in-house, so they won't have any official Dewey or LC numbers or
  anything.  So, I'm going to have to create a system from scratch, and
  I'd like to figure out the best way to do it.

I use Koha for a church library - well I have a theological college library,
and the church library is treated as a branch. Just to confuse things they
use different classification systems (Library of Congress for the college
and Dewey Decimal for the church.) I also have a lot of in-house created
DVDs. I have chosen not to use either classification system for the
audiovisual items. As you say, it is near impossible (and certainly
painfully slow) to do original cataloguing for in house items.

I also do volunteer work for the local public library where my current job
is changing the classification of their dvds in the catalogue. They have
metre and metres of shelving full of movies all shelved at 791.4371 followed
by the first three letters of the director's name. As no one knows (or gives
a toss) who the director is, it was impossible to find anything. They are
now shelving by genre (subject type). Each record will have the genre listed
in the 650 or 655 fields so they will show in a catalogue sort. The genre
also appears in the location. The item will now be shelved (in their genre
groups, eg science fiction, comedy, western, etc) with identifying icons for
the genre then a spine label saying dvd then first three letters of the
title (ignoring the, de, and, a, etc) for example Once were warriors shelved
at dvd ONC.

In my own library, the DVDs are listed chronologically as you originally
started yours as they are mostly in sets and even though the subject matter
within may change, I want to keep the sets together. Most of them are
conferences where each message relates to another. The borrower can browse
the whole set or search in the catalogue. This has meant watching most of
them myself to ascertain their subject headings (630, 650). I will leave
those like that.

The videos are currently numbered chronologically as you had but I will be
changing those to the system used in the public library. I do not want to
use Dewey as half my collection will be at 248.845 and therefore cause as
much confusion as being un-catalgued. I have a separate children's
collection and so the Vege tales would be there separate from heavy
theological works anyway. Sumo of the opera would be dvd SUM, the several
Larry Boy works would all be at dvd LAR but there probably wouldn't be
enough of them to worry about that. If you do have several copies of each
then (lucky you), you could number them, eg Larry Boy and the bad apple dvd
LAR1, Larry Boy and the Rumor weed dvd LAR2, etc. I won't be numbering mine.

* Where do I store this information in Koha?  I see fields that look
  like possibilities in 942h,i,k,m , but there are a lot of 0xx fields
  that look like possibilities as well.  I'm not sure which is the best
  field to use...

  (or maybe that information is part of the "Item", not the "Biblio"?
  In which case I should maybe put it into "o - Koha full card
  number" on the "Add Item" screen that follows the "Add MARC Record"
  page?)

I have found in koha that 852a is the field that shows the borrower where to
find the item on the shelf (and you can put anything you like in there - 050
and 082 are designated spots for LCC and DDC). 852 b) the collection name
(e.g.videos or junior) and e)the branch name don't seem to show in the OPAC
record. However, the information in 942 a) and c) must be filled in too as
they do show in the OPAC (how ours is set up anyway) also, the item will not
issue correctly if they are blank. Example of current video at
www.tsbc.org.nz/library search by barcode R00185 then select MARC view.

I have found the book "Learn descriptive cataloguing" by Mary Mortimer,
DocMatrix 2004, 252 p., 30 cm., ISBN 1876283432 very helpful.

Good luck with your decision making.


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Rae (Rachel) Jones
Librarian
The Shepherd’s Bible College
354 Te Aute Road, 
Havelock North 4172
P.O. Box 8229, 
Havelock North 4157
New Zealand
 
Ph. +64 6 877-8013
Fax. +64 6 877-5821
Mob: +64 21 059 7464
Email: library at tsbc.org.nz
TSBC Homepage: www.tsbc.org.nz 

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