[Koha] Accession numbers, again

[Elaine Bradtke]

Sorry, I'm a little fixated on this, partly due to the archival and
historical nature  of our collection. I am desperately looking for a
way to keep barcodes and accession numbers separate, but searchable.

A while back I asked where to put accession numbers and it was the
general consensus to put them in the barcode subfield (p) of 952.  I
understand why you do this, because it is a) part of the item
information and b) can be searched discretely.
But this means you have to print out your own barcodes, a process I
would rather avoid given our inflexible*** networked printer (which is
on a different floor!)

My questions, then.
If I decide to use some other subfield (perhaps adding one in)  how
hard would it be for my IT wizard to create a discrete search for it
in the staff mode (similar to the barcode search)? I suppose the
process would have to be repeated for each update of the software?

I experimented with putting it into the public note.  This displays
well enough, but you can't actually search on this field, and a string
of numbers in a keyword search brings up roughly half of the items in
my test collection.  Clearly, that's not very useful.

Is there any chance an accession number subfield in the item record is
in the pipline for a later release?

Or, alternatively, I could use some advice on barcode printing
equipment.  Stand alone barcode printers vs a desktop laser printer?
Does printing them yourself make sense if you've got 10,000+ items?
Unfortunately, our numbering system is a little quirky using similar
runs of numbers with different prefixes for different types of
material, so getting a straight run  of pre-printed labels would be
awkward, and matching them up to the material would be a heck of a
job.

Thanks for any help!
-- 
Elaine
 ***I usually use much stronger language when referring to this unholy
contraption.