[Koha] Migrate Alice for Windows
Emrys Minnig
emrysminnig at varndean.co.uk
Tue Jun 23 03:36:20 NZST 2009
I've looked at some of my old MARCs from Alice, and it looks like you can get item type/collection information from Alice's 245z, 995a or 995Z subfields, depending on your export format and how your catalogue and library are organised. Alternately, if the cataloguers consistently used the 300a (physical description subfield) you might be able to get useful item type info from there.
On a side note, I found that MarcEdit's 'Tools/Custom Sort' menu item was really useful to get my records organised/separated before manipulation, especially where there weren't cleanly corresponding subfields.
My mapping looked something like this (though yours might vary slightly):
ALICE 995 ---> KOHA 952 DESCRIPTION
$A or $j $o Shelf designation
$y $p Barcode no.
$D $g / $v Price
$W $d Acq. date
021a 020a ISBN
$y Koha itype
$8 Koha ccode
? $0 Withdrawn (bool)
? $1 Lost (bool)
? $4 Damaged (bool)
? $7 Not-for-loan (bool)
$b Sub-loc. (holding branch)
$c Shelving loc. (int; LOC auth. val.)
$2 Shelving scheme (ddc or lc)
040 (maybe) $a Location (home branch)
For all of the rows where I didn't list a field/subfield on the Alice side of the chart, I used MarcEdit to assign the relevant values by sticking them onto the 952 field. Because I didn't import lost/withdrawn items, it made the assignment of several fields very easy. I suspect that Alice stores the values with that I marked with a ? in the 995 $E, $F, $H and/or $U fields... or perhaps one of these Alice subfields could contain a key value relating to a borrower? You should be able to tell with some further testing.
Alternately, you could play around with the Koha-to-MARC mapping, but IMO I thought it better not to mess about too much with Koha's vanilla MARC framework.
I'm happy to help with any further questions, as I know what a load of useless rubbish Alice is.
Emrys
________________________________
From: Seth Mayo [mailto:smayo at stpeters.nsw.edu.au]
Sent: Sat 20/06/2009 01:29
To: Emrys Minnig
Subject: RE: [Koha] Migrate Alice for Windows
Good point...I'll try exporting as a different MARC flavour and see what changes. It is interesting to find out that my Alice isn't the same as your Alice. I'm glad I'm moving away from it.
If you can find your notes sometime, they may help but don't rush to do so. What we're able to do with the current imported data is enough to see how it will work and for me to start showing library staff the system, we'll just have to find out if we need to import different types separately when we do the real thing which isn't for a while still.
Have a great time at the festival and a great weekend!
-Seth
Emrys Minnig <emrysminnig at varndean.co.uk> wrote:
>It looks to me like your Alice info is organised a bit differently than mine was. On our Alice system, individual item info existed in a 995 field. Thus, if there were two items attached to a particular biblio, there were two =995 lines on the end of the MARC. Perhaps you could experiment by exporting a record from Alice with a different MARC flavour, dumping it into MarcEdit and seeing if a similar field shows up.
>
>(In other words, the 995 field from my Alice system seemed to correspond with Koha's 952 field far more than the 852 field from your Alice.)
>
>I don't remember how I handled individual item types. I'll have to dug up my notes or trawl through the the record dumps from Alice and then let you know. As for tonight, the Lewes Real Ale festival has just started and I'm already 15 minutes late! To teh train station!
>
>Emrys
>
>________________________________
>
>From: Seth Mayo [mailto:smayo at stpeters.nsw.edu.au]
>Sent: Fri 19/06/2009 08:00
>To: Emrys Minnig
>Cc: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
>Subject: Re: [Koha] Migrate Alice for Windows
>
>
>
>So the mapping and changing in MARCedit seems OK now. However, I
>still have a couple more questions for you.
>
>1. There seems to be Alice fields missing in the export and I'm
>wondering what you did about this or if there is an Alice setting to
>correct it. I entered a fake 'book' into both systems and exported to
>MARC for comparison. The following are the results. Note in 852 of
>the Alice export there are no subfields for missing, supplier,
>shelving location, acquisition date, etc. In the Koha export these
>subfields are present. Did you have this problem? Did you manually
>input it, just leave it out or did you find a way to export it?
>
>Sample Alice export:
>=LDR 00612nam 22002171a 4500
>=020 \\$a1234567890$c0.00
>=040 \\$aSt. Peter's Anglican Primary - Library
>=082 \\$aF$bAUT
>=100 \\$aAuthor 1
>=245 \\$aThis book is a test$cby Seth Mayo$h[Text]
>=250 \\$aEdition$bAdditionalEdition
>=260 \\$aPublisher Place$bPublisher$c2009
>=300 \\$aPhysicalDesc
>=440 \\$aSeries$vPart
>=500 \\$aNotes
>=600 \\$aSubject 1
>=600 \\$aSubject 2
>=658 \\$aC.A.P.A.
>=700 \\$aAuthor 2
>=850 \\$aSt Peter's Anglican School
>=852 \\$kLocation$hF$iAUT$pR432252560$97.65$t0$zComment
>
>Sample Koha export:
>
>=LDR 00701nam a22002417a 4500
>=008 090619t\\\\\\\\xxu|||||\||||\00|\0\eng\d
>=020 \\$a1234567890
>=040 \\$aSt Peters
>=082 \\$aF$bAUT
>=100 \\$aAuthor, 1$91
>=245 \\$aThis book is a test$cby Seth Mayo$h[Text]
>=250 \\$aEdition$bAdditionalEdition
>=260 \\$aPublisher Place$bPublisher$c2009
>=300 \\$aPhysicalDesc
>=440 \\$aSeries$vPart$92
>=500 \\$aNotes
>=600 \\$aSubject 1$93
>=600 \\$aSubject 2$94
>=658 \\$aC.A.P.A.$95
>=700 \\$aAuthor, 2$96
>=942 \\$2ddc$cBOOK
>=999 \\$c7$d7
>=952 \\$pR432252560$40$eSupplier1$00$6F_AUT$93$bSPAPS$10$oF
>AUT$d2009-06-19$t0$zComment$70$2ddc$g7.65$yBOOK$aSPAPS
>
>2. How did you tackle the importing of different types of resources?
>For example I've been working on the assumption that all resources are
>of type 'Book' or 'Text' when in actual fact the library has cameras,
>CDs, DVDs, audio resources, video resources, etc. Did you manually go
>through and change all these records or did you export them in stages
>and import them in stages accordingly or did you take a different
>approach all together?
>
>Thanks for your continued help in this transition and for patiently
>helping me with my questions. The goal at this point is to learn as
>much as I can about how everything needs to be transitioned, how to
>customise the Koha system and how to use it. By learning these now we
>hope to be able to provide training throughout the second half of this
>school year so when we do our 'production' transition in the summer
>everyone will be ready to run with the system for the next year.
>
>Seth Mayo
>IT Technical Manager
>Email: smayo at stpeters.nsw.edu.au
>-------------------------------------------------------
>St Peter's Anglican Primary School
>Howe Street
>Campbelltown NSW 2560
>PH: 02 4627 2990
>Website: http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/> <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/>
>
>
>
>
>
>2009/6/18 Emrys Minnig <emrysminnig at varndean.co.uk>:
>> Sorry... I responded to your second email before I read your first one.
>>
>> I moved the system over to Koha during the summertime, when all of our books should have been (in theory) returned. In reality, though, I ran a separate Alice overdue list and manually set lost statuses and put notes on students' records. This method was only practical due to the small size of our library (and because I'm the librarian). I'm not immediately aware of a way to automate the process, though I suppose it could be done by writing some kind of script to manipulate Koha's 'issues' table. (Koha stores issue information in a separate table from item information.)
>>
>> Copy information came through fine after using MarcEdit, though I had purged lost and long overdue items from Alice before exporting the MARC data in order to avoid complicating things.
>>
>> As for student/staff data, I didn't bother to move it from Alice at all, as entries were fairly inconsistent anyway. Instead, I compiled a CSV file from an export directly from the school's central database, using the guidelines from Koha's 'Import Patron Tool' page.
>>
>> Good luck!
>>
>> Emrys
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: Seth Mayo [mailto:smayo at stpeters.nsw.edu.au]
>> Sent: Thu 18/06/2009 02:08
>> To: Emrys Minnig
>> Subject: Re: [Koha] Migrate Alice for Windows
>>
>>
>>
>> What process did you follow to migrate? In other words, what did you
>> migrate, when and how?
>>
>> My biggest concern was the compatibility and obviously that is
>> possible as you have done it. I tried again yesterday to import and
>> managed to get resources into the system in much the way you
>> described. However, the fields didn't match. What you mentioned
>> about MarcEdit should fix that and I'll work on that now. Next the
>> thing to work out are the following:
>>
>> Did your copies information import correctly?
>> How did you transfer the loan information (eg. the status of
>> particular books having been loaned out currently)?
>>
>> Thanks for your help. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you but
>> I'll try not to take up too much of your time.
>>
>> Seth Mayo
>> IT Technical Manager
>> Email: smayo at stpeters.nsw.edu.au
>> -------------------------------------------------------
>> St Peter's Anglican Primary School
>> Howe Street
>> Campbelltown NSW 2560
>> PH: 02 4627 2990
>> Website: http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/> <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/> <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2009/6/17 Emrys Minnig <emrysminnig at varndean.co.uk>:
>>> I successfully migrated from Alice to Koha 3. I used Alice's 'Export to USMARC' utility to dump all the records into a .dat file.
>>>
>>> Next, using MarcEdit (free from oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/), I moved item information from Alice's 999 subfields to Koha's 952 subfields (if I remember right).
>>>
>>> Then, I used Koha's 'Stage MARC records' utility to populate the catalogue.
>>>
>>> If you have any other questions, feel free to email me.
>>>
>>> Emrys Minnig
>>> Varndean School
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>>
>>> From: koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz on behalf of Seth Mayo
>>> Sent: Wed 17/06/2009 03:54
>>> To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
>>> Subject: [Koha] Migrate Alice for Windows
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Has anyone migrated Alice for Windows to Koha?
>>>
>>> Alice for Windows hasn't been working right in our school for while
>>> and I'm looking to change to Koha. However I haven't been able to get
>>> the exported MARC file to import. Unfortunately I don't know much
>>> about MARC but basically what I've done is the following.
>>>
>>> 1. Used the Alice for Windows 'Export to MARC' function to dump a
>>> MARC 21 .dat file
>>> 2. Set up the environment variables for bulkmarcimport.pl
>>> 3. Run bulkmarcimport.pl to import the data which returned that 21000
>>> odd items were imported
>>> 4. Found there were no more items in the database than before.
>>> 5. Tried uploading it to import through the 'reservior' method and it
>>> gave me a report that there were the same number of records but that
>>> there were MARC errors on each one.
>>>
>>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Seth Mayo
>>> IT Technical Manager
>>> Email: smayo at stpeters.nsw.edu.au
>>> -------------------------------------------------------
>>> St Peter's Anglican Primary School
>>> Howe Street
>>> Campbelltown NSW 2560
>>> PH: 02 4627 2990
>>> Website: http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/> <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/> <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/> <http://www.stpeters.nsw.edu.au/>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Koha mailing list
>>> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
>>> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha <http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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