[Koha] Barcode nightmare

[Seth Mayo]

We are gradually getting everything together to move to Koha from
Alice.  Many of you will remember that back in July I was trying out
various library systems and decided that Koha was a great system to
get on board with.

At this time of the year, the nitty-gritty of the system is going to
start getting looked at.  I have a few questions to ask regarding the
system but the most important one is:

Is there a way to force Koha to re-write barcodes on the fly?

Situation...

Our library happens to have two barcode formats on books (long story):

Type 1 Example: R36758W 2560
Type 2 Example: + 2560 013037 6

There are two problems with this - both having to do with our existing
system (Alice for Windows) not actually cataloguing the whole barcode.

Apparently when the system was set up, the following is what it was
set up to do (and thus what we need to achieve in Koha since changing
the barcodes on all the books is not an option):

Type 1 conversion:  R36758W 2560 has been stored as R36758 (string is
concatenated)
Type 2 conversion:  + 2560 013037 6 has been stored as R13037 (string
is rearranged and concatenated - ie. first 4 characters removed

The letter 'W' in the first type is randomised on the barcodes so
there is no way of recovering it.  The 'R' in the second type is
simply added to everything.

Any help with any of this would be appreciated.

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