[Koha] Differentiating multiple topic term thesauri in authorities

Fri Feb 12 10:51:41 NZDT 2010

My library uses both Library of Congress Subject Headings and MeSH in our bibliographic records.  We're looking to upload the MeSH vocabulary into Koha Authorities, and I'm wondering how we can go about distinguishing authority headers from MeSH from those from LCSH (or other sources).

Both headings are stored in the USMARC 650 field.  They use different second indicators to delineate source; LCSH is 0, MeSH is 2.  In the MARC, this is the only way to tell which source a header in a bibliographic record comes from.

I would think I should create a new Authority Type for MeSH, but it's MARC framework would be exactly the same as TOPIC_TERM, since the MARC frameworks do not currently factor in indicators in any way.  Looking at the code bulkauthimport.pl, which looks at whether the incoming record has certain MARC fields (100 for PERSO_NAME, 150 for TOPIC_TERM, etc.), the mappings are hardcoded.  That is, there is no way for me to specify that these incoming MARC authorities, which have 150 fields in them, are MeSH and not TOPIC_TERM.

What's the best way to deal with this?  Should I patch the bulkauthimport.pl code to allow for specification of the Authority Type?  Alter the MARC Frameworks code to respect indicators?  Or should I just let MeSH and LCSH co-mingle freely?  I think our catalogers would really prefer to have the source of the authority clearly marked when they're editing records; MeSH is more important to us by far than LCSH in most cases.

Have any of you out there dealt with multiple subject heading sources before in your Koha installations?  Do you have any best practices?

Cheers,

Ian Walls
Systems Integration Librarian
NYU Health Sciences Libraries
550 First Ave., New York, NY 10016
(212) 263-8687

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