[Koha] How make item availability accessible via Z39.50?

[Mike Mason]

Liz,
thanks for that info.  It makes sense: $0 is for Withdrawn, $1 Lost, 
$4 Damaged, $7 Not for loan.
Would all of these have to have "authorised values" of 0 and 1 set up in them?
I wonder what is in $q if no date is there: 0 or blank?
Do you or anyone else out there know how an external Z39.50 client 
could be programmed to automatically check that there is no date in 
952$q and that the other 4 subfields are 0, in order to establish availability?
Sounds as if Koha should do this itself, and have a simple 
"Available/Not available" variable accessible to outside Z39.50 
clients.  I'll put it into Bugzilla.

Mike

At Tuesday 16/02/2010, you wrote:
>A while back, we asked a similar question of our LibLime support 
>folks. Here is what they told us:
>
>Here are the basic rules for
>  determining availability in Koha:
>
>  There is no single subfield indicating item availability.
>  All checked-out items have a date in subfield $q.
>  if there is no date in subfield $q then you must check subfields $0, $1, $4
>  and $7. If these four subfields all contain a 0, the item is available.
>
>I hope this helps you out. :)
>
>Liz Rea
>NEKLS
>
>On Feb 15, 2010, at 4:58 AM, Mike Mason wrote:
>
>>Hi all
>>
>>I'm a newbie configuring Koha (Liblime's Koha Express [release 
>>3.00.02.012]) for the first time.
>>Our library is part of a consortium of theological libraries that 
>>has a virtual union catalogue -- an OCLC site running Zportal -- a 
>>Z39.50 client that queries multiple servers similtaneously.  So I 
>>have to give the folks at OCLC info about how Koha stores data on 
>>Holdings in tag 952 so they can configure their Zportal to look for 
>>it.  I want the Z39.50 search result to show whether an item is 
>>AVAILABLE. Koha shows this in its own OPAC, but how can an external 
>>Z39.50 client find it? Is it in a MARC field/subfield? Our Liblime 
>>trainer suggested 952$q, but when I test this with Bookwhere, 
>>nothing is returned. Anyway, 952$q is 'checked out', and to be 
>>available, an item would have to be not only not checked out, but 
>>also not lost, not withdrawn etc.  Is availability stored in a 
>>mysterious Koha variable like biblioitem.available? (No such 
>>variable is listed in the Koha to Marc mapping table, as far as I 
>>can see). If it's a Koha variable not mapped into MARC, how can 
>>Zportal get to it?  It seems to manage with other ILS packages.
>>
>>Excuse my vast ignorance of library matters; I'm not even a 
>>librarian; kind of honorary computer support person.  I've had to 
>>learn more about MARC than I ever wanted to know, and I hate it already.
>>
>>Mike Mason
>>
>>
>>Cordially,
>>
>>Michael Mason
>>
>>
>>(Rev. Dr.) Michael Mason
>>Librarian & Director of I.T.
>>Redemptorist Seminary Library
>>10 Majella Ct.
>>Kew, Vic. 3101
>>
>>Phone: +61 3 9817 9758
>>Fax:     +61 3 9816 9805
>>Email: <mailto:M.Mason at ytu.edu.au>M.Mason at ytu.edu.au
>>_______________________________________________
>>Koha mailing list
>><mailto:Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
>>http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/attachments/20100216/d8864829/attachment.htm