[Koha] Need Barcode Wisdom

[James Ghiorzi]

Dear Gwyan, 

How do you have the scanner connected?  USB, PS/2, WedgeSaver, etc.  The first step I would do is open a notepad, and scan the barcode there, if it does not scan correctly on either the generic or the Follett than its a matter of going through the programming manual and scanning the correct settings.  If it does scan correctly than I am at a loss of what the problem could be (other than its attached to a generic adaptor and not a proper WedgeSaver).  

Hope that helps,

James Ghiorzi
Library Assistant II
San Benito County Free Library
470 Fifth St.
Hollister, CA 95023
(831) 636-4107

________________________________________
From: koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz [koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Gwyan Rhabyt [gwyan.rhabyt at csueastbay.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 5:42 PM
To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
Subject: [Koha] Need Barcode Wisdom

I'm migrating a small elementary school library from Follett to Koha. All
has gone well until now. Our problem is a mismatch between the barcodes as
read by the scanner  which give readings like T 3210 and our biblios in
Koha which have the codes like T0003210.

At first I thought it was the Follett 3800 scanner that was dropping the
zeros, but a new generic scanner reads the same way.

So what is the easiest fix? I can imagine four but none sound easy:
1) Reprogramming the scanner -- seems possible but the manual is written
for a barcode expert (so many different formats and sub formats) -- how do
I express the kind of change I want to make in the language of scanner
firmware?
2) Batch changing the biblios from within Koha  -- it seems to support
batch work but you have to list the items. I can't work out how to make it
change every single record.
3) Batch changing via the MySQL database -- I don't know SQL, so there is a
serious learning curve
4) Going back to the MARC records, massing the barcode field there and then
reimporting -- I don't know how easy that would be in MarcEdit and I am
loathe to go that many steps backwards.

Could anyone provide some wisdom to help?

Cheers,
Gwyan
--

Gwyan Rhabyt
Associate Professor, Art Dept. and Multimedia Graduate Program
California State University East Bay
President of the Board of Trustees, Pacific School District
gwyan.rhabyt at csueastbay.edu
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