[Koha] Unique Barcodes across branches

[Jeramey Valley]

This, similar to Nora's situation, could work for us as well. The next issue is that we have a variety of physical barcodes, some with a "T", some with "00" and some flavors I've not found yet. We are going to re-barcode the ones that are non-standard for now and plan to roll over to branch-unique barcodes in the future.

Appreciate all the suggestions!

--

Regards, 

Jeramey Valley
Network Manager, Bullock Creek Schools
valleyj at bcreek.org




On Oct 21, 2014, at 4:35 PM, Jason Robb <jrobb at sekls.org> wrote:

> There's some magic in bug 7676
> <http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=7676> that
> provides a solution for this but it isn't built into Koha because it's
> somewhat incomplete and there are doubts and limitations surrounding it.
> You can read about those in the bug discussion.
> 
> Re-barcoding everything is ideal but it wasn't an option for us either. We
> were one of those consortia that *had *to have this functionality to be
> able to operate. It works for our specific situation.
> 
> How it works for us:
> Library A  has a prefix of 34311, Book A has a physical barcode of 12345
> Library B has a prefix of 34322, Book B has a physical barcode of 12345
> 
> When libraries are migrated into our catalog, legacy barcodes are modified
> to include the library's prefix and enough zeroes to bring to barcodes to
> 14 digits. So as far as Koha is concerned, Book A has a barcode of
> 34311000012345 and Book B has a barcode of 34322000012345. The physical
> labels on the items are still 5-digit barcodes that are identical.
> 
> When someone logged in as Library A checks in/out Book A, the 34311 is
> pre-appended, followed by enough zeroes to bring it up to 14 digits,
> resulting in: 34311000012345.
> 
> Likewise, when someone logged in as Library B checks in/out Book B, the
> 34322 is pre-appended, followed by enough zeroes to bring it up to 14,
> resulting in: 34322000012345.
> 
> The major/most important thing is that any items departing one library for
> another *must *be re-barcoded, that's a consortia-wide policy. If Book A
> makes it to Library B with an old 5-digit barcode, it pre-appends Library
> B's prefix instead of Library A's prefix resulting in a transaction of the
> wrong item. With 41 libraries slinging items back and forth things only
> slip through very rarely, and we've taught our libraries how to manually
> pre-append barcodes to keep things moving should an item with a legacy
> barcode arrive.
> 
> Jason Robb
> SEKnFind Coordinator
> jrobb at sekls.org
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 9:54 AM, Jeramey Valley <valleyj at bcreek.org> wrote:
> 
>> Looking more for confirmation here....
>> 
>> Multiple "independent" branches still require unique barcodes for each
>> item, correct?
>> 
>> I was under the incorrect assumption that there would be behind-the-scenes
>> magic that would tie barcodes to their home library/location and so there
>> could be the same barcode in use at multiple branches, each for a different
>> item.
>> 
>> As in:
>> 
>> Library 400
>> Book A, barcode 2001
>> 
>> Library 500
>> Book B, barcode 2001
>> 
>> I was looking forward to having one install with a shared catalog, patron
>> database and other "one stop management" functions.
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Jeramey Valley
>> Network Manager, Bullock Creek Schools
>> valleyj at bcreek.org
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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