[Koha] Item types in Koha
Joy Nelson
joy at bywatersolutions.com
Sat Feb 4 05:38:27 NZDT 2017
Yes, something as simple as what to call something can inflame strong
passions! I am planning to be at the hackfest and would love to discuss.
I often do better with examples in front of me to make points or understand
others. I'm visually wired that way.
In the migrations we do, we minimize the biblio itemtype (942/099) tag. We
focus much more on items. And yes, most often the libraries add items to a
biblio record that have the same itemtype as the main bibliographic
record. I think consortiums would be an exception to this rule. (Library
a calls it a BOOK, library B calls it a JUVBOOK)
I do like the idea of indexing these separately and being able to search on
them separately. But I wonder if the "Item type category" I mentioned will
make this indexing not needed? For us, as you mention, the real benefit to
the biblio itemtype (942/099) is bibliographic records without items.
to the point on one of your questions: Does the community think it's a good
idea to add a "bibliographic type", to qualify records, with specific
indexes and search features so that we can differentiate clearly the
typology set up at the bibliographic level and the one at the item level?
I would say...maybe. I like 'bibliographic type' much better than
'record type'. For US libraries, 'record type' is the value that is coded
in the leader/008 tags.
I can tell you I'll be paying attention to this in our migrations and
observing how libraries react to this. I'll check with our education staff
as well to see if they encounter confusion and if they have any suggestions.
joy
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 9:52 AM, Gaetan Boisson <gaetan.boisson at biblibre.com>
wrote:
> Thanks for the input Joy. It's a discussion that has caused actual
> flamewars here, so i'll try to make it not too complicated! Maybe a topic
> for the next hackfest too.
>
> -- to the point version : --
>
> Does the community think it's a good idea to add a "bibliographic type",
> to qualify records, with specific indexes and search features so that we
> can differentiate clearly the typology set up at the bibliographic level
> and the one at the item level?
>
> The item-level_itypes system preference would remain the same, and would
> allow libraries to choose which of these two criterias they want to use for
> circulation rules. It would then of course be possible to have a set-up
> where only one of the two levels is used, but having both would be
> possible, and wouldn't be too confusing.
>
> -- convoluted version : --
>
> Catalogs aren't frbr-ized in France either, and we usually have one record
> for the ebook, and one for the print, a different for each edition, etc.
> (Maybe my example wasn't so great...) Libraries also tend to have a number
> of records without items, which makes the record-level type mandatory in
> most cases. They also tend to have elaborate circulation rules for their
> items, which makes an item-level type mandatory as well.
>
> I am confused by your first paragraph though. You seem to say US libraries
> will have a record for each type, but the system preference is always set
> to item level. Wouldn't the type be the same for all items then?
>
> I think we cannot really get rid of the 942$c (which for some reason is in
> 099$t in French unimarc set-ups), it makes sense in a lot of situations,
> not least when a record has no items. It doen't have to be renamed to
> "record type" though. I would say Koha has two entities here which need a
> type : Biblios and Items. So it could be "biblioitem type" to be consistent
> with the odd name in the database. Or "bibliographic type" which sounds
> better if you ask me.
>
> I think they should be indexed separately, and deserve separate checkboxes
> lists in the advanced search, maybe even separate facets.
>
> Right now for me the issue really has a lot more to do with terminology
> than with features. In a lot of situations, we just create an authorized
> value that we use at the bibliographic level, with a specific index, use
> the item-type at the item level for circulation rules, and we have a setup
> that fits our need and makes sense. But then, the item level type is called
> "type de document" everywhere in the interface, and that drives some
> librarians insane.
>
> We could start right now by changing the translation at least to "type
> d'exemplaire" (which is anyway more consistent with the terminology in the
> english templates), but i'll take this issue to the French part of the
> community!
>
> Le 03/02/2017 à 01:13, Joy Nelson a écrit :
>
>> Gaetan,
>> I've spent some time pondering this. I have not encountered the
>> confusion that you seem to have run into. It may be a difference in how
>> 'things' are cataloged in the US versus Europe. In the US, catalogs are by
>> and large not FRBR-ized. We rarely run into a situation where libraries
>> will place different types of items onto a single MARC record. Typically
>> there is a MARC record that is specific to E-books, another MARC record for
>> the second edition print version, another MARC record for the large print
>> version. It seems US catalogers prefer to have things separate in the
>> catalog. So for the vast majority of our libraries that system preference
>> is never considered. It is set to item-level_itypes is set to the item
>> level, not the Bibliographic level.
>>
>> I do appreciate your discussion on the searching aspect of the catalog.
>> The biggest use I see in the 942 'itemtype' is for eresources. Often those
>> bibliographic records have no item records in the catalog. So the 942$c is
>> needed to be able to search for those titles. And yes...this is where we
>> too run into confusion explaining 'itemtype' at the bib-level versus
>> 'itemtype' at the item level. I can see value in renaming the 942$c the
>> Record Type. Would we then introduce confusion by explaining that the
>> 'item type' search searches both Record Type and Itemtype? Further, for US
>> catalogers, 'record type' is something that is coded in the leader and the
>> 008 tag of the MARC record. So I would anticipate we would see significant
>> confusion from catalogers with the use of 'record type'.
>>
>> One library I am working with now is interested in using the itemtype
>> category to help with patron searching. So a DVD, VHS, BLU-RAY items could
>> all be assigned to the VIDEO itemtypecat. When the patron searches VIDEO,
>> (and assuming they don't care about the format), they would see a result
>> list containing all the itemtypes. This is new territory for me, so I'm
>> excited to explore this with them. (Thank goodness they have a test server
>> we can play on before implementing on production). For me, this seems to
>> be another way to use a 'higher level type' to group items into 'like'
>> types, while still maintaining the circulation item level rules. Perhaps
>> another way out is to get rid of the 942$c altogether? That would make me
>> happy.
>>
>>
>> Interesting discussion.
>>
>> joy
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 9:46 AM, Gaetan Boisson <
>> gaetan.boisson at biblibre.com <mailto:gaetan.boisson at biblibre.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> there's a part of the Koha set-up i found always creates a lot of
>> confusion with new libraries: the possibility of having the item
>> type taken into account for circulation rules at the item or at
>> the bibliographic level (the item-level_itypes system preference).
>> Things are to a certain extent made worse by the French
>> translation for item type, which translates back to "document
>> type". That translation does make sense to some extent though,
>> because if you decide to use "bibliographic level item types" then
>> "item types" sounds like the wrong name. In a lot of libraries you
>> do want to have a list of document types here, but not always.
>>
>> There are 2 features behind this : identifying item types (search
>> and display), and defining circulation rules. Koha allows you to
>> separate both, and a common scenario is to have the system
>> preference at item level, and a different piece of information at
>> the bibliographic level. This is because at the bibliographic
>> level, you can say for instance that this record is of the "novel"
>> type, and indeed all items attached to it will be novels, and it
>> has a couple items, one of which is a physical copy, another one
>> is an ebook, and a third one is a physical copy as well, but
>> linked to different circulation rules for some reason. So usually
>> the type at the bibliographic level makes a lot of sense for
>> searching, and the one at the item level much less. Unfortunately
>> in that case, the one at the item-level will be the one used for
>> searching, identifying, etc.
>>
>> I am curious to know whether the current wording and situation is
>> confusing for other users as well.
>>
>> My proposal would be to add a "record type", that would look very
>> much just as "item type" does. The system preference could be
>> reworded but the feature remain the same. It would just clarify
>> things, and we could get rid of the "document type" terminology,
>> which currently, in French, ends up being very confusing since
>> most of the time it defines circulation rules and is not linked to
>> what librarians would see under the "document type" taxonomy. My
>> guess is that in English, there's a similar ambiguity with "item
>> type" possibly ending at the bibliographic level.
>>
>> What is your experience on this? Does this seem like a good idea
>> to clear things up?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>> -- Gaetan Boisson
>> Chef de projet bibliothécaire
>> BibLibre
>> +33(0)6 52 42 51 29
>> 108 rue Breteuil 13006 Marseille
>> gaetan.boisson at biblibre.com <mailto:gaetan.boisson at biblibre.com>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Joy Nelson
>> Director of Migrations
>>
>> ByWater Solutions <http://bywatersolutions.com>
>> Support and Consulting for Open Source Software
>> Office: Fort Worth, TX
>> Phone/Fax (888)900-8944
>> What is Koha? <http://bywatersolutions.com/what-is-koha/>
>>
>>
> --
> Gaetan Boisson
> Chef de projet bibliothécaire
> BibLibre
> +33(0)6 52 42 51 29
> 108 rue Breteuil 13006 Marseille
> gaetan.boisson at biblibre.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org
> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
>
--
Joy Nelson
Director of Migrations
ByWater Solutions <http://bywatersolutions.com>
Support and Consulting for Open Source Software
Office: Fort Worth, TX
Phone/Fax (888)900-8944
What is Koha? <http://bywatersolutions.com/what-is-koha/>
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