[Koha-devel] Availability in Koha Was: Re: [Koha-patches] [PATCH 2/2] Fixes bug 4481: Limit to Available filters out many available items.

[Liz Rea]

While we're talking about availability, thought I'd put this out there.

Our statewide ILL system would really appreciate a single field for availability on items: a "yes, you can have that for ILL" or "No, I'm sorry, that item is lost, checked out, out for repair, local use only, In transit, or any one of the plethora of other reasons why this item isn't available."

The statewide system currently uses AutoGraphics, which can only check one field. We are currently having them check the 952$q. Here's a brief rundown from the coordinator of the statewide ILL:

"Since Koha puts status information into different subfields (rather than putting different statuses in the same subfield), we had to pick on subfield to look at. The KEGGr group decided that the best subfield to use was the 952$q. When an item is checked out, the date due appears in that subfield and AGent marks it as Not Available; if the $q is missing, the item is presumed available. My understanding is that other statuses such as Lost or In Transit appear in different subfields.

Other Z target catalogs use a single subfield for status information, so when we look in the 852$s (for example), we might see On Shelf, or Checked Out, or Lost, or Mending, etc. Since there's just a single place to look, we can determine all of the different statuses and route requests accordingly."

I wanted to make sure that an authoritative availability field is added if availability is revamped. It would make our life a whole lot easier.

Liz Rea
NEKLS

On May 19, 2010, at 7:53 AM, Ian Walls wrote:

> Thanks! I was sure there was an explanation for why the code was originally commented out, and a more comprehensive system for determining 'availability' is definitely called for.  I had some complaints from folks on our end that the link wasn't working at all, and the functionality I get by adding those lines back in is better for them that otherwise.
> 
> I'll temporarily make use of my patch for these folks until a better one is ready.  Thanks for the update!
> 
> 
> -Ian
> 
> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 7:08 PM, LAURENT Henri-Damien <henridamien.laurent at biblibre.com> wrote:
> Le 19/05/2010 00:04, Ian Walls a écrit :
> > From: Ian Walls <Ian.Walls at med.nyu.edu>
> >
> > ---
> >  C4/Search.pm |   25 ++++++++++++-------------
> >  1 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/C4/Search.pm b/C4/Search.pm
> > index 229ee40..e7c9c76 100644
> > --- a/C4/Search.pm
> > +++ b/C4/Search.pm
> > @@ -1256,21 +1256,20 @@ sub buildQuery {
> >      my $group_OR_limits;
> >      my $availability_limit;
> >      foreach my $this_limit (@limits) {
> > -#        if ( $this_limit =~ /available/ ) {
> > -#
> > -## 'available' is defined as (items.onloan is NULL) and (items.itemlost = 0)
> > -## In English:
> > -## all records not indexed in the onloan register (zebra) and all records with a value of lost equal to 0
> > -#            $availability_limit .=
> > -#"( ( allrecords,AlwaysMatches='' not onloan,AlwaysMatches='') and (lost,st-numeric=0) )"; #or ( allrecords,AlwaysMatches='' not lost,AlwaysMatches='')) )";
> > -#            $limit_cgi  .= "&limit=available";
> > -#            $limit_desc .= "";
> > -#        }
> > -#
> > +        if ( $this_limit =~ /available/ ) {
> > +
> > +# 'available' is defined as (items.onloan is NULL) and (items.itemlost = 0)
> > +# In English:
> > +# all records not indexed in the onloan register (zebra) and all records with a value of lost equal to 0
> > +            $availability_limit .=
> > +"( ( allrecords,AlwaysMatches='' not onloan,AlwaysMatches='') and (lost,st-numeric=0) )"; #or ( allrecords,AlwaysMatches='' not lost,AlwaysMatches='')) )";
> > +            $limit_cgi  .= "&limit=available";
> > +            $limit_desc .= "";
> > +        }
> > +
> >          # group_OR_limits, prefixed by mc-
> >          # OR every member of the group
> > -#        elsif ( $this_limit =~ /mc/ ) {
> > -        if ( $this_limit =~ /mc/ ) {
> > +        elsif ( $this_limit =~ /mc/ ) {
> >              $group_OR_limits .= " or " if $group_OR_limits;
> >              $limit_desc      .= " or " if $group_OR_limits;
> >              $group_OR_limits .= "$this_limit";
> Hi Ian.
> Nahuel will work on a real fix for availability.
> Since at the moment customers are complaining (quite fairly) that
> availability cannot be at biblio level but should rather be at item level.
> And they are correct.
> But When indexing elements only at biblio level, we cannot provide them
> with the best accurate information.
> So Nahuel already did some work on that.
> But it need some improvement, which he will do soon.
> _______________________________________________
> Koha-patches mailing list
> Koha-patches at lists.koha.org
> http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-patches
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ian Walls
> Lead Development Specialist
> ByWater Solutions
> ALA Booth # 817
> Phone # (888) 900-8944
> http://bywatersolutions.com
> ian.walls at bywatersolutions.com
> Twitter: @sekjal
> _______________________________________________
> Koha-patches mailing list
> Koha-patches at lists.koha.org
> http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-patches

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