Hi all, If Joshua approves you will soon be seeing a big commit to head that changes the API of KOHA 3 very soon. Here is what I have done so that we can share comments and improvements on this. Major changes: 1-Bibliographic, Holdings and Authority records are all separate MARC records. 2-All searches rely on ZEBRA indexing and searching (Z3950 compliant) 3-Non MARC data handling is dropped. Non-marc like display is kept 4-All data is UTF-8. No other encoding supported as this support all languages 5-Change affects all data handling so for a short time breaks all modules (circulation, serials,acquistions and the lot) 6-Templates not affected More detail: Database design: 1-biblioitems, marc_words,stopwords, marc_subfield_table, autth_subield_table, additionalauthors, subjects,categories, marc_blob tables completely dropped 2- biblio table now has: biblionumber,marc,itemtype,framework 3-items table now has : itemnumber,biblionumber,barcode,marc 4- auth_header table now has: authid,marc 5- 1 new frameworks table added similar to marc frameworks for holdings marc 6- A new koha_attr table added. This one is for creating virtual fields which we do not have any more. Also helps matching your own MARC indexing rules to KOHA and ZEBRA. (More on this later) Design issues; 1- itemtype definition still kept at bibliographic level. Can be very easily converted to item level. i.e one bibliographic record with different itemtypes (book,cd,dvd etc).Open for discussion 2- All items (holdings) are single marc records, instead of all items in one marc record for the same bibliographic record. The main idea behind this is flexibility and speed. One full record for an item gives lots of fields to put all that information that you wanted to keep but did not have extra subfields left. All data including circulation data is kept within the marc records, this approach makes circulation updates faster as we do not have to reindex unchanged data related to other items again (zebra technicalities!). 3- All MARC framework designs have OPAC:show-hide Intranet:show-hide Editor:show-show collapsed-hide as dropdown selections so not to wory about what we put in these MARC fields. All handled correctly 4- Circulation speed is improved. One marc update instead of 6 sepatrate database update calls we used to have. Currently working modules: -MARC editor works - Item screen although looks the same now has multiple fields and works - authories adding editing works but needs to be improved to bibliographic editor design -Circulation works but being updated for faster handling -Serials and acquisitions needs work The new koha_attr table: We used to match our marc frameworks to table field names for both being multi-marc compliant and for template design issues. These field names now do not exist. So now we create virtula ones by a user editable screen. Although it comes filled with all the previous field names (and many more extras) to keep all koha modules and templates working you can add as many as you want when the need arise. No need to change database structures. But a table just for this feature was not needed, we could have had those names as authorised values so i added another functionality to this table. It matches your KOHA field names to ZEBRA indexing. This way the majority of koha code stays intact and field names joing our records like subcrisptionid itemnumber barcode etc can function as previous and removes the strain on programmers to either programme with PQF,CQL or CCL. A routine supplied converts everything to zebra language. This approach also release the strain on developers on trying to match what zebra is indexing and what koha thinks or should be indexed. Specially at this development stage until a KOHA minimum indexing standarts is defined this gives both the programmer and the library freedom of movement. A library may also decide to use completely inhouse designed indexing attributes and not comply with standarts like Bib-1 or Gils. All you have to do is fill you koha attr tables in sysadmin and tell koha what barcode is and what title is.Koha will continue to function. In simpler terms it does what frameworks does but compliments that table and bring ZEBRA in. I will be writing more on this issue after the commits but in the mean time expect to have your comments on all the issues regarding this upgrade. Cheers Tumer Garip NEU Grand Library