Hi, soon after posting my message below, I realized that Koha indeed possesses this feature (to some extent). While on the e-book record, I can "Link to host item", and then select the barcode of the e-reader's specific item which actually contains that e-book. This should fix the main issue of keeping track of loans. The only drawback is that the call number of the e-reader would be the same for all the e-books contained in it, which would therefore not show up appropriately in the "Browse shelf". Giuseppe. On Thu, 15 Jun 2017, Giuseppe Angilella wrote:
Hi,
(apologies for double posting this here as well, as I think it might contain a suggestion for a possible development in Koha)
I've just started populating my library's catalog with e-book readers and e-books.
I've defined different item types for either e-readers and e-books, and classified the former as "equipment" and the latter as "monographs" in the appropriate MARC record fields (leader etc).
For a given e-reader type (Kindle, say) I may have several items. These are distinct, as they have a different serial number, and receive therefore a distinct barcode. Similarly, they can be borrowed individually. Therefore, they perfectly qualify as "Koha items".
On the other hand, an e-book is entered as a specific record (which is distinct from the record of the corresponding hardcopy, if also available), with a cross-link to the e-reader's record in the 773 MARC field.
Originally, I thought that no physical item should be attached to an e-book, since it is the e-reader, and not the e-book, which can be borrowed. However, this prevents the e-book to appear in the "Browse shelf" feature, close to books with similar topic (which is very useful for patrons).
One solution might be that of restricting the e-book type to "no loan", but then the cross-link to the appropriate e-reader would be contained in the record (Koha's biblioitem), and not in the item (Koha's item), which might be confusing for the patron.
Another solution might be that of devising some kind of "virtual items". Several "virtual items" (say, several e-books) could be mapped onto a single (physical) "item", so that whenever the (physical) item is on loan, all of the "virtual items" contained by it are also set "on loan". A "virtual item" could then be shelved, receive a call number etc appropriately, and therefore show consistently in Koha's "browse shelf" feature.
Of course, this implies a database issue: several "virtual items" would correspond to one individual physical "item": any action (loan, return, damage etc) on the latter should propagate to any corresponding virtual items as well.
I would very much appreciate receiving your feedback on my thoughts above.
Best regards,
Giuseppe.