Another 16 questions have been added to the wiki. Please feel free to take a look at http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=QuestionsPosed and try your hand at answering them. -pate Pat Eyler Kaitiaki/manager migrant Linux sys admin the Koha project ruby, shell, and perl geek http://www.koha.org http://pate.eylerfamily.org
On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, Pat Eyler wrote:
Another 16 questions have been added to the wiki. Please feel free to take a look at http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=QuestionsPosed and try your hand at answering them.
The following is not authoritative. Assume that each of my answers below begins with "As far as I know" or "As far as I can tell." 58 -- Is there a routine that runs at night and looks for available items on the shelf to fill requests? Or are requests only filled when items are checked in? Koha only checks reserves when books are checked in. It might be a Good Thing to check them when they're added to the catalog (in acquisitions). And there really ought to be more nightly cleaning and accounting through cron. 61 -- Is there authority control for author/title/subject searches in your catalog? If so, then is there any flag to the cataloguers when a subject heading does *not* have an authority record? When an authority record is added or altered, can the system do a global search and replace? There's a master list of subjects, but it's not used in simple acquisitions (though perhaps it should be). If you edit a biblio record, you'll get a message about any unknown subjects. 62 -- Can items with a particular status, or titles if designated, be masked from appearance in the catalog? No. 64 -- In catalog searches, can items at a specified location be highlighted in the display? No. Dunno how hard it'd be to add. 65 -- Is it possible to change the current date of the system on a temporary basis, by individual PC? We do this each morning to backdate, by one day, items that got dropped off for return the previous evening, so people can avoid paying fines for those items. This seems like the wrong solution to the problem. A better solution would be to change the returns code and web interface to allow librarians to set the time when a book was returned, rather than assuming that a book was returned the moment that the bar code was scanned in. This way, a librarian who comes in at 9:00 on Monday and starts processing the books returned over the weekend can tell the system that these books were returned on Sunday at 23:59. 66 -- Is there a system of patron passwords, for security, when renewing items from home? The database supports this, but AFAIK the interface to this isn't there yet. 68 -- Questions on circulation limits: can we limit the number of overdue items permitted? The amount of fines you can have? By limiting I mean setting the patron delinquent automatically. I know it can be done manually. Currently, you can't borrow a book if you have fines in excess of 5 local monetary units (sucks if you're in Italy!), but this really needs to be customizable. 70 -- A circulation question. An item has a damaged barcode, so the barcode needs to be replaced. Can this item be copied to another item number, while keeping all the information that has been previously entered into the item originally? If I'm reading this right, you can just edit the item and change its barcode. 71 -- Our current system has a "policy file" for circulation which sets up matrices for item "material codes", each of which has its own loan period, renewal limit, daily fine, maximum fine, and maximum number of items checked out. Is there anything like this in KOHA? This sounds a lot like the "item types" configuration stuff, but I'm not sure. -- Andrew Arensburger Actually, these _do_ represent the arensb@ooblick.com opinions of ooblick.com! Generic Tagline V 6.01
On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 04:19:10PM -0400, Andrew Arensburger said:
On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, Pat Eyler wrote:
Another 16 questions have been added to the wiki. Please feel free to take a look at http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=QuestionsPosed and try your hand at answering them.
The following is not authoritative. Assume that each of my answers below begins with "As far as I know" or "As far as I can tell."
58 -- Is there a routine that runs at night and looks for available items on the shelf to fill requests? Or are requests only filled when items are checked in?
Koha only checks reserves when books are checked in. It might be a Good Thing to check them when they're added to the catalog (in acquisitions). And there really ought to be more nightly cleaning and accounting through cron.
Checking reserves upon acquisition is a work in progress at the moment, should be done shortly. (HLT want this)
61 -- Is there authority control for author/title/subject searches in your catalog? If so, then is there any flag to the cataloguers when a subject heading does *not* have an authority record? When an authority record is added or altered, can the system do a global search and replace?
There's a master list of subjects, but it's not used in simple acquisitions (though perhaps it should be). If you edit a biblio record, you'll get a message about any unknown subjects.
62 -- Can items with a particular status, or titles if designated, be masked from appearance in the catalog?
No.
We mask cancelled and lost items in the opac. But we dont hide them from the librarians.
64 -- In catalog searches, can items at a specified location be highlighted in the display?
No. Dunno how hard it'd be to add.
65 -- Is it possible to change the current date of the system on a temporary basis, by individual PC? We do this each morning to backdate, by one day, items that got dropped off for return the previous evening, so people can avoid paying fines for those items.
This seems like the wrong solution to the problem. A better solution would be to change the returns code and web interface to allow librarians to set the time when a book was returned, rather than assuming that a book was returned the moment that the bar code was scanned in. This way, a librarian who comes in at 9:00 on Monday and starts processing the books returned over the weekend can tell the system that these books were returned on Sunday at 23:59.
66 -- Is there a system of patron passwords, for security, when renewing items from home?
The database supports this, but AFAIK the interface to this isn't there yet.
68 -- Questions on circulation limits: can we limit the number of overdue items permitted? The amount of fines you can have? By limiting I mean setting the patron delinquent automatically. I know it can be done manually.
Currently, you can't borrow a book if you have fines in excess of 5 local monetary units (sucks if you're in Italy!), but this really needs to be customizable.
70 -- A circulation question. An item has a damaged barcode, so the barcode needs to be replaced. Can this item be copied to another item number, while keeping all the information that has been previously entered into the item originally?
If I'm reading this right, you can just edit the item and change its barcode.
71 -- Our current system has a "policy file" for circulation which sets up matrices for item "material codes", each of which has its own loan period, renewal limit, daily fine, maximum fine, and maximum number of items checked out. Is there anything like this in KOHA?
This sounds a lot like the "item types" configuration stuff, but I'm not sure.
Yep, there is a set of rules stored in the database, for itemtype + borrwertype combination. Covers issue period, fines, overdue length, charge for borrwing etc. EG borrowers of type staff get VID (videos) free, but type A (adult) pay a $1 charge. Chris -- Chris Cormack Programmer 025 500 789 Katipo Communications Ltd chris@katipo.co.nz www.katipo.co.nz
participants (3)
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Andrew Arensburger -
Chris Cormack -
Pat Eyler