[Koha-devel] what are biblio, biblioitems and items tables

[Tonnesen Steve]

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, paul POULAIN wrote:

> I can't understand what means the 3 tables biblio biblioitems and items.
> A biblio contains the datas for a book we can have, or not have in our 
> library. It contains the fact that such a document EXISTS.
> An item is a data to explain that we POSSESS a biblio, where, since 
> when, at which costs...


Here's the scoop:

biblio: contains bibliographic information
biblioitems: contains publication information
items: contains individual item information

As an example, consider a book called "Let It Snow" by Steve Tonnesen

The biblio table would hold copyright information like title, author,
copyright date, etc.

Now, it turns out that my Let It Snow book was published in three
different formats, hard cover, big book, and braille.

These three different publications would have separate biblioitems
records.

The library has four copies of the hard cover books, six copies of the big
book and one copy of the braille book.  Each of these 11 items would have
a separate items entry.

The ties between the tables are as so:

biblionumber from biblio table is unique

biblioitemnumber from biblioitems is unique
  There might be many biblioitems entries with the same biblionumber


itemnumber from items is uique
  There might be many items with the same biblioitemnumber (and, of
  course, the same biblionumber)



The MARC db scheme that I used, of course, is radically different from all
of this.  I'll try to document what I've done so far in another email a
little later.

Steve.