[Koha-devel] Re: last couple of niggling questions

[Rachel Hamilton-Williams]

> Thanks to Rachel, it's down to two questions:
> 
> 43 -- How are item statuses used? Can they be converted from DRA
> Classic to the new system?
> 
> (I assume that this refers to 'lost', 'shelved', 'on hold', 'checked in',
> or 'on loan'.  I really have no idea how these would be used in practice
> though.   Any thoughts?)

Item status's are used for display - to tell public/librarians that and item is 
lost or on hold, available or unavailable.

They are used in conjunction with Reserves -  for example -you can reserve 
items with certains status's but not others I think

They are used for reports - for stock take, for the auditors, for reports to 
board of directors etc (total number of lost items in a year etc etc).

Is that the sort of thing you wanted?


> 51 -- What is the hierarchy of the bibliographic database
> (bibliographic records, call number records, item records)?
> 
> (Paul, ?!?!?!?HELP!?!?!?!)

Not really sure I understand the question - but I'm thinking they want to know

1/. Biblio records: contains only the high level, generic intellectual property 
about a work - ie the title, author, etc 

You can have a biblio record with one or many groups, and one or many 
items. Different formats of a work that has the same IP have the same biblio -
 for example the Paperback, hard cover and large print editions of a work 
would all be on the same biblio.

2/. Group record (Item Record): Contains the information about a group of 
items that are all identical - carrying on the above example, there would be a 
group for the hardbacks, a group for the paperbacks and a group for the large 
print versions.  If there were paperbacks published by two different 
publishers, then they would have a group each.

3/. Item Record (Call number record): Contains the information unique to that 
particular item, so is essentially it's life history after it enters the library, 
including cost, replacement price, when it was aquired, it's loan number, who 
it's been loaned too, it's status etc.

diagrammtically...


                           BIBLIO
                          /        |             \
              Group 1     Group 2     Group 3
                |                  |               |           
             /  |  \               |               | \
Item 1 Item 2 Item3   Item 4   Item 5 Item 6


Not sure if it is more or less confusing to "taranslate" into the terms they use.

Cheers
Rachel
_____________________________________________________________

Rachel Hamilton-Williams             Katipo Communications            
WEBMISTRESS                          ph  021 389 128 or +64 04 934 1285 
mailto:rachel at katipo.co.nz           PO Box 12487, Wellington
http://www.katipo.co.nz              New Zealand
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