[Koha-devel] more questions about Koha

[Chris Cormack]

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 at katipo.co.nz                                          www.katipo.co.nz