[Koha-devel] Independed branch functions

[Paul POULAIN]

Owen Leonard a écrit :
> HDL,
> 
> Can you give us all a summary of the new independent branch functions
> you've added recently?  What kind of things does it allow and restrict?
> 
>  Thanks,
> 
>    Owen
Hi Owen,

If you set IndependantBranches to no, you get nothing new.
If you set it to yes, then you get a single library database, with 
separate branches for daily management. That means :
- a biblio can be created/edited by anybody
- an item can be created only for your own branch (ie : a librarian is 
in borrower table, so he is in a branch)
- an item can be modified/deleted only it it's in your branch
- you can create a borrower only in your branch
- you can modify a borrower only if he is in your branch

Of course, you still can :
- search the catalogue or anything else
- issue/return books
on everything

Note that librarians with the superlibrarian flag can do whatever they 
want, they are not concerned by this limit.

This is a very interesting feature, imho (useless for npl if I don't mind).
I have 1 library wanting this (16 branches) , + 1 that could sign up in 
2006Q1 (24 branches) ! That's specialized libraries, that want common 
catalogue & issuing, but have their own teams.

Note that the IndependantBranches is not the same thing as the new 
bookfund branchcode : this new feature enable the Koha administrator to 
say "ok, this bookfund can be used only by branch X". Not exactly the 
same thing but related to indeed, so I speak of it here too.
-- 
Paul POULAIN
Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres
responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)