[Koha-devel] [mhelman at illinoisalumni.org: Re: [Koha] The '650x' problem]

[Joshua Ferraro]

----- Forwarded message from BWS Johnson <mhelman at illinoisalumni.org> -----


Salve!

>Could someone explain to me what the '650x' problem is? Is it a
>matter of not being able to search for subjects in 650x? or is it
>a matter of not being able to display the subject tags/subfields
>correctly in the MARC view of Koha? If you could, it would be great
>to get specific examples so we can efficiently find a solution (if
>in fact there is a problem). Feel free to use the LibLime demo when
>refering to such examples:
>

It's a little of both :) The whole subject searching can of worms is related to
not starting out as MARC, but I bet the keyword search works so well because
it's not normal MARC. Anyway, suppose I were holding a book in my hand about
space shuttle accidents geared towards children. One of its tags might look
like this:

650 _0 $a Space shuttles $x Accidents $v Juvenile literature.

650 means its a topical subject
That 0 means we want the computer to search on this field, it's called an
access point, and it's rather important.
The a is the first part of the subject. That means your free to lump this book
in with all of the other books on space shuttles.
The x is special. It's there as a subheading. It says hey, this book isn't only
about space shuttles, it's about accidents, too.
The v lets you know it's geared towards kids, which is happy.

Now, here's why you don't necessarily want to bust up the joint.

Because the x, and anything else for that matter, is not playing nice with the
a,
when you go to look up a book by subject, it doesn't compartmentalise with the
rest of the kid's books on space shuttle accidents. Instead, it kind of views
itself as three different books - one on space shuttles, one on accidents, and
one for kids. So that if I were using the linked subject headings that are a
nice feature, they don't link up correctly, because this book would show under
3 categories instead of one like I want it to. This can get very sticky indeed
when you're helping kids out, or you are helping an adult that doesn't want to
look at kid's stuff. Usually because of that v, I can just go ahead and filtre
out all of the juvenile literature headings, but I can't with Koha.

Does that make it a bit clearer?

Cheers,
Brooke @ Hinsdale MA

----- End forwarded message -----

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