[Koha-devel] Issuing rules

[Ernesto Silva]

Hi,
    I've read the message and I do agree. I just want to mention some of 
our own developments.

We have 2 types of items in case of biblios representing books. We have 
"room" and "common" items; "common" items use the standard issuing rules 
but "room" items cannot be on loan during working days, our librarians 
lend them to the users for the weekend.
What is the porpouse of this? well, not to have a book sleeping in the 
shelve during the weekend if a borrower needs it. This can't be done 
during working days (Monday to Friday) because we must always have one 
copy (item) to be used in the lecture room. The circulation depends on 
one item field which has the value specifying it's a "normal" or "room" one.

We also don't work with fees and fines, we penalize with suspensions, 
we've developed a module for this.

Perhaps some of this ideas can be integrated into 3.0, just a 
suggestion, I'm not asking for it.

I don't know if this situation exists in other libraries. We can't share 
this lines of code because we have merged them with other particular 
modifications which only apply to our university (as far as I know).
What we can do is send you ALL the code, we don't have the time (at this 
moment) to extract a clean module to send it to you.

Regards,

-- 
Ernesto Silva.
Coordinador de Desarrollo Web y Sistemas Abiertos
Centro de Procesamiento de Datos
Universidad ORT Uruguay.
E-mail: silva at ort.edu.uy
Tel: (+598-2) 902-1505 ext. 206
Fax: (+598-2) 900-2952



Paul POULAIN wrote:
> Hello world,
>
> We are reviewing Koha for 3.0 Release & Joshua pointed something 
> important: the way issuingrules worked in koha 2.2.
>
> In Koha 2.2, the way it works is :
> - you define the rules depending on itemtype / patron category / branch
> - you have "wildcard" that means "all of them". For example, * / adult 
> / * = 5 means "an adult patron can't issue more than 5 items whatever 
> the branch".
> - The circ module check ALL the rules & warn if one is not correct. 
> So, if you don't fill a cell, it's considered as 0 (= no issue possible)
> - you must fill book / * / * by understanding it means : "no patron 
> can't issue more than X book(s)"
>
> This behaviour troubled a lot users, as we often have questions about 
> warnings that were not expected.
>
> Joshua think, and i' fully agree with him, that the user understand 
> the wildcard as 'default if nothing specified'.
> So, for example, book / * / * would mean : if a specific rule is not 
> defined for patron category, then use this default value.
>
> We should not have a "check ALL the rules", but a "check the 1st 
> available, from most to less specific + check the total rule if 
> available.".
>
> The "wildcard" on itemtype being renamed to "total", and being applied 
> if defined, as total document the patron can issue.
>
> so we could have something like that
>        adult   children  default
> book   empty     3,21      5,21
> serial  4,14     3,21      5,21
> comic   5,21     3,21      empty
> total    7       empty      5
>
> which would mean :
> - an adult can issue 5 books for 21 days (default rule)
> - an adult can issue 4 serials for 14 days (specific rule)
> - an adult can issue 7 documents total
> - a child can issu 3 books, 3 serials, 3 comics, but 5 document maximum
>
> The "branch level" has the same behaviour : it a rule for a branch is 
> defined, then it's applicable, otherwise, it's the default rule of the 
> default branch.
>
>
> Let us know your opinion on this.
> It would require some tweaking on issuingrules definition & a small 
> rewrite the CanBookBeIssued sub, to check only 2 rules (1st found + 
> total), not 8 (every cell that fit the issue).
>
>