[Koha-devel] Need to Modify Marc Import Tool

[Mason James]

>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> One of our customers wants the ability to import Follett marc records
>> without having to use Marc Edit (to change fields 852 to 952).
>>
>> We want to make this change generic such that it will work for any
>> import file that has holdings in fields other than 952.
>>
>> This is what we were thinking, will appreciate feedback on this  
>> design:
>>
>> 1. Use marc_subfield_structure table to store field structure of the
>> import file. So Follett would have records under its framework code.
>> We could create frameworks for other vendors too.
>> 2. Accept framework code as user input from stage-marc-import.pl.  
>> User
>> could choose nothing which means input file already has holdings in
>> 952. Or could choose Follett or some other vendor.
>> 3. Pass framework code as parameter to BatchStageMarcRecords
>> (C4/ImportBatch.pm) and from there to AddItemsToImportBiblio
>> (C4/ImportBatch.pm).
>> 4. In AddItemsToImportBiblio
>> - Use the input framework code in GetMarcFromKohaField (C4/Biblio.pm)
>> to fetch Follett holdings fields and subfields
>> - Fetch default fields and subfields (952) using null framework  
>> code, as
>> is currently done.
>> - For each subfield set values appropriately (in the case of Follett
>> 952s = 852s) before saving item record.
>> 5. Initially the code will help with holdings tags, and later we  
>> could
>> extend this to biblio tags as well.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Savitra Sirohi
>> Nucsoft OSS Labs
>> http://www.osslabs.biz


heya Savitra

I think this is a *very* useful idea

some suggestions:

write a feature to do a remap of the vendor's itemlevel info to  
koha's 952, during the MARC import
rather than rewriting koha3 to internally accept non 952 item-info  
from MARC records

i suspect that an attempt to have koha3 use non-952 item-info may be  
tricky, as this change would affect many areas of koha3 code
and would need much testing to ensure it is safe.

a safer/easier way to your goal would be to have a feature where the  
source item-info gets remapped to koha's 952


i think we could use another table to store this remapping info.
perhaps a 'import_vendor_items_map' table...?

a example record would look something like this..

vendor_code 		= 'FOLL'
vendor_field		= '852'
vendor_subfield		= 'a'
vendor_subfield_desc	= 'HOME BRANCH'
koha_field		= '952'
koha_subfield		= 'a'
... etc


what do others think about this idea?

this looks to be a nice simple way to build a collection of other ILS  
vendor's item-level structures.
and allow those vendor's MARC-records to be correctly remapped into  
koha's 952 structure during a bulkimport - from the GUI, without a  
custom script.

Mason.