[Koha-devel] Koha Z39.50 client process discussion - adding an exchange interface

[Irma Birchall]

Hi Frederic, 

Thanks for raising these issues on the list and offering some practical suggestions.

I wonder how substantial the task to program an exchange interface would be? It would certainly be very handy.

Irma



 

-----Original Message-----
From: koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha.org [mailto:koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha.org] On Behalf Of Frederic Demians
Sent: Saturday, 28 March 2009 8:48 PM
To: koha-devel at lists.koha.org
Subject: [Koha-devel] Koha Z39.50 client process discussion

Koha Z39.50 client process isn't easy to understand from a end-user perspective.

Current process:

◊ In cataloguing, a search to multiple z3950 target is sent.
◊ Result is displayed. 20 first results are displayed for each target.
◊ Each record is stored in import_* tables for further usage via 'reservoir'.
◊ By clicking on Import, one record is copied in data entry page.
◊ Cataloger can modify biblio record, localized it, etc.
◊ In next cataloguing operation, a search will be done both in catalog and reservoir (import_biblios table), and will retrieve eventually biblio records from previous z3950 searches.

Some design choices are disputable:

◊ Why just 20 records per host are displayed?
◊ Why all retrieved records are stored in reservoir? People generally don't understand that. Why 20 and not 5 or 100 records? When a search is done by author, it is to catalog a specific book from this author. But with the current design, the library will fill its reservoir with biblio records describing books which will generally never enter into its catalog.
◊ Search in reservoir is done with BreedingSearch function only on 'title' and 'isbn' fields. So it's impossible to retrieve a biblio record by author.
◊ There is no user interface allowing to see what's going on with biblio records stored in reservoir and coming from z3950 searches.
There is such an interface for staged records: those imported explicitly into reservoir from files (in Tools).
◊ So if a library uses to do search in 4 z3950 hosts, each search may add 4 x 20 = 60 records in import_biblios and import_records tables. The number of records added this way will grow indefinitely without any mean to clean reservoir.

Some ideas of improvement:

◊ Add a syspref 'ReservoirZ3950' which when at false disable biblio records adding from z3950 searches.
◊ Add an UI in Tools to see the number of biblio records in reservoir added from z3950 searches.
◊ Add a 'clear' option in Tool to delete all records in reservoir coming from z3950, and eventually also coming from file imports.

Any comment/idea?

Also here:

http://bugs.koha.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=3069
--
Frédéric

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