[Koha-devel] Hide records on Leader 05 = d in OPAC

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 12:46 AM, David Cook <dcook at prosentient.com.au> wrote:
> I like the idea of just deleting records directly, but I think it's
> more complex than it appears at first glance. It's not just an
> issue with OAI-PMH either really. It's an issue any time you
> try to delete a record without providing feedback to an end-user.

I've got a question for you: for the specific project you're coding
for, which ends do you control? The Koha instance, the data provider
publishing via OAI-PMH, or both?

To make a general point: yep, there are definitely edge cases and
error conditions to consider when implementing a mechanism by which a
third party can specify that records should be deleted in a Koha
database. Some of those might be better solved by policy rather than
code; for example, if the OAI-PMH provider in some sense "owns" the
records that Koha ingests from it, does the Koha library need to a
have policy of not adding items to such records?  If so, it might be
appropriate to add an option that specifies that bib deletions are to
forcibly cascade.

Conversely, if it *is* legitimate for the Koha user to add items to
those records, does that mean that the OAI-PMH provider no longer has
"ownership"?

To make another general point: I think it would be better for the
consequences of record deletion to be handled *within the context of
OAI-PMH harvesting* (or more generally, mechanisms to sync records
with an external provider), but *not* to have those consequences spill
over for users who are not doing such harvesting as all.  Your
original proposal to unconditionally hide Leader/05='d' records from
the public catalog would be an example of such spillover.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Infrastructure and Added Services Manager
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
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