[Koha-devel] e-books as "virtual items"?

[Giuseppe Angilella]

Hi,

(apologies for double posting this here as well, as I think it might 
contain a suggestion for a possible development in Koha)

I've just started populating my library's catalog with e-book readers and 
e-books.

I've defined different item types for either e-readers and e-books, and 
classified the former as "equipment" and the latter as "monographs" in the 
appropriate MARC record fields (leader etc).

For a given e-reader type (Kindle, say) I may have several items. These are 
distinct, as they have a different serial number, and receive therefore a 
distinct barcode. Similarly, they can be borrowed individually. Therefore, they 
perfectly qualify as "Koha items".

On the other hand, an e-book is entered as a specific record (which is distinct 
from the record of the corresponding hardcopy, if also available), with a 
cross-link to the e-reader's record in the 773 MARC field.

Originally, I thought that no physical item should be attached to an e-book, 
since it is the e-reader, and not the e-book, which can be borrowed. However, 
this prevents the e-book to appear in the "Browse shelf" feature, close to 
books with similar topic (which is very useful for patrons).

One solution might be that of restricting the e-book type to "no loan", but 
then the cross-link to the appropriate e-reader would be contained in the 
record (Koha's biblioitem), and not in the item (Koha's item), which might be 
confusing for the patron.

Another solution might be that of devising some kind of "virtual items". 
Several "virtual items" (say, several e-books) could be mapped onto a single 
(physical) "item", so that whenever the (physical) item is on loan, all of the 
"virtual items" contained by it are also set "on loan". A "virtual item" could 
then be shelved, receive a call number etc appropriately, and therefore show 
consistently in Koha's "browse shelf" feature.

Of course, this implies a database issue: several "virtual items" would 
correspond to one individual physical "item": any action (loan, return, 
damage etc) on the latter should propagate to any corresponding virtual 
items as well.

I would very much appreciate receiving your feedback on my thoughts above.

Best regards,

Giuseppe.