[Koha-devel] Batch cleanup to the catalog

[Michael Hafen]

Since you have the CataloguingLog turned off, you should see a net gain in
the size of the database, both in Koha and in Zebra/Solr.  Though you
probably won't notice the difference in Koha since the tables are InnoDB,
which doesn't reduce file size in most cases.
In the frontend you probably won't notice much difference I would expect.
Since you indicate the fields are hidden in the OPAC the biggest difference
will be in the work of your cataloguing staff.  I don't know if you have
discusses the idea with them, sometimes cataloguers prefer to have more
information available (even if unused), sometimes they prefer less.  More
information could mean better record matching in searches and record
merges.  Less information could mean more efficient cataloguing since the
staff doesn't need to keep as much information at hand while cataloguing.
I tend to prefer keeping the information, and hide it in the staff
interface if it bothers someone, but that's my preference.
As far as drawbacks to doing such changes in the backend there is one big
drawback.  The metadata / marc fields need to be rebuilt and the search
engine needs to be reindexed after any changes by hand to the database.
That is the reason I tend to do any big batch modifications by setting up a
script that uses the Koha modules ( the C4 / Koha api ).  That way Koha
itself will take care of that for me.
One final note, the difference in size from removing those fields is likely
to be small, in the order of a few hundred megabytes at most would be my
guess.

On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 7:00 AM Cab Vinton <bibliwho at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, All --
>
> Koha's Batch Record Modification (BRM) tool makes it very easy to make
> large-scale changes to the catalog. And we know that many catalogers
> like to have their records just so :-)
>
> Is there a cost in overhead, however, to making such changes?
>
> For example, if a catalog of 150,000 records contains 75,000 unwanted
> MARC fields, would you delete them, even if they're not displayed in
> the OPAC or otherwise interfering w/ functionality?
>
> In particular, I'm wondering whether using the BRM tool involves the
> creation of new data so that there's no real net gain w/ respect to
> the goal of having a "cleaner" database. (In our case, we've turned
> off the CataloguingLog system preference.)
>
> Along the same lines, are there any advantages to doing large-scale
> batch process via the backend instead, i.e., as opposed to w/ the
> built-in staff tools such as BRM? (I'm assuming there's no issue w/
> using such tools to work w/ much smaller subsets of records.)
>
> Thanks in advance for any guidance.
>
> All best,
>
> Cab Vinton, Director
> Plaistow Public Library
> Plaistow, NH
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-- 
Michael Hafen
Washington County School District Technology Department
Systems Analyst
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