Re: Laundry list for NGC (long post) -- How does Koha measure up?

On 12/12/06, Karen Coyle <kcoyle <at> kcoyle.net> wrote:
> Joshua Ferraro wrote:
> > The item record:
> > http://www.library.org.nz/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?bib=35551
> > contains several material types: Video, DVD, Fiction, Talking Book, etc.
> >
> This is one of those areas where systems designers have been locking
> horns with the cataloging rules for quite a while. It even has its own
> name: the multiple versions problem, or "mulver." I would love to see
> the next generation of rules fix this... The current rules require that

[snip very good explanation]

> audio book is 6 CDs and lasts 8 hours, and is read by Mr. T.) With the
> big digitization projects going on, this means that every time a book is
> digitized, a new record will be added to the library catalog. Sheeeesh!
> And not good library service.

Which is why we built a matching/linking system around (instead of
inside) MARC for our actual (rather than conceptual, or MARC-mangling
;) ) metarecords in Evergreen.  The basic idea is that we
[non-librarian developers] know that you [librarians -- developers or
otherwise] know what you're doing when creating item descriptions and
storing them in MARC.  We don't want to trod on that, so we match and
link multiple records and display the common subset of information
instead of collapsing all records into one as Koha does in the example
above, AFAICT.

For instance, here's a metarecord title search for 'harry potter':

  http://gapines.org/opac/en-US/skin/default/xml/mresult.xml?tp=title&t=harry%20potter

While not an absolutely perfect grouping (the two Sorcerer's Stone
groups miss each other due to differing uniform titles), it's much
easier for the patrons to find a copy of what they want in any format
they'd like (click on the format icon below the title/author to get a
list of just those records).  Compare that to the direct record search
here:

  http://gapines.org/opac/en-US/skin/default/xml/rresult.xml?rt=title&tp=title&t=harry%20potter

I'd venture to say it works pretty darned well for a completely
automated system -- that's right, no cataloger intervention.
Cataloger tweaking is a planned addition, and will be slipped right
into the MARC import/create workflow at a sensible point as an extra
optional step.

>
> My fear is that the next set of rules will not address this issue, but
> systems designers will be expected to magically make the data look more
> like what the user wants.
>

Well, we are expected to do that now, without the benefit of the "next
set of rules", but give us some time and tools, and we'll get there.
:)

> kc
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kcoyle <at> kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
> ------------------------------------
>

--
Mike Rylander
mrylander <at> gmail.com
GPLS -- PINES Development
Database Developer
http://open-ils.org