[Koha-devel] :-( and conclusion with cataloguing and acquisition thread

[paul POULAIN]

Hi everybody,
Here is Paul, from the old Europe ;-)

i just spended 20mn to read all those answers to my request, and I'm not 
happy because what i've read is NOT RELATED to my question.

1st : my question was a LIBRARIAN question. And i think almost all 
answers are related to DEVELOPPERS problems !
2nd : my question was to imagine a solution to get the best possible 
acquisition and cataloguing process ! not to do a code -or db- 
revolution in koha !

and what are you speaking about ? DB normalization, and other 
-interesting but not in the scope- question.

The most interesting thought, imho, comes from Stephen, from NPL (which 
funded MARC support, so, is always right :-) )

I think that a strong acquisition component would be a very valuable asset for 
Koha.  In fact, I think acquisitions are much more important than cataloging.  
That means that I support your idea of separating the two, so it would be 
easier (to my mind) to focus development effort on acquisitions. If they are 
not separated, then I think cataloging should at least be handled as a sub-task 
of acquisitions.


Incidentally, this is my opinion too :-)

So, my proposal for acquisition and cataloguing is the following :
*ACQUISITION*
During acquisition,  you define as few datas as possible. You can define 
less than ISBN, title, author and editor if you want. The acquisition 
part does NOT deals with marc (ie : from a librarian point of vue. the 
mySQL DB is something else !).
when the book is recieved, the librarian will note this in the 
acquisition part of koha, then, will automatically reach the cataloguing 
chapter
This WILL be in the 2.0, it's almost the normal acquisition of the 1.2. 
this acquisition process will be the same wether MARC or non-MARC.

Acquisition in a future will also get :
- suggestions

*CATALOGUING*
- The library can use MARC or non MARC cataloguing.
- The cataloguing can be called after an acquisition, or as a specific 
and single task
- The cataloguing means : entering biblio and entering items.

All those will be in the 2.0. It's part from acqui.simple in MARC for 
MARC, and part from normal acquisition of the 1.2

cataloguing in a future version will also get :
- z39.50 support
- import of "commercial" MARC cdroms like "electre" or "Rameau", in France.

I think that everybody agrees to say that books that will arrive soon in 
the library can be shown on opac or catalogue search part of koha, with 
a specific flag. So, that will be done too.

I hope that at least every LIBRARIAN will be happy with those proposals.

--
Paul POULAIN
Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres
responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)