1.3.x / 2.0 marc parameters documentation

In the 1.3/2.0 series, the big stuff is marc compliance. As koha is an international project, every marc flavour is supported (at least, that's what we hope…) and as some users don't want to see marc in their ILS, the old-db style is supported as well. Thus, an important work is to define the parameters tables for the marc you want to manage.

what's the bad new ? It is a long stuff and a complex one. what's the good new ? If you want marc21 in english or unimarc in french, it has already been done and is proposed during installation. However, even if you use one of those to pre-registred parameters, you must read this doc anyway, he's necessary to understand well the mechanism to change some parameters.

However, parameterizing must be made only once, before beginning working with the software in “real life”. documentation uptodate reflecting 1.3.2 version status

The marc structure is done through 2 tables. The 1st tables deals with fields. The seconds deals with subfields depending from a field.

The tag structure parameters tables contains every tag (i mean here numbers between 000 and 999). Each tag has the following fields :

When you look at a tag, you can click on “subfield” link, and open the list of the subfields related to the selected tag. I mean here the $x (where x is a digit, number or letter) Each subfield has the following fields :

All those values are stored in 2 tables : marc_table_structure and marc_subfield_structure. When you install a new version, you can install marc21 in english or unimarc in french table. If you upgrade from a 1.2 version, you can import manually the tables, they are in misc/marc_datas/* directory.

As previously stated, koha deals 2 differents db : the marc one and the old one. To ensure this works properly, you must map marc-subfields and koha-old-db fields. This must be made manually in marc parameters, as the differents flavours of marc are so differents, that it's impossible to do it automaticaly. Item, for example, is in 995 subfield in unimarc, and in 876 subfield in marc21.

To map a marc subfield to a old-db field, you've 2 differents ways :

• In the subfield management edition, you can select a old-db field to map to.
• In the parameters page, the choice Links koha - MARC DB presents, for a old-db table the marc subfields mapped to.

Both methods gives the same results. The second one is given to help verifying.

You can map some old-db fields or almost everyone. There are some fields that MUST be mapped in order to have a working db :

• biblio.biblionumber and biblioitem.biblioitemnumber. Note that those 2 must have the same tag number (it's 090 in marc21 and unimarc proposed structures)
• biblioitems.itemtype must be mapped and use authorised_value=itemtype (see below for authorised values)
• item.itemnumber
• items.homebranch and items.holdingbranch must be mapped and use authorised_value=branches (see below for authorised values)

Note also that all the items subfields must be in the same tag (995 in the proposed structures)

MARC standards contains more than 1000 differents tags and subfields. to present a biblio in marc format, you must “divide” it or get a very, very long page. To avoid a long page, koha divides the tags/subfields in 10 differents “tabs”. It's your choice to decide where to put what. If you think that the title is very important, you can put it on tab 0 (the 1st one). If you think that notes are less important, you can put is on tab 1. If you think that the number of pages is a just to be complete information, you can put it on tab 9. The tab structure is defined in the subfield structure table. You can put what you want where you want. The only rule to follow is to put all subfields from a given tag in the same tag (otherwise, indicators may be… strange)

Note that all 'items' related subfields MUST be mapped to the specific tab items, and thus are all in the same tab.

Note: In the 1.3.2 version, you can define only one tab structure. In a future version (and before 2.0), you will be able to define up to 4 differents tab structures. Thus you can have one for monographies, one for serials, one for multimedia, and one for “other” support.

When you define a subfield, you can explain what kind of values you can enter. 4 differents types are possible :

• free value : the user can enter what he wants (any length, any content accepted). It's the default value if you don't choose explicitly an other one.
• authorised value : the user can only select a value in a limited list. You can define as many list in the authorised values link in parameter page. Note that 2 authorised values lists are automatically added branches and itemtypes. They are builded from branches and itemtypes tables (which can be filled through parameters page too.
• Thesaurus category : the user can popup a window to search for a specific thesaurus/authorities category. For example, you can map “author” subfield to “authors” authorities/thesaurus category. Thus, you can be sure that the value entered is “standardised”.
• plugin : the librarian can map the subfield to a specific plugin. In a plugin, you can do absolutely what you want. A specific documentation has to be written for plugin creation, which is a developer task. If you want to dig for plugin api, go to see the samples in koha/value_builder/ and plugin_launcher.pl script.

Note In 1.3.2 the thesaurus popup works, but is not complete. He will be sightly better soon.