Hi!
While migrating our catalogue to Koha I get quite confused with the location
handling. Location for me is "the place where I have to go to fetch the item".
So an item could be in the general collection `main reading room`, but I may
have a special area there like an exhibition or a new items shelf. And it can
be at it's usual location or at some temporary place.
AFAIS Koha items have internally a `location` and a `permanent_location`. (In
my still current world they'd be named `temporary location` (876__l) and
`location` (aka `852__a`), respectively, so slightly the other way round.)
Now, in item cataloguing the location I get exposed to the editor seems to be a
mixture of `permanent_location` and `location`, in the sense that the editor
always sets both. Using mappings for `UpdateItemLocationOnCheckin` however,
some values are magic. If `CART` and `PROC` get mapped they only change the
`location`, while all others change both. (I do understand that the magic value
is used by some cron-job.)
However, I wonder if the procedures were not more flexible and easier to
understand if "any mapped location" juggles the `location` and leaves the
`permanent_location`, while I do get both values in the item editor and the
actual place where an item is is defined as `permanet_location` if there is no
`location` set. There is already `_PERM_` to access the permanent location in
mappings, but with the current logic it's value is gone once a non-magical
location enters the game. IMHO one could achieve the same functionality like
now by just clearing `location` once an item is back at it's permanent
location. (At least this is how our old system does it right now.)
Example:
- We order an item and set it's location to `On Order`. ORD is non-magical.
- The item arrives, I check it in, `ORD: PROC` "moves" it to cataloguing.
Cataloguing wants to change the permanent location.
- After cataloguing it should go to the new items shelf. Check in, `PROC: NEW`.
Everything fine in the OPAC display.
- After a week or so on the new items shelf, check in, `NEW: _PERM_` moves it
back to `on order`.
To work around my trouble with the location, I played with a similar juggling
for `UpdateNotForLoanStatusOnCheckin`. (Sidenote: it seems that I am required
to use numbers for the values to juggle there, e.g. `-1: -3`, while the editor
allows for text. If this is a bug I'd add one to bz.) This propagates as
expected and from a display perspective it would also be ok.
Unfortunately, the strict `not for loan` doesn't work well for us. We are open
24/7, but not staffed 24/7. IOW whatever hits the shelf can be taken. If
someone checks out an item that is in principle not for loan, I'd really like
to check it out, just to know who has it ;) I did not yet find a way to soften
`not for loan` to something like `2 days and immediately send a recall letter`.
(Current procedure.)
Additionally, we check in _all items_ from the CART all the time as we have a
lot of patrons that just drop them into the box and they need to be returned to
get the RFID into the proper state. (So in our case the cron wouldn't help.)
BTW: what proved pretty flexible in our current system are what I called back
then "special patrons". If I check out an item to those the item is not
actually checked out, but they manipulate some Marc fields. We used them a lot
to set the temporary locations to values like `repair`, `cataloguing`, `on
display` or `library desk` (for items ready for the patron to fetch; Koha does
this differently). Unlike checking in, where I have to rely on automatic
propagation, checking out allows to select what I want to do by means of the
cardnumber I get as a second parameter on the SIP-terminal. For configuration I
used something like
788 _7 |2 P:(DE-HGF)
|a {"j": "available", "l": "Cataloguing"}
|i 8767_
which would set `876 7_ |javailable |lCataloguing`, ie the item is available,
but in cataloguing. (Our patrons are currently just authority records, so I
have full Marc at my disposal.)
--
Kind regards,
Alexander Wagner
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
Library and Documentation
Building 01d Room OG1.444
Notkestr. 85
22607 Hamburg
phone: +49-40-8998-1758
e-mail: alexander.wag...@desy.de
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