Koha-US Online Together 2020 Conference, 24 Sep 2020

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From YouTube: Catalogers, advance!

Description

Presenter: Jason Vasché

A

Welcome back from the break everybody I'm here with our next presenter and I just realized I lost my tab, so let me find that again.

A

Okay, our next present presentation is catalogers advance and we have jason here from round rock public library, so I'm going to pass it over to jason.

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Hi everyone, my name.

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Is jason vashey I'm a cataloging librarian.

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Great round rock public library, I've.

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Since 2018- and so that's when I became a quahog user prior to that, I didn't know anything about coho um funny enough. When I was looking at the job description for this position, there was some language in there that mentioned that it was a cohort institution, but I'm in quahog. I wonder what that is so much. That's some native american tribe, that's local to the region, but uh you know silly me. I.

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Learned later that it was actually a.

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uh Elaborate ils so anyway, so here I am, uh and I'm here to talk to you today about the advanced catalog.

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um I'm not an expert by any means in this. I don't know all the ins and outs, but I'll share with you. What what what I've learned about it, I use it pretty much exclusively, and so, when I talk this morning or this morning this afternoon, depending on where you are, I'm gonna, be speaking within the context of one of our ongoing catalog cleanup projects, which is to update all the adult nonfiction spine labels to include um expanded, expanded line for the author or title after the dewey number and then also include the pub here.

C

This is uh something that's mostly done by volunteers, or at least pre-pandemic. It was done by volunteers. I think we had maybe one library staff member working on it occasionally, but it's pretty much all people who had little to no library background and there they did this exclusively in the advanced catalog editor.

C

um Their tasks in this project were to update the the 092, which is the the call number field that we use. uh They, then they would need that's in the bib record. They update the 092 and the bib record, and then they update the call number and the item record and add the pub year and item record. So those bits of information will come back later so using this kind of.

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As our running example I'll give a brief overview of the advanced, catalog editor's features, and then I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about macros, which is one of one of the one of my favorite features of the advanced editor.

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And okay, so what this is not? uh It is not an introduction to cataloging it's not an exhaustive treatment of all the advanced editor features.

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Again, I'm I've only been using it for two three years now, maybe two and a half three years: um I'm not a power user by any means, I'm still learning too, and maybe there will be people in the chat who can can share other tips and tricks as we go along uh is also not a polemic of any sort against the basic editor and its fans, even though I strongly prefer the advanced editor, I think quahog deserves some props for providing kind of a more structured alternative.

C

I think this is the only ios that I've used. That has such a thing, so good good for co-op for for branching out and trying to do something different with that, and on that note I think that basic and advanced or kind of misnomers in this, in this sense um advanced to me, suggests that there's a certain level of proficiency required before you can use it sort of like advanced algebra in high school. You know you can't just do advanced algebra.

C

You have to start with basic algebra, but this is not really the case with this. I think, maybe better terms to differentiate these editors are structured for the basic and uh maybe unstructured or free text for the advanced and.

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We will uh we'll kind of look at these at these differences, so uh on that we'll.

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Dive in and I would like to introduce my.

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Lovely assistant for this uh for this presentation, this is jungle of the maya, a uh book in our collection.

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It has a spine label that needs to be whoops, it's not really focusing, but there you go.

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It has a spine label that needs to be.

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Updated, it only has three for g-o-o, and there is.

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No pub year so we're going to.

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Use this, so I will share my screen now and we will go to our cataloging uh screen here. What okay, okay! So here we are in quahog and I'm gonna go to the cataloging module and in cataloging search I'm just going to enter you know. Obviously you can do title or isbn or barcode or whatever I'm just going to scan the isbn.

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What's there we are ah here we are jungle of the maya okay, so our volunteer has scanned in the the uh the isbn and now we're going to open up the record, because we need to update our 0.92 and the bib record and we need to uh update our call number and add our pub year to the item records. If we go to actions edit record there, we see the basic version right, so basic version in the basic version.

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I would scroll down down down down to the 092 and I would add what I need here and then I would go to my.

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And go to my 264 and I'd make a note: okay, this is 2006 and then I would save this and then I would edit my items and I go do that, but so I'm not going to do that, I'm going to go. Instead, I'm going.

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To go to settings.

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I'm going to switch to the advanced editor.

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Okay, let's continue so so here we see the advanced editor and yes, it looks like a giant mess of text for someone who's not uh fluent and mark or even for someone who is fluent in mark just looks like a big mess of of text and and colors and numbers and stuff, but so what we? What we see here, there's a lot less clicking involved, see in the the basic editor. I need to go to my zeros and scroll down.

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Do that and then I need to click on my two and I need to scroll down to my 264. check that then I need to click again to get to my items and so on. At least here you know there's a little bit less clicking involved, so I can go as the volunteer. I can.

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0.92, so I look ah good l, so I'm just gonna go add this e l.

C

Actually, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, sorry so before before I do all this, let's just let's take a moment and let's look at some other differences in in this. uh This editor right, so you see at the top. We have editing catalog record the the bib number here we have view. So if we click on this, this will take us to a catalog view of this.

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I have this edit items link here which will open up the item record in a different tab, um and then we have a bunch of well. We have our z39.

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Z3950 options along the left and there's a little clipboard down here.

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uh Then we have our button. So a new record. If you want to create a new record, you click that we have our save the catalog button, which you can also use. Ctrl s to save you can save it as a marked file. It's a mark xml file. If you want there's a place where you can import a record which we don't don't really use here, so I can't speak much to that.

C

Macros, we'll talk about more in a little bit settings we have the switch to basic editor, which we are not going to do as show helpers for fixed encoded fields is very useful because here, if you look say it like your leader, the ooo and the uh like the fixed fields- zero, zero, eight, it's just this sort of like string of of characters which doesn't really make much sense.

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um But so, if we click on here show helpers, this will uh space things out and it will provide.

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Menus uh for all these different things, which makes it a.

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To fill in these fixed fields, both in that you don't have to be counting uh character, positions to get to the right thing, and you also don't have to worry about.

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You know what is it for maps in this? You can just go in here and um I don't see maps in here. Oh here we are b mass right.

C

So so that's a very useful thing and you can turn it on and off uh so alerts. This will show you if the if you've tried to save the record and it won't. If there's an error, it will say, there's an error on this on the page. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you what the error is, even though on the screen. If you try to save and there's an error, it will say did not save lacking.

C

uh You know 005 field or whatever it is, and so you can go and fix that. But so the alerts will just tell you that you've saved it x number of times that there have been errors x, number of times, uh keyboard shortcuts.

C

This is a really useful tab and one thing that I've learned is that the that you can alter your keyboard shortcuts to be in order to still be able to use the the your operating system's default, uh keyboard, shortcuts say, for instance, control x on this windows machine uh allows me to cut a highlighted section of text, and then you know paste it later or not, but in the default shortcuts in the advanced catalog.

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I'm pretty sure it was to copy, or it was to delete the current field and to copy it to the clipboard. I think, which is this little area down over.

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On the left, which I don't really use um frankly, I find that the the regular control x function works just as well, if not better.

C

um So if I wanted to continue to use that regular control x, I need to redefine my shortcut for delete current field and copy the clipboard, which you can do up here and redef redefine shortcuts.

C

So, um along the those same notes, you see on the keyboard shortcuts. There are um two alt shortcuts here for the copyright symbol and the sound recording copyright symbol, the circle c and circle p. uh I find it helpful to keep a little cheat sheet of other alt plus codes.

C

Take to my monitor for diacritics, for cataloging in spanish or for other symbols that you might use and those you can find those all all over the web. There are different um sites that list all code diacritics so anyway, so there that's that and uh oh so, let's, uh let's so those are the buttons along there.

C

So what you might be thinking right now is well. You know. I really appreciate in the basic editor how it showed all these different fields and it also described all the all the fields. So I knew you know the difference between 082 and.

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Or 250 or 254, or what have you right so in the advanced editor? There is a a help function, a mark field help function and it's it's a little. uh It's no basically.

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Is you would click say you click on field anywhere in the field, I'm going to choose this 092 and then down along the bottom.

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You see, there's a blue row and I'll say 092 with question mark locally assigned dewey call number oclc. So if you click on this question mark this will take you to the uh the loc.gov mark entry for for that field. So this is not maybe not the best uh example of that, but.

B

You know if I click.

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Say on you know my 245: you want to know about the the first and second indicators which one you should use right. So if you do that 245 title statement, I click here and then here you get that full thing. So it's nice, you don't have to worry about. You know keeping the the mark definitions, llc pages open next to you. You can just hop over to it as you need to let's see here. ah So I'm wandering a little far far afield from our our volunteers task here. So let's get back to that.

C

So I'm the volunteer again. I need to update my 0.92 and then I need to fix my item record okay. So I'm going to go to my 0.92, I'm just going to add e d e l, l, I'm.

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Can click save to catalog or I can do control s either way, it'll save then over here we have our record, save this big green button. Now, if I go to my alerts, I'll see previous alerts record saved right now, if I hang on just let's just uh let's just do this real quick, hang on, I'm going to show my fields verbatim, I'm just going to do my control x here and now I'm going to try and save.

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Now here we see this record structure invalid cannot save. If I go up here and I see up at the very top, this pink uh row missing mandatory tag 942, so this will happen with fixed fields or if there are other uh essential fields that that you have that you have set up for your record, then you can that you then you can. uh It will include that in there.

C

So if I go to alerts uh record structure invalid cannot say it doesn't tell me why, but as we know it's there, so I'm just going to do. uh Let me put this back in control v and now we'll save it again. Control s ah record, save we'll look at our alerts, great okay! So there we go so there's that again alerts aren't really the most. You know crucial thing. I don't really check the alerts very much, but you know just so.

C

You know it's there right, okay, so now our I, our bib record, has been saved. So now, I'm going to click on our edit items up here kind of near the top to open up our item. uh Our item list I'm just going to edit this really quick since I'm here. Oh so sorry, so one thing that I want to point out in this as the volunteer, because.

B

I'm in the advanced catalog editor. I have.

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Less clicking, I need to do right. I can see my 092 that needs to be updated and I just scan down a couple lines. My 264 is like okay, this is 2006., so this means I'm not going to have to take the time to go.

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C

B

The basic bib record.

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I'm not going to have to open up the book to to find the called the uh the date in there right. So I can just add my in my serial enumeration chronology 2006.

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D-E-L-L we update that. I go to the end and save my changes and then that's done so I can mark that one off the list. I can put this book back on the cart and I can get the next one of what like 10 000. That still have to be done.

C

So that's uh kind of the basics of the advanced catalog editor in terms of editing records and finding your way around.

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So the next question you you may have like: well what about creating a new.

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The you know, the basic editor has all these different fields. It's got all the fields already there. You know. I don't need to to think about what what needs to go in uh what needs to go in my record. Well, so two things number one, the uh it's great.

B

Again, it's great that.

C

The the basic editor lays out all this stuff, but there are actually a lot of mark fields in there that aren't really going to be necessary for every book or every item that you catalog.

C

So you know for better or for worse, um but so the way we do it and the um the advanced editor is. We use macros to build templates and so macros.

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Yes, we we skipped over these macros earlier, um but I should also mention before I get into macros when you go into the new record here, which I'm going to do just for a second, there aren't oops, hey, hey, hey.

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C

B

Okay, that's better.

C

Okay, ah there we go. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, oh sorry, technical issue, all right.

B

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So now, if I, if I go to just really quick, I want to show you one other thing in the um advanced editor so and so, if I go to new record from the the cataloging module home, you'll see there's this default framework.

C

There are all these different frameworks, so I think there's a way that you can in the at one of the admin modules you can set up templates for new records, which will you know populate the the new record with a bunch of different fields, the the whatever fields you need for that our library never set those up, for whatever reason I mean it was before I got here. So I don't really know the you know the exact reason.

B

It could be that, because.

C

We don't do a whole lot of original cataloging. It didn't seem worthwhile at the time. So at any rate, though, we have overcome that hurdle by using macros instead. So what is a macro? A macro is a quick shortcut. It's not a keyboard shortcut, it's very flexible. You can set up macros for just about any uh adding any field uh in the um uh in mark. You know whether it's just a plain empty field or a pre-populated field.

C

uh Let me just walk through some of my macros that I have on my machine and just so you can see some of the different types right, so I have single macros like say you only needed to add your your uh call number or you own. You had a special note say like for this 500 genealogy holdings.

C

You know, there's a certain note that goes in all of our genealogy items that I don't want to. I don't.

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Because I don't catalog those items frequently enough, but it's very useful. So I can I have it in here in this macro and I just click run macro and it adds that 500 field to to the record the bib record.

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uh We also have um combinations right what I call a lazy macros and when I'm doing non-fiction I almost always have to add an 092 call number field and I always have to add a 583 action field for cataloging completed. So I made a macro that added both of those. So here you see this, you know new 092 new 583 and I have all the information in there and it may just need to be updated so tomorrow.

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So you see 20 20, 009 23 tomorrow I'll update this to 9 24 and it will automatically save, and so that's really all the maintenance you have to do on a macro day-to-day. Then we also have our templates.

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I only have one macro one template in here for original catalog and that's the adult non-fiction down here at the bottom, and so you see here oops.

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So I have all these different fields, and this doesn't have every single field I mean there are, if.

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You look, there are no.

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Subject: fields: you know no 650s or 600s, there are no, but those are easily added. These are the basic things that work. For you know the work for for fiction for non-fictional like uh we do, keep a word doc of a a more comprehensive list of macros on our shared drive that all the catalogers can access, which is really useful, because when the new update of coha goes live in your system and you clear out your catch, then all of your macros will be wiped out.

C

Yes, they will be all wiped out, so it's very useful to keep some sort of a backup. So you can just copy and paste everything right back in you know it takes maybe 10 minutes or so, but it's uh it's a lot better than having to take a lot longer to try and reconstruct all of your macros from memory. So definitely recommend it. um Let's see here, oh and so that all the the things in that dock are. Let me pull it up here, they're already formatted for before the the macro editor.

C

So just it's just a matter of copying paste and you're done.

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uh So, let's see here, so how would I make a new macro? Okay? Well, let's, let's just go with our keep with our our example here. So you see my 0.92 here and this.

B

Sorry, I should say.

C

This does happen occasionally in this project, where the uh the volunteer comes across a record that doesn't have an 092 field for some reason, so they need to add one. So you see on on my machine. I have my new 092 and it just has sub-field a sub-field, but let's say we wanted to make it a little easier for our volunteers. Let's just let's say we're going to.

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Where the subfield a is nf, which is our our cat, our code for non-fiction, so I'm going to scroll down here to the bottom oops come on new macro, so we're going to give it a title, we're going to say 092, adult non-fiction, okay, so it's all right! So what's it gonna be so I'm.

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Say new space 092 equals subfield a and so my.

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Double dagger uh sign is ctrl d in the uh the advanced catalog editor, so subfield, a n f sub field b. I'm gonna leave that blank, so okay, so I see over here on the right. It says that it's saved so now I'm going to I'm just going to run this macro here, and so we look in.

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Oops and we see just below our regular 092 there's this new one, that's been added, so if there wasn't an 092, we would just add this in here and then the uh the volunteer would copy the call number from.

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Item record or at.

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The very least.

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From the label and put put that in so that's that, so let me think if.

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I have anything.

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Else to say about this that pretty much covers what I was going to talk about. I spoke a little faster than I expected, so if only you have plenty of time, if you.

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Questions or other pro tips from you veteran catalogers out there. uh I will. um I don't know if uh lissette, if you have anything from the chat.

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C

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See edview asks so jason. Are you using volunteers to do some of your cataloging.

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We aren't using volunteers to do like regular, like full level cataloging like they're, not doing full copy catalog, and usually it's just like for this project. They'll have maybe one or two fields to update uh we do have. We are fortunate to have among our volunteers, some retired librarians and they they are former catalogers, and so they do more.

C

You know more librarian level, level, tasks like authority work or copy catalog, and that sort of thing.

A

Okay and heather asked: are these macros available on the koha wiki.

C

I don't think so I you know, to be honest: I've never looked for macros on the quahog wiki, but I'm happy to share uh the macros that I have with people through some channel or other.

A

We highly recommend that you put them on the wiki for the community.

C

Okay, I will. I will make a note to do that. I didn't know I had that kind of power to adjust.

A

C

A

You just have to request an account.

C

Oh all, right, I will remember.

A

How you do that? Okay? If and if you don't hear back right away, you can jump onto the quahog irc be like hey. I requested such an account a week ago and haven't heard okay, okay,.

C

Just give someone a nudge all right.

A

I know kate uh katrine does a lot of the um she's helped me out like when I forgot what my wiki username was because.

B

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Made it like five years ago and then didn't do anything with it for three years.

B

A

Okay, um let's see, um was it difficult to create a macro in coho? Yes,.

C

Well, it depends on a difficult; no, um it helps that. Well, I mean really. The hardest thing is just getting the the formatting, which is not really that hard, because.

B

C

If you wanted to create a wiki for three three x fields for graphic novels, really all that you would need to do would be to look in your collection for a graphic novel like, let's just say, planet of the apes omnibus, which is great by the way I'm reading it right now.

C

um All you have to do is go into the record, and then you highlight your those lines.

B

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You have text still image unmediated volume and then I'm going to go to macros, let's just say, whoops new macro I already have one for for. uh Oh no. I only have one for econ on there, so I'm just going to say 33x rda, comics, but they're graphic novels. I know I know so, I'm just going to whoops. So I'm going to I shut the format. That's a little different! So you put new space new.

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New and then I'm going to eliminate these underscores with equal, replace those with equals. Whoops equals.

C

Equals equals right so there I have that right there. So then I can just that's. Let's see it's uh it's saved, so I could just run it here and then here we go so we've got a whole new batch, which I can now get rid of. I'm just going to ctrl z to eliminate those it's undo um so yeah. So it's really! It's really straightforward. If you, if you already have materials in your collection, you know in your your catalog that you know that have that formatting that you want.

C

You know the only thing that that might be tricky. The only macro that might be tricky might be some of the ones for original cataloging.

C

You know make sure that you know your your uh your institutional code for oclc, which I didn't when I got here. You know, but you know it's it's usually readily available. So does that answer your question.

A

uh Let's see barbara put book one seven, two six, eight in the chat that retains macros when cleaning the cash, which is.

B

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uh Bug one seven, two, six, eight, oh and that's push to master for 2005. So oh.

C

Boy boy, we're on 1911 right now.

A

The next update my water partners will get the next major update is 2005.

B

C

A

Good, not a partner.

C

Okay, well, anyone already on 2005, you can disregard my comment about clearing the catch. Thank you, barbara.

A

Let's see uh if you run macro, does it insert the lines ask lori.

C

Yes, it does insert the lines. uh Sadly, I can't run a macro only for a sub uh a sub field. Like you know, we still use the uh the subfield h, the gmd uh for 245, mostly just as a kind of a service to patrons another, very kind of.

B

C

To distinguish between say like the audiobook version or the dvd or whatever of a work, but so I can't just have something: a macro that only inserts subfield h dvd in my 245. Unfortunately, that would be a pretty awesome. That'd be a pretty awesome ad for uh 2011., but that's probably not going to happen.

B

It's probably not even a bug.

A

How's it say: do you know if there's a bug for that? I.

B

Don't think so, maybe I should put one in.

A

B

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And then, if you do, if you do it before our catalog in bugapalooza session tomorrow, if you bring it to that or if you can't make it if you email it to info at koha dash I'll, take it.

C

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Get other people who are using the advanced editor talking about it and hyping it up.

B

A

um Fred asks: where do you go to get your records if they're from oclc or another place with o82s? Would it be comparatively simple to convert them to an 0.92.

C

Yeah it'd be really simple to convert them to 0.92. uh Well, I don't know if it'd be about converting.

B

C

We do get a lot of oclc records, um we get some others mostly for for uh ebook any audio book. We get them from overdrive, but and we just we haven't, really looked into into replacing an 082 with an 092, but a.

B

C

Of times the 082 you know provides the the baseline for for the own mt that we had it's not. We don't always go 100 with the 082, but it's.

A

C

A

uh When we were talking about the wiki- and you said I didn't know, I had the power to do that uh spencer said: don't let it go to your head.

B

Oh no, I won't and fred.

A

Said everybody has the power to change, add improve coha and heather, said wiki, wiki, wiki um and then heather and barbara both said yes, an enhancement for macros that act only on subfields slash. I don't see a bug for that yet, but we would love that so.

B

All right well, thanks for having me everyone.

A

Yeah anyone else have any questions for jason, also jason. Your uh office, mate jason, was also answering some of the questions in chat.

C

Oh good yeah, I I knew he was gonna, be there. I told him if it started going badly and just start disrupting the chat, but I'm glad that he didn't have to take those drastic measures.

A

Me too, I think it went great, so thank you very much. I learned a.

B

Lot about everyone.

A

Advanced editor today.

C

A

There's another question: tomas.

C

A

Can macro modify values which are already in.

C

Yeah well macro will completely over well. It won't override your existing field so say you have like in the example that I showed with um this uh in the the 092 example whoops right, adding another 092, my 092 adult non-fiction.

C

It doesn't override this, the pre-existing 092 it just adds another one. So yeah you don't don't have to worry about crucial information being lost or you don't get to just overwrite all the old junky stuff with the new good stuff. So for better for worse.

A

And can you and maybe I miss this- can you delete lines with a macro like if there's fields.

C

No, I think macros are just for adding deletions.

A

Okay cool well, uh unless anyone else has any questions, I think we'll go to break for a short while and be back at wait. Let's see when's our next one, oh right! This is our like lunch break and then we'll be back with very, very basic jquery at 1 pacific, slash, 4 eastern.

A

If you haven't entered if you haven't registered yet for the conference and you're planning on coming to our event tonight or to bugapalooza tomorrow, please make sure you're registered because we'll be sending out the zoom length for those events uh during the very very basic jquery presentation.

A

Oh heather said super presentation standing ovation.

B

A

Michelle has two questions: where would.

B

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Find advanced editor, it does not show where it does on jason's screen and.

B

Two, the same for.

A

Macros, I don't have those on the screen either you might need the permission.

B

A

uh Because I think there's a permission for the advanced editor.

C

And I don't um sorry what what was this: the the questioner's name.

A

um Michelle perry.

C

Michelle michelle, um if you go to your settings and the basic editor, is there an option to toggle to the advanced editor yeah? If not, there may be.

B

Some kind of permissions.

C

Or I don't know if they're in the admin, if there's a way, that to just universally turn advanced editor on.

B

C

Off I, I don't know that much about the what happens behind that curtain.

A

I believe it got switched from.

A

uh I think it's just a permission now. I think that got changed sometime in the last year. I might be wrong. um Oh, let's see michelle, I'm super librarian and can't find editor either. Okay, let me just look at the admin settings real, quick.

A

Yes, it's uh we'll be back in just over an hour. It's our lunch break today. um Our advanced editor needs to have http access, so it needs permission in browser. Specially okay system preference enable advanced, cataloging.

A

Editor and then I think, even after that you might still have for non non-system librarians, you might still have a preference.

A

A

Set permissions.

A

Yes, so then there's also a use. The advanced cataloging, editor user permission once that system preference is turned on and they have that or our super librarian.

A

Okay, so we'll uh reconvene in according to my clock, 65 minutes. I hope.

B

A

A nice lunch and thank you very much jason.

B

Thanks again, thanks for having me good to see you all bye,.