Koha-US SIG - Cataloging Special Interest Group, 6 Jan 2022

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From YouTube: Cataloging Special Interest Group - 1/6/2022

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Chat logs:
00:38:54 Leanne Cooper: Congrats Barbara!! Thanks for that info!!
00:41:56 Heather Hernandez (she/her): https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/053/table.html Library of Congress cutter information
00:42:15 Leanne Cooper: Does any one catalog e-books with PDF files--where do you store the PDF's--link to? Where does the 856 go to? Some one mentioned using virtual commons but would that be a copyright violation? (this is someone's else question from my institution so I don't fully get it myself haha)
00:43:24 George Williams: This is what I picture Fred's van to be like
00:44:30 Barbara Johnson: love the van photo
00:45:20 George Williams: We have some PDF digital books that the publisher has said it's OK to add to our catalog. We have these PDFs saved to Koha.
00:45:55 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: Yes please!
00:46:09 Leanne Cooper: Awesome--thanks so much!
00:46:59 George Williams: It isn't difficult
00:47:23 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: Personally I'm at 10% brain capacity today
00:47:56 Heather Hernandez (she/her): https://archive.org/details/sanfranciscomaritimelibrarycollections
00:47:59 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: OOO yes plz
00:48:50 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: that is really awesome
00:48:58 Jennifer Marlatt: We use Internet Archive for yearbooks, scrapbooks - it works really well.
00:50:05 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: Yes George! I'm glad this is recorded
00:50:08 Leanne Cooper: Thanks George!!
00:50:15 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: XD
00:50:58 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: oh god the idea of that
00:51:08 Heather Hernandez (she/her): Right?!?
00:51:52 Jason: https://bywatersolutions.com/education/attach-file-marc-records
00:51:55 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: Oh that is slick
00:52:04 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: Thank you so much George
00:52:32 Heather Hernandez (she/her): Yes--thank you George!! This is great.
00:53:05 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: XD
00:53:13 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: OOOO thank you Jason!!
00:53:19 Jason: http://kohageek.blogspot.com/2015/12/attaching-files-to-catalog-records.html
00:56:05 Leanne Cooper: Yes so great!!
00:57:09 Bruce Metcalf: Hard to say which van is more what we expect of Fred.
00:58:47 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: Wizards
01:01:34 Liz Dukelow Central Kansas Library System: XD
01:05:01 Lauren Denny: I'm interested in what you find out. I have a similar problem
01:06:57 Heather Hernandez (she/her): 21.05 manual about the News feature: https://koha-community.org/manual/21.05/en/html/tools.html#news
01:09:32 Heather Hernandez (she/her): These are our "objects," i.e., things that are important to as as "things," not just for informational content: https://keys.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?advsearch=1&weight_search=on&limit=mc-itype%2Cphr%3AOBJECT&sort_by=relevance&do=Search
01:09:57 Heather Hernandez (she/her): We use item type for this, BTW.
01:11:26 Bruce Metcalf: Nothing more obscure than the obvious.
01:11:45 Heather Hernandez (she/her): :):):)
01:13:32 Fred King: Bruce, may I use that as my signature quote? If so, do you want to be cited as you, anon, or trad?
01:13:59 Bruce Metcalf: Feel free. I'm probably not the first to use it.
01:14:07 Bruce Metcalf: See: "The Purloined Letter"
01:14:16 Fred King: Trad, then.
01:14:53 Bruce Metcalf: It's called "conservation of grief".
01:16:50 Bruce Metcalf: What should "Collection Codes" be used for?
01:18:10 Heather Hernandez (she/her): They can be used to shelve by color, even: https://koha-community.org/manual/21.05/en/html/extending_koha.html#cataloging-and-searching-by-color
01:18:20 Heather Hernandez (she/her): And search by color.
01:22:51 Heather Hernandez (she/her): This is a search in the Koha-US demo where you can see, in the search facets on the left, some ways the item types, shelving locations, and collection codes are used: https://demo.koha-us.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?idx=&q=fiction&limit=&weight_search=1
01:24:49 George Williams: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/30/1059990280/after-100-years-boise-public-library-gets-a-missing-book-back
01:32:00 Barbara Johnson: Remember to join koha-US - https://koha-us.org/join/
01:32:15 Leanne Cooper: Thanks everyone!
01:32:59 Barbara Johnson: https://koha-us.org/donate/
01:33:28 Aly Rattler, Technical Services Librarian: Bye! Thanks everyone!

A

Hi everyone welcome to the uh first cataloging sig group of 2022..

A

um I I will go ahead and let everyone know I had my booster shot monday, so I'm very slow of brain today, but it's good to be here and I apologize for not getting an email word out. So I'm delighted to see you all here and does anyone have anything that they'd like to bring to the group.

B

Well, I have an announcement.

B

um I am this year's co-high u.s president, and we had our board meeting yesterday and one of our goals for this year is to increase membership. So I encourage everyone to become a kohai u.s member. It's only 25 for the full year. You can think of that as like just around two dollars.

B

What is it two dollars a month or something cents.

C

B

Seven cents a day there you go so it is a great value and you may think why do I want to be a member of quahog us? Well, you do get benefits like voting on voting in the elections, voting on the conference, site, location and some people may think. Well that doesn't really do much for me, but I think you should be a member of koha us because you get something back from all of these sig meetings, the all the content that the education committee puts out.

B

um So even if you don't participate, you know in the the voting and that kind of thing I think everybody gets a great deal from quahog us and the membership and any money that's brought into koha us is used to help fund developments.

B

It could be used to. You know, bring like a speaker to a conference or something like that. So it's just it's just a great value and I want to see everybody here join if they're not already remember so there's my pitch.

C

And remember: color means gift with an obligation.

A

Yes, giving and giving and giving being part of the community and the the funds generated by membership also go to support the wonderful zoom room that we use for our meetings.

A

So great, thank you, barbara.

A

Well, there were um there were some questions in previous meetings about linked data, but I think I'm going to put that off until february, unless anybody has anything they'd like to chime in about that.

A

Or if there's anything else,.

C

um Trying to think of something, but.

A

Questions comments, neato things discovered oddities things, you might not even be sure cataloging related, but are probably cataloging related in some way, because boy everything touches those bibliographic records. Doesn't it.

D

I have questions, I have a gold, so I don't work hovid. So I don't have the brain power to understand the answers.

D

So I'll wait till next month.

A

Absolutely fine: we will be here next month as well.

E

Since I set sail, all I've been able to do is work on correcting my previous misunderstandings of how cuttering works.

A

Interesting and you have very interesting local well, you have very interesting local call. Members are you which.

E

A

Cuttering system are you using.

E

I'm using the lc once I can get down to the word level, um but.

E

E

It was it's I forget which general it was. No battle plan survives first, contact with the enemy. That's my cataloging system.

E

But uh fortunately it's open-ended enough and I haven't run out of letters yet so it's all working.

C

Good, how many alphabets are you using not just one? Oh okay, yeah, I'm using a cutter sanborn three figure table three figure cutter sanborn uh from I'm, not sure when, but it's printed on cardboard, yeah, nice, binder.

C

No, I do not want to get an extension to my vans warranty.

C

uh It's a 2004 van yeah. Another dent isn't going to matter. uh Where was I oh yeah cutter and I figured this- is a small system as long as people can find it, it doesn't have to be perfect.

E

Yeah, yes, and that's um the old lesson I learned was the don't let the excellent be the enemy of the good enough.

C

E

F

E

Get a bug report in on the fact that it can't sort, but.

A

Yeah there have been uh sorting issues definitely, but I found that on the call numbers, a library of congress, call numbers sort correctly and using the item search and if you click and sort by that call number column, then they will actually sort.

E

Yeah, no, I mean it's not that complex numbering system, it's a right now, I'm working on category gf and then there's a letter and some group of numbers and it can't put the a's in front of the b's.

E

This is pretty clearly a bug.

A

I'm going to make a note about um cuttering sorting bugs, so we can be sure to look at those next month when we have uh more brain power. George put into the chat a link to a funny image.

A

I really want to.

E

I really want to get a clear uh definition of the problem before I go to the bug report, but gotcha.

E

Had more than one bug that I solved by trying to write it up and realizing where the problem was.

A

Well and leanne uh asks in the chat: does anyone catalog ebooks with pdf files? Where do you store the pdfs, a link? Where does the 856 go to someone mentioned using virtual comments, but would that be a copyright violation? This is someone else's question for my institution, so I fully don't understand myself yeah. This is very complicated. um We uh we will link to. We will have an 856 linking two ebooks that.

A

Are stored on very reputable repositories like internet archive at archive.org or hattie trust that are freely available. um Sometimes we are starting to uh host the pdfs in koha. That's a new feature with some of the later versions that you can upload a pdf like to the bib record, like you would upload an image and that works really well, we do do full um copyright clearance on those things, uh since we're federal anything that our staff does on staff. Time is in the public domain, so it's easier for us than other places.

A

um There are some resources on uh performing copyright clearance in a library setting that I can look up and bring to our february meeting um george puts in the chat. They have some pdf digital books that the publishers said: okay to add to the catalog and those pdfs saved coha.

A

Does anybody else like to talk about their pdfs.

C

Okay, um for our author's catalog, we have a print version.

C

And just put the pdf of that on what I did was set up a separate server, because our firewall can't use port 81.

C

uh So I just linked it in the other server. uh Eventually, I know it's possible heather. I think you told me how to store something on the coast server. I just can't remember how and where.

C

And maybe, when two of us have more than just one functioning brain between us.

C

Okay, when all of us have a function, have functioning brains, at least 80 percent capacity,.

A

Yeah george wright's in the chat I'm laughing because george writes it isn't difficult. It really is very simple: it's a it's pretty much changing a system preference and then you just upload pdfs I'll see if we can find uh the link to the manual.

C

Yeah I was trying to look up so get some articles.

C

Through other nursing, okay, how do I do this again.

A

I'm also gonna put into the chat um a link to our internet archive collection that we have um we've been uploading items that we digitize to the internet archive because they will for free forever host the items and do a conversion. So we digitize into jpegs assemble those into a pdf upload, the pdf and cataloging data from our catalog record to internet archive and then the internet archive for free converts, those pdfs to multiple formats.

A

So they are in formats for the blind, other common ebook formats and that sort of thing which is really convenient. Yeah.

E

I wasn't able to find that the other day it seemed to take me to a subscription form. Is there a free place to uh upload the archive.

A

Yeah, if you go to archive.org, it's very easy to create a free account. It will be your same account for archive.org and for openlibrary.org.

E

Okay and go give it another look really. I wasn't full brain power that day either.

A

I mean jennifer puts into the chat that they use internet archive for yearbooks and scrapbooks. It works really well, I find it works really. Well too. We also use it for images uh like our rare uh menus cruise ship menus and uh some maps card, graphic materials.

G

I've been, uh let me move this over here where I can see already.

G

I've had my camera off because I'm doing like five things at once, but if you want me to show you how to set up the the uh plugin to upload files to a to a cataloging record, I can I can share my screen and do that. Oh yes, please, george. Let's see I want.

C

G

C

Yeah I've been trying to download a picture of my van, so I can have the real family.

C

I just have to figure out how to put it in the chat.

G

Okay, so uh you should see the next uh cohort administration pages.

H

G

So if you go to mark bibliographic framework, I only have this plug-in on one framework and I I have it hidden from everybody else, because I don't want everybody at all the I don't want 54 libraries starting to add uh pdfs, to uh to every cataloging record, which I.

F

G

Yeah, it would just be a burden, so you find the framework that you want to add it to and you go to actions and you click on mark structure. And then you find the field. You want 856 in this case and then I'm going to click on edit subfields.

G

And what you're going to do is you're going to under the other options you want to put in the plugin upload.pl, so there's a drop down there that allows you to either leave it blank or then there are all these different plugins that you can put in there and upload pl is the one that allows you um once you once you save that if I go to cataloging and do a new record on the z framework, which is the one framework I have that has this then you'll see this little upload button next to the 856?

G

U, and it opens a uh it'll open up a window here where you can either search for a file, that's already been uploaded to coha or you can browse and then get the file from your computer and put it in there.

C

Where in koa does it store it.

G

uh It stores it with all the other files which I don't really understand exactly where that goes. Okay, um we have our cohas setups that if you go to the upload tool and if we do a search for wild card, we'll get a list of all of the different files that have been uploaded to coho, most of them are well.

G

We have a process that runs on the back end that gets rid of the old mark imports, but we have a folder set up so that if it's been uploaded to the images file or to the images folder, then we can download them easily, but they all get stored here and at some part of the database.

G

I'm not really sure where that all that data lives.

F

So I looked this up. I used my ten percent of brainpower to do some googling. While you were.

G

F

Did a write up on what george just said, uh so I put that link in the chat and fred. It looks like vimo. I don't know how to pronounce. His name also did a write up um talking about where you set the path. So I think for those of you that are self-supporting, you may have to set the path before you can upload. So you you set where they go. Okay,.

G

Yeah christopher wanted to do a thursday video on this topic, uh without realizing that um he had the path set up and most people don't, and so we decided it wasn't a good one to do as a topic, because we can't set that path because we're bywater customers. You have to go into the to the to the uh linux environment, to create the the changes to the configuration file.

G

So um so we decided it wasn't a good topic for video, but if vimal koha geek he does some good videos. So um he's probably got a good explanation of how to set all this stuff up. In the back end.

A

Well, um a thursday video could be a review of existing resources available on the on a special topic, because I think there might be some people out there that, for example, have their notifications set for the kohu us channel, but may not be aware of email's channel.

G

That's true and there's ptf s does videos too.

A

G

Does videos that I think most of us are aware of because most of us in the us are bywater customers and the ones that aren't that come to the quahog? Us meetings are aware of what bywater does, because the rest of us that our bywater customers talk about it all the time. But ptfs has some videos koha geek. I guess he doesn't do videos, he does a lot of blogs. He does do some videos, but it's not a regular thing, but his blog is pretty good and seems like there are a few other resources.

G

So maybe maybe other resources wouldn't be a horrible topic, but specifically how to set up the upload path. That's out of our depth. We need fred to learn how to do that and then fred can be a special guest.

G

So we haven't, we haven't, had a special guest in a long time. So, okay, I'm thinking about it. Today's thursday, I think, there's a video uh one of our videos airs today.

G

F

One of the years.

G

G

I'm going to flip over and see if that's actually there yet.

A

Well, thank you, george. That was very, very useful and jason for the resources.

C

Yeah, I think um jamal kumar was doing um a live. Video back in 2013.

C

C

And that's basically how I learned color was use his uh live dvd to boot, up the computer and then destroy it and then.

C

It's a lot easier now you can just make an image and spin it up on a cloud server, so you can just make and destroy them a lot faster now.

A

Well, that's cool and, and speaking of fred's many many projects. um I've become in my personal life, very linux, curious, so fred- and I have been chatting about me in my personal non-work time, perhaps with one of my old laptops trying to be a guinea pig for some breaking the linux barrier.

E

A lot of us willing to help you with that I've been on it for a zillion years, yeah too many too many years, yeah.

G

Cool I took a couple of old laptops that were sitting in the recycle pile here at the office, and uh uh so I there were two of them that were identical, so I was able to double the memory on one by taking the memory out of the other, and then I doubled the hard drive space and so on and so on, and uh I set up a dlna server at home uh just last week, which is kind of cool. It's kind of fun.

E

That's how my non-profit gets equipment. We drive around nice neighborhoods the first trash day after christmas and see what's in the turkey.

G

Well, we have lots of uh old windows, we have lots of old windows, 7 computers waiting to be recycled. I think we have about six of them in there now.

E

Linux runs great.

G

On those yeah yeah, especially when you take memory out of you know when you got to the match, and you can.

E

Make them wipe the hard drive max out the memory and you gotta. You got a good machine. Yeah.

C

Yep, if I finally got a new computer at work, I can't log into it.

C

It just says: welcome and logging in and I he thought they fixed it and they haven't so I'm back to using my old uh windows, 7 machine, but somehow now has 16 gigabytes of memory.

G

I remember the first computer that I ever used had this massive 20 megabyte hard drive.

C

Yeah mine too 512k, I'm.

E

Older than you, I guess, I'm older than george, I remember when it took three of us to get a 5k drum memory off the back of the truck.

C

Yeah, I don't go back that far.

A

I was very very excited when the ibm at came with an internal hard drive.

C

Oh and george, I have a story for you. um Remember the computers I had at a conference that you referred to as a battleship.

C

Well, that one is the power, connector isn't quite as good, so I think- and I was planning to go to florida, to visit my mother, but that's a story I told before, as I started recording um so I figured oh, I need a computer, and so I started looking at the local computer dealer and their refurbished ones, and I thought uh this one looks good uh 8k gram about 350 yeah. That won't bother me if the dogs get to it too much yeah. What's the model number, it's exactly the same kind as I have so.

C

I now have three of them.

C

One runs linux, one runs windows, seven and not very well, and one runs windows. 10.

A

C

E

Maybe that I find that running not very well was a characteristic of windows. 7.

C

uh Even more so since the power plug keeps falling out.

G

And if you tie all these together, you can uh float off the island out into the shipping lanes right, yeah.

E

I'm already there.

C

All right what.

E

I just you can't tell under the snow but.

C

Yeah, it's a white chevy astro cargo van good for camping, which I don't do any more craft shows which aren't done anymore.

E

But hey it's paid for yes,.

A

I think that perhaps we've exhausted the cataloging content.

H

This has something great okay. um I sorry I'm like getting over a head cold thing.

A

Again, we're 10 is generous.

H

A

H

A

Have just maybe one brain cell working so.

H

Don't worry about it. uh I have um some libraries that have gotten subscriptions to likes. What is it sensational? It's a it's a historical movie thing. I don't have my notes on me right now, but there's a way to you.

H

Historical films and they allow anyone in that um catalog to view the content. If the library has it now, whether or not they think it understand it's a consortium, catalog is a different story, but is there a way to? I know, there's a way to link to that site.

H

Is there a way to um on coha just for that library um allow the patrons access to those videos or is it like, because it's a consortium, would I have to make a branch or something I don't know that much I usually just catalog, and so like the background, co-host stuff is something that I let michael handle.

G

So I guess you're you're. What you're really asking there is? Is there a way to make the link only available in the bibliographic record yeah.

H

G

From a specific library are logged into the catalog yeah.

H

Could it would it we have aspen, so would it be easier to do it through aspen instead of coha.

G

I'm out of my depth with aspen.

H

Okay, I'll have to do some more digging. Then.

G

Because that'd be a question.

H

G

You're at ckls, I would ask somebody to buy water. Okay,.

H

Okay, because I think, there's a code that they give them to access each movie. So what I have I'm just trying to think if I could, like okay I'll, have to like get my thoughts together and and have a more concise thing to ask by water. Thank you guys.

C

Yeah, um how did they get in is ip validated? I.

H

Think it's, I think they get a code for like the entire library to use. So I'm just trying to figure out how to like.

F

Are you actually cataloging each individual movie, or are you just putting a link up to give them access to the actual, putting.

H

F

So we've we've done that something similar with a different kind of database, but we're using we're not using aspen. So I I don't have any uh help there either, but like you can um set it up so that news items only show up for a logged in like if you're logged in you see the news items. So you could put the link in a news item, um so the only people logged in at that library can see it and I've done.

F

I did that with one library and then I like rigged it up so that it also copies it down into the footer for that one library's patrons. So they have easier access to the external site.

G

Yeah, that's now that the header and footer are part of the news feature you can.

G

So, if you're not putting these links in the individual bibliographic records in the coho opac, you can control what uh people see when they're logged in in the header and the footer and the news area there's a whole bunch of different areas that you can control, but as how that translates into aspen. I have no idea.

H

Because we can make it basically a placard, so if they do certain keyword, searches that could bring up the site or the movie, um and I think we can arrange that so the placard only shows up for certain libraries.

H

um But if I were to go in like because we do get, they get a physical copy of the movie. um So I could very well put it in each individual record um for the items as well. I'm just looking at the various different ways. I can do this to kind of save time, because yeah consortium cataloging.

G

Yeah, I think, if you put it in the individual items in the catalog you I don't think you're going to have any control uh to the point where you can say this is only visible when certain people are locked in yeah.

H

G

I think in that and then I'm still talking just about the quahog opec so.

H

uh Yeah, I will have to mingle around with aspen and talk with them and buy water. Thank you guys.

F

So I just had a quick question because it's stats time um so I've been looking at our collection, codes and stuff. I I found barbara's library of things. Does anybody else have a library of things collection in their catalog? I'm just trying to like we've got a little bit of a mess that I created myself, so I'm trying to like rein it back in um so I was just wondering if I could see some examples of how other people pulled it off.

F

um I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, but more more data's, always better.

A

We have some objects, it's not a typical library of things collection, but they are what we would call objects, I'll, put a link to a search in the chat. How about others.

G

I think what you're the issue you're coming up with jason is that the imls survey this year wants adult materials, youth materials and essentially realia right a reality.

F

I mean the the bigger problem I'm running into is: we've got hot spots cataloged as special collection devices at some libraries, and we've got hot spots cataloged as special collections um equipment at other libraries. So I want to like really.

G

Find a way to rein.

F

G

Yeah yeah I've got the same problem where you know I have a category called uh wireless internet hotspot and one of the libraries decided we're going to call them all special collections or local hold so that people can't put holds on them. It's it's like. They made these choices about how they were going to cataloging with asking, without asking, what's the best way to catalog them, and so you know the now they're having issues because they they um they put each individual item on a separate, bibliographic record.

G

So one patron can go in and put like all 10 of them on hold and things like that. But one of the issue, one of the ways that I've been trying to move all of our stuff to make it easier to run reports, is I'm trying to re-code all of the item types so that all the item, types that are that relate to print material start with the letter p and all the non-print items start with, and you know the reliable reality.

G

All the objects start with an r that way eventually I'll be able to just have a report that that says. You know anything that starts with an r count, the circs on those and those will be all the objects.

G

There there are a lot of really I've already done that with some areas like video used to be media or there was local, hold 2 or walk-in 2, and so they were all impossible to do.

G

One report that could gather all that information easily, but now they all start with an n for non-print and then a vid for video and then the subgroups are are, after an underscore, so that's kind of how I'm trying to deal with the statistical aspect of it but as far as you know, getting 54 libraries to agree that that a hot spot is going to be. This one item type um is difficult because they don't ask me what it should be. They don't look at the list of item types and go hey.

G

There's one here called wireless internet hotspot. Why don't we use that?

G

um And so there are other aspects of it too or or you know there are other things. It's it's um it's an issue that I've got here too, though, and.

H

Isn't like don't the libraries gonna set their circulation rules with the item type too, and so yeah.

G

H

Different circulation rules, it's gonna be wonky anyway,.

G

Yeah that that's the problem I had with this one library where they cataloged them all, as special collections, I think, is what they were or actually was uh yeah with special collections, because special collection items don't go to other libraries to fill requests, and so I I, when they told me that they wanted a better way to do it. I said why didn't you use wi-fi internet hotspot and they said because we didn't want these to go to other libraries. I said if you use that they won't go to other libraries.

G

um I you know this. This would have been a better question to ask me a year ago, when you bought the things instead of waiting.

G

um You know, and you know, and and they wanted them they wanted them to have that item type because their circulation rules said those items don't go to other locations, but then they only wanted them to search for seven days, which is none of the other special collections. Things served for seven days at their library, they all serve for, I think, 14 days, so they wanted.

G

I mean I mean they. They did. They went about it. The wrong way.

F

Yeah and what I mean, what I'm running into more is because I I have been a little controlling over my item types is that we've um we were using equipment for hot spots when we were using equipment for cake pans so and hot spots don't circulate outside, but equipment does or kick the issue. Eggplant went to a hot spot library started racking up a dollar a day. Fine, um so I I've broken things down into like I'm.

F

I'm expanding my item type so that I have one for the base level type of item and then one for locally held- and I put local hold in front of each item- type that I'm doing that with so. I've got equipment and I've got local hold equipment, I'm going to put hot spots and local hold equipment because those never go out. Okay, yeah, but then I'm also expanding it to things and local things. I think so.

F

I'm gonna put cake pans and things so I wanna, I wanna, add a few more options but add clarity to it um so that they're they have the right option to pick, and I have enough flexibility to make slightly different rules for slightly different people. Situations.

G

Yeah, I I think that's one of the problems. I've faced in the last five years, too, is the people that had that were controlling things here before me were really strict about we're. Only going to have these item types, because we don't want the list of item types to get too long, but then that created all these problems and the same with the patron categories.

G

They wanted to limit the number of patron categories so when they get a new one, when there was a new library and they tried to shoehorn these people into different categories because they didn't want to expand the list of of categories because they didn't want that drop down to get longer. Yeah and.

I

G

I just decided you know this is stupid. You know we're we're limiting ourselves just for the sake of of making it easier, but it's not making it any easier. It's actually making it harder we're we're working around trying to solve one problem by by working around and creating a whole other problems.

F

Yeah and over time, claudia got.

G

F

Mean like in the past, we've we've been that way too, but koha lets. You pick your libraries per category on everything now like yeah before everybody saw all the item types, and that was bad, so we tried to keep it down, but now that we can limit different item types to different um conservation, elaborate.

G

Yeah bruce says it's called the conservation of grief.

G

Is that, like the conservation that grief is neither created nor destroyed, it's just changes shape exactly yeah. That was a lot of thermodynamics.

E

It's something I deal with constantly.

G

I, like that bruce's law, the concentration of grief.

A

Bruce's first law.

A

I I want to say a big here here to lots of item types and we're only one collection, we're not a consortium, and we have greatly refined item types and it's very useful.

E

I'll be doing that.

G

We have 54 libraries and I think, right now we have about 54 item types or for we have 43 item types. We have over 100 collection codes.

F

Right item types are the scary thing for me because, anytime, you add a new item type. Then that's 48 libraries that may need rule set um yeah. They don't agree on things, so I do try to keep those fairly small, but collection and collection codes for us have always been more of a statistical category. So there's not it's like the broad overarching, but we have a ton of shelf locations because that's kind of where we define granularity.

G

We have we actually shelving locations is where we do do a lot of shoehorning, because we've only got three of them. We've got adult youth, adult children's and young adult, and that way, when we want to do statistics on adult youth and young adult materials, we can just do the statistics on on uh shelving based on shelving.

F

Location and ours is kind of the flip of that. Our collection codes are things like adult books, juvenile books, um the media are split out into their different categories, which is fun.

G

But yeah same kind of thought. I like bruce's question: is you know what should collection codes be used for?

G

um That's actually one of the things um uh you know, I think in quahog they originally envisioned as a way of, as you know, part of the show part of the part of determining where to find something in a library was based on the location and collection code and that's why there's only one that's an area before I use cohab the the system that the library I was at migrated from to koha was voyager and voyager.

G

Didn't have collection codes, they had statistical categories and the big difference between collection codes and statistical categories and voyager is that an item could have 10 20 30 statistical categories.

G

So that way you could get a lot of um easy to run. Reporting data.

G

So um that was that was really useful, shelved by color yeah. That's.

A

Crazy and search by color, um we actually suppress collection codes again we're a weird coho library.

F

A

Collection, and so we use those to track um some special collections, it you know in a human intellectual manner to bring those collections together without using any bibliographic or item I mean in the item record. It can bring intellectually bring collections together in the item level way, but in ways that we do not necessarily want to display to patrons that's for staff use only so it's a very weird use, but a very functional use for us.

C

Yeah so far, I use them interchangeably. Just item types will, let you set circulation rules and due dates, and we have reference, doesn't circulate, reserve circulates for a week. Actually now it's two weeks, some things go out for two hours.

H

So, with the I'm stuck on these, I'm choosing the colors. If someone's colorblind is there, a shape is so associated with each color. Would that be able to help I'm just thinking of accessibility, because that's going to be my next.

E

Color blind they're not going to come out and come in and asking for that big green book.

C

Except there's one known as the green journal.

A

Yeah and we have the big uh we have the red book- um emojis can be used in tagging, so you could tag. You could add an emoji tag with a shape right.

A

H

C

Yeah our reference books are tagged with red tape and reserve with green tape and, let's see, what's the most common uh male color blindness.

E

My confusion comes from our library used to have collection designations, such as native american studies, and now that we have a cataloging system, that's covered by that, and I'm just wondering if there's some other function that I that it was created for that. I might be able to take advantage of.

G

I think uh that's one of the things I actually like a lot about cohas there's a ton of flexibility in it because at the last library I worked at locations referred to specific places in the library, but here in decals we're using them for these broad categories. We have our classification scheme, you know is set up. You know the way to find a book is: first, you look at the library, then you look at the location.

G

uh Then you look at the item type and then you look at the collection code. Then you look at the call number author uh and title and that should get you to where that is on the shelf in any library in the system. All the information you need- and it goes in- that order, library, uh location, item, type collection, code, call number author title um and that should get you any item in in our system. But at the last library I was at it was more like a library.

G

Library, collection code, I think, was it- was probably library- item yeah library, collection code, because there are the collection codes here. The collection codes are like fiction, non-fiction mystery romance dvd blu-ray software, but there the collection codes were adult adult fiction, adult non-fiction, adult video, adult children's video, and so you know you can kind of organize.

G

That's koha gives you a lot of flexibility, um but the one thing that I think that our my libraries all struggle with is that they need to remember that the only thing that controls the circulation rules are the item types. The item types are really: what control the circulation rules? The item type in the in the patron category, um because a lot of times they say I just want these.

G

I want the things in this collection code to circulate differently. It's like. I can't do that collection, codes, don't govern circulation rules and then every now and then I'll see these things in bugzilla or discussions online. Where people say couldn't we add it, so the collection code becomes part of the circulation matrix.

G

It's like I go, that's the last thing we need is another is another way to make that more complicated, because right now with 54 libraries, locations, 54, libraries, 23 patron categories and 43 item types, that's a lot of potential circulation rules and just adding in then at throwing in 100 collection codes. On top of that would be, I don't even want to do. The math.

E

We have, um we have not simply when you're a one-room library, yes,.

G

No circulation and a notebook that you keep track of the checkouts on. That's I've been to that library in beauville, idaho, so everything's written down in an old spiral. Notebook.

C

Yeah, of course, no matter what our due dates are.

C

Users tend to ignore them. Yesterday, someone returned a couple of books that were due back in september.

C

First, we replaced those with a new edition anyway, so it didn't matter anymore.

E

Remember my university book that was gone from the shelf for more than a week. I would go to my buddies in the library and say who's got it out and I go pound on their door. Hi. You want to return this. Can I take it back for you uh yeah? I got it here somewhere.

H

I really like that a lot of our libraries are going fine free because we are getting a lot more materials back, um because you get rid of that guilt.

H

That makes them avoid it, um but public libraries much different than special collections, and we can't like run down our patrons and be like hey give this to us at least not in a bigger city.

E

I've got an international clientele, so it's completely out.

H

That would be an interesting uh work form. It's like. I need to go grab this book in rome. It'll only take me a week. I promise.

C

Uh-Huh yeah woody allen did a great sketch someone pounded on the door. Nice come out with your hands up. This is at the new york public library.

A

And the famous seinfeld episode with the library cop.

C

And you know the checkout says library on the back huge letters available from unshelved. Yes, I have one.

G

I had uh bywater cleared uh almost a hundred thousand dollars worth of unpaid late fees. For me yesterday for two libraries, I only have five libraries left that have fines.

G

And the two that are least likely to get rid of those fines are the like the two of the smallest libraries. We have that's because they have boards that uh want to punish people. Oh yeah, very small towns, very.

H

G

H

Mindset for librarians I.

G

Believe libraries.

H

C

They have stocks outside that put them in the stock for two hours. For each week, the book's overdue.

G

When I was uh getting the dot when I was getting the transact, the account line id is ready to send to bywater, and I was talking to one of the the library director at ottawa. We were talking about these and I said you know if you haven't gotten this 14 cent fine from 2006 december 2006. It's a 14 cent flying if you haven't gotten that money by now, you're never going to get it. Let's just get rid of it.

C

G

And there were they had, uh it was about 44 000, worth of fines that they forgave at the end of the year and and most of those were before. uh Most of those were older than 2015..

G

C

Yeah, it's just too much trouble for us to try to track them down.

G

The side effect of this is we de I I have a process in place to delete uh borrowers um and a borrower can't be deleted uh through this process. If they have any, if they owe any money, even a penny, it's you can't delete them using the batch delete patrons tool, and so after we cleared all these fines. Yesterday this morning I come into my report to see who's eligible to be deleted.

G

All of a sudden had uh it was like uh 6 200 patrons on it.

H

um I think we have one patreon one card, so if the libraries who choose to participate, they, you can take any card in the system to a library. That's also participating and check out that library.

H

You have one home library and if you owe any fines at any library, you cannot check out or if you're missing a book. And so you have to go by the circulation rules at the library that you check the book out from not necessarily your home library.

H

So it's kind of interesting when there's still find some libraries in some libraries, but not in others, and I think one of the negative effects which is kind of sad is that um when I worked for great ben public, we had a donation day where you could bring in food donations for the um kitchen and the food pantry and they're like we miss you guys, because we.

F

H

To get all these donations so now they're um do occasional donations. um Instead of the forgive food for forgiveness, they just do random food drives.

E

Now I'm a little fortunate, it's a run, a membership organization and if somebody keeps the book for more than a year, um if I put a tag on their renewal notice and all of a sudden, their dues go from 100 to 350.

E

and well, you know, I'm gonna send it in I'm trying to write a review. It says yes, but if you don't send in the the full full replacement cost with your dues you're going to be removed from the board, but I'm the president not for long.

E

All of a sudden I had the book back.

G

When I was at the university of idaho yeah when I was at the university of idaho library, any overdue book, that's uh more than two weeks overdue, they just send you a bill, an invoice for the replacement cost of the book, plus a 150 processing fee. So if you've got 10 books overdue, all of a sudden you've got a 1500 bill, plus the cost of the books and then, uh as soon as that gets sent to the bursar's office, you can't register for classes.

G

You can't uh graduate you can't or you can't uh you know there are all these things that you can't do at the university so and so these people will call up and say you know, I've got these books overdue. I've got a 1500 bill and then you just say well as soon as you bring the books back, the bill goes away and then they come back.

C

Gee all my library charge when I was doing overdues was dollar processing, plus replacement cost.

G

Yeah, that's things have gone up, yeah.

C

Well, this was.

G

Inflation yeah.

C

E

It's probably more realistic in terms of staff time it consumes.

G

Well, yeah, I actually um at the library I was at in idaho, with layton county library, we charged a five dollar processing fee uh and I did the math on it one time and it was actually based on the the number of hours and the number of titles we cataloged.

G

uh The actual cost of cataloging a book over the year was about 490 a book. So five bucks was right on the money.

C

Yeah well, the staff, even ones who had been there for years, were getting paid about um 365 an hour back. Then this was an academic place.

C

Okay, I've got another meeting coming up at noon so.

E

It's been a lot of fun, it.

A

Has been great, I'm gonna.

E

A

End the recording uh mentioned link now in the chat remember to join koha u.s we'd like to have you as a member.

B

Join quahog us more than one person at your library can join koha us invite a friend to join quahog u.s.

E

If only I had a staff to go, can the chicken join the.

A

Chicken can join.

C

A

Think being a human is a requirement and barbara, is there also a link where one could donate? There should be?

A

G

Voting will occur soon for conference location for uh the 2022 conference. If you're, not a member, you can't vote on where the conference is going to be.

A

ah And there's the donate link great and I think, there's also some wonderful merchandise for sale.

C

A

C

Okay, gotta go all.

A

Right, thank you all we'll see you in february, where some of us hope to bring more brain cells. This has.

B

A

Informative and fun as ever. Thank you all.

E

Take care of yourself heather.

A