We use 3.8 and are trying to enable our users to make more independent use of the catalog (instead of relying on the staff to look everything up, as they did in our old system).
On the public service side, I can see at least two important uses for lists: 1) For staff to create mini-bibliographies for topics in high demand. 2) For patrons to choose what material they would like to consult - a shopping list as it were (and quite often, this list will be passed on to the staff, because they will need to retrieve some items from other locations). But, once you create a list, the printout is not very useful. In the OPAC, the list gives title, author, publishing info, availability and call number. Theoretically one could print out the list and then wander around the stacks fetching the items. But there's a serious flaw in the system. The list in the OPAC version, does not show the shelving location. Since only about a quarter of our collection is on open shelves (and some of it is located by size) this means the reader is going to get very frustrated. We have not included location information as part of the call number, as it can and does change, and would potentially complicate the browse the shelves feature. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I discovered that the Staff interface view of the same lists gives substantially less (rather than more) information. If our staff needs to collect material from store rooms and locked cases, they have to print out individual records. This is actually a step backwards from our old database, where we could print out a list with the retrieval information for each item. We've disabled the Cart function, so I don't know if that is any worse or better. If it will show location, I will re-enable it. My second difficulty is the public / private settings for lists. It would be very useful to have a third choice: Staff only. Sometimes a list is a collaborative work, in progress, not ready (or intended) for public consumption, but more than one person needs access to it. Sometimes a list is useful for communicating with other staff members (we are rarely all in the same place at the same time) I designed some templates with default text for the staff to use for specific types of material, and I don't want these to be seen by the public, but if I make them private, then the staff can't see them either. Are solutions to the above problems in the pipeline for future versions of Koha? Or should I file a bug/enhancement? Thanks, -- Elaine Bradtke Data Wrangler VWML English Folk Dance and Song Society | http://www.efdss.org Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London NW1 7AY Tel +44 (0) 20 7485 2206 (This number is for the English Folk Dance and Song Society in London, England. If you wish to phone me personally, send an e-mail first. I work off site) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Registered Company No. 297142 Charity Registered in England and Wales No. 305999 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" --Elvis Costello (Musician magazine No. 60 (October 1983), p. 52) _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
