Hello everyone, We (my wife and I) have a large number (large is relative, in this case 300-500) of paperback books as well as records, DVD, CD, VHS as well as items published in Europe that are not available via the Z39.50 Library of Congress lookup. For those items that ARE available via the LOC the load into Evergreen goes smoothly and painlessly with only a few mouse clicks :-) ! However these other items are going to be a rather big pain in the neck (or fingers when I finish typing their data). I've looked at the import_demo scripts to try and figure out what is really needed in the database tables and have come to the following options:
Build a webGUI and use it to: A. enter the data into a file similar to sample_marc.xml and then process that file through the scripts. This could be a stand-alone webapp since there wouldn't be any direct interaction with EG at data creation time. B. Load the data directly into the EG tables and have a real time update similar to the process when using the Z39.50 import and include the check-in step to get the copy into a mode where the Reshelving_Complete script will process it. This option would best be done in the Staff Client vs a stand-alone webapp. Option A would work and the tag 999 fields used to hold the holding copy data (if I understood it's purpose correctly). This option would require the intermediate step to run the prep/load scripts. From the point of view of a non-geek person loading the data option B would be most interesting since it would give a relatively real time load of the data. In either case, I obviously won't have all of the prolific data that is normally available in a professionally created MARC record. Can anyone give some idea of the minimum fields that should be entered? Obviously, Title, Author are needed but not sure what above that is needed to keep Evergreen from getting into issues about missing data. Maybe something like the above already exists and I have missed it. Any comments on the above (including "what a crazy idea") would be appreciated. For sure, Evergreen wasn't created for the 2 "patron" library so normally this type of load isn't a big requirement but as mentioned in several places, it is scalable (up in size as well as down )! I'll consider those comments then see what can be created (if necessary). Regards and Happy 4th of July to everyone. <soapbox> Thanks to all Evergreen developers for supporting the ideals of the Founding Fathers of the USA (even though they never had computer software) to preserve the freedom of not being locked into a particular software company and the ability to have a forum in which to freely participate in the further development. THAT is what they wanted for this country back in 1776. </soapbox> Regards, RobertC
