Hi all,
Rodgers Memorial Library in Hudson, NH has joined us in this development
partnership to support Multiple Value Fields in Evergreen. Among the
many benefits from this development project will be more flexibility in
determining which formats are represented by icons in the catalog (e.g.
DVD, Large Print, e-books, etc.) This project is important to our users
to help them more easily identify the format of a given item.
We still need more contributors to make this project happen. If anyone
is interested in the project, please let me know. I'll be happy to
forward along the Statement of Work and answer any questions you may have.
Thanks!
Kathy
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
[email protected]
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
On 9/4/2013 5:11 PM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
Hi all,
MassLNC has been in discussion with Equinox regarding a development
project that would give us more flexibility in how we use format icons
in the catalog.
MassLNC's goal is to be able to use different icons to easily
distinguish between books and e-books, for example, or between VHS,
Blu-ray, and DVD. We also would like the ability to leverage fixed
fields for this purpose instead of creating a local field where these
formats need to be added every time a title is cataloged.
Equinox is proposing some changes to the underlying infrastructure to
accomplish this goal.
Right now, Evergreen uses Single Value Fields (SVF) to identify item
type, item form, videorecording formats, etc. This development would
add Multiple Value Fields (MVF) to Evergreen, allowing records with
multiple values in repeatable fixed fields to work properly. In
addition, the development would create "Record Attribute Groups" that
allow you to take an arbitrary set of attributes (SVF/MVF values
pulled from a record) and collapse them into a "super value."
I don't want to go into the technical details, mainly out of fear that
I'll get something wrong (if I already haven't), but I included the
above information to convey the idea that, although our immediate goal
is to get more flexibility in determining which formats should be
represented by icons, the development project will bring about other
benefits as well. As an example, if you have a MARC record with two
007 fields for a DVD/Blu-ray set, you can't currently retrieve that
record in both a DVD search and a Blu-ray search. Once we have
multiple values, the record can be retrieved with either limiter.
Also, this infrastructure can also be used to support other potential
enhancement projects in the future. As an example, if a future
development project funded the return of metarecord holds to the
catalog, this infrastructure could be used to support different types
of formats that users can select for these holds. There could also be
benefits seen in the staff client batch record importer. With some
configuration, record attributes might be used as matchpoints for
repeatable fields (like ISBN). This configuration might lead to some
performance improvements in record matching.
MassLNC would like to contribute some funds to this project, but
cannot support the entire cost of the project. I'm putting out a call
to see if others might be interested in funding this project. If a
bunch of us pool our resources together, we may be able to get this
infrastructure improvement at a much lower per-partner cost.
If you are interested, please end me an e-mail directly. I'll send
along additional technical and financial details to any interested
parties.
Thank you!
Kathy
