On Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:02:07 -0400 "H.S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dijo:
> NoOp wrote: > > I don't know... "I have several thousand books to catalog" sounds like a > > job for an oss library package to me. I doubt that a library with > > "several thousand books" would attempt to catalog simply via OOo and > > Zotero; and gmu.edu probably would recommend the same. > > Ah, didn't notice that he was going to deal with that many books. In > fact, I am not sure if there is any easy way to get those books one by > one in any application! Perhaps there is a way for him to export the > bibliography that he already has in a format that Zotero can understand > and import. This would be the easiest method. > > Koha, IIRC, can import some library catalog formats. I am no libraries, > but it appears that if he can export or convert this pre-existing > database to Marc21, he can import that in to Koha. > > But perhaps I am missing OP's point here. If all he wants to do is > create and maintain a catalog, then perhaps Koha will be appropriate. > But I understood his request as building a bibliography database to > interact with a word processor. I don't Koha does that ... but I could > be wrong here. :) Thanks to both H.S. and NoOp for the suggestions and commentary. Some additional facts may help. I do have several thousand books which I own. Ultimately I want to have them all in a database/catalog of some sort. Almost all have an ISBN number, and Zotero can use the ISBN number to look up the information for the book. Then all I have to do is add it to my library. It will take a while, but all I have to type in is the ISBN number. As for existing databases, I started a few months ago with Alexandria, which also has an internet lookup feature, so I could do essentially the same thing - just enter the ISBN and let Alexandria find the book and enter the details. However, I entered only about 40 books and then my life got sidetracked. A couple weeks ago I installed and tried Tellico. It is very similar in functionality to Alexandria, but I like it a bit better - it seems to have better lookup capabilities. However, I entered only a couple dozen books. Now I am trying Zotero. Note that what I am doing is experimenting for the best solution for my situation. Since I do not yet have a database I can use any of them. Zotero has the advantage of being web based, so I can access my database from someone else's computer. More importantly, there is an OOo plugin for it. And that brings me to my motivations. One purpose is just to keep track of what I have. A few months ago I ordered a book I needed for a class, only to discover after it arrived that I already had a copy. That was stupid. Please don't tell the university, lest they revoke the degree they already gave me. My other purpose is to handle bibliographies for papers that I need to write for classes. And that's where the plugin promises to be really handy (but more about that in another post). Thanks again for the suggestions. I still have some issues with the Zotero plugin, but I'll post about them separately. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
