IRC log for #koha, 2005-10-13

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Time Nick Message
11:00 timing thus making no unified system school A could have barcode A as harry potter and school b have barcode A as huckaberry finn
11:00 thd timing: Corrected from earlier for EAN: 2 or 3 character country country code, manufacturer code plus product id, and check digit.
11:01 indradg timing, what we have done is like this [XX][XXX][XXXX][X][XXXX] => [USERTYPE][PROGRAM_CODE][YE​ARCODE][SEXCODE][SERIAL_ID]
11:01 thd, yes
11:01 timing so if we move to a single system this will be messed up right
11:01 thd indrag:  what software do you use to generate your codes?
11:02 timing: What do you mean by a single system?
11:02 indradg thd, OpenOffice Calc and a bit of perl :)
11:02 timing koha single database
11:02 indradg thd, printing the actual user cards handled through Glabels
11:03 thd timing: Only one library uses the Koha barcode generator currently.  Others buy preprinted labels which are much easier.
11:04 indradg brb
11:04 thd indrag what is the advantage of having the code segmented if the values that correspond to the code are in the database?
11:07 timing: How you use barcodes is entirely up to you and should not affect whether you have one Koha database for the whole system or not.  The interface warns you if you attempt to create a duplicate code.
11:08 timing ok so my problem with haveing serveral different books with the same barcode is a problem if I move them to a single database
11:08 thd kados: do you plan to upgrade koha.liblime.com to 2.2.4 today?
11:10 kados: A very slight change is needed in the NPL templates.
11:11 paul: are you still here?
11:11 paul not far, thd ;-)
11:12 thd paul: did you understand what  I was trying to as about whether you had active users of the itemcallnumber preference?
11:14 osmoze bye all
11:15 thd s/as/ask/
11:16 owen thd: what change are you talking about?
11:16 thd paul: does my question bore you or confuse you?
11:17 owen: I did not notice that you were logged in.
11:18 owen: for subject subdivision searches the NPL templates are broken and thanks to paul they could almost work now.
11:18 owen You're referring to an example ont he Liblime site?
11:22 thd owen: the LibLime demo may not even have records with subdivisions for all I know.  Subject searches for the opac/detail.tmpl need operator=contains instead of operator=start for the subject links to work correctly.
11:24 owen: also the subject subdivision subfields have to be linked as see also indexed values in the biblio frameworks.
11:31 owen: subject subdivisions are for example: 650 #0$a Historic buildings$zIllinois$zChicago$v Pictorial works.
11:31 owen Yes, I understand that part
11:31 thd owen: what was not understood?
11:32 owen "subfields have to be linked as see also indexed values in the biblio frameworks"
11:33 timing paul or kados:I need a list of public schools in the USA that are using Koha
11:33 If I could please and thank you
11:34 thd timing: there used to be a map on koha.org but it has not been replaced since the new website update
11:36 paul timing : let's have a look at www.koha.org/wiki, KohaUsers
11:40 thd owen: For example in the biblio framework for 650 $a in the search also text box you would put '650b','650c','650d','650e',​'650v','650x','650y','650z'
11:46 paul: the old Koha map often had URLs to the OPACs more than the wiki seems to have.  Do you recall that?
11:51 owen: is my meaning clear now?
11:51 owen I'm updating the link to see whether the behavior changes
11:55 thd paul: thank you for mostly fixing the first thing that most librarians that I know would identify as a reason to reject Koha without looking further.
11:57 paul: I was very pleasantly surprised to see that you had included a basic functionality for subject subfield links in 2.2.4
11:58 owen: what problem is that?
11:59 owen: how do I catch that problem or avoid it?
12:02 owen When I open a tag for subfield-editing and save my changes, instead of saving my changes to the old subfields it creates a new, duplicate list of subfields with my changed values.
12:02 It happens in both the default and NPL templates
12:03 thd owen: why don't I have that problem?
12:03 owen I don't know.
12:03 thd owen: what version is installed now?
12:04 owen Our test machine has a CVS version from just before the latest release.
12:05 thd owen: was the CVS version tied to head, 2.2.1, or to 2.2.4?
12:06 owen But we've had this problem for months
12:06 We can't safely use biblio frameworks on our production machine because of this problem
12:07 thd owen: Is the problem a legacy problem from an old version that needs a complete reinstall?
12:08 owen: I have not seen this problem from 2.2.2 on and I have certainly done enough to find it if it was readily found.
12:10 owen There's only two branches of cvs: rel_2_2 (which led to 2.2.4) and HEAD which leads to 3.0
12:10 The test machine I'm referring to has rel_2_2
12:11 thd owen: dump the data and do a fresh install on the test system.  Remove framework data from the dump and then reinsert the data.
12:16 owen: If your experience matches mine you should have no problem after there is no strange framework data in your system, unless I have just been very lucky.
12:17 owen: you would have to reconfigure your framework manually but I expect your problem would vanish.
12:18 owen: had you asked paul about this problem before?
12:18 owen Yes, but since he can't duplicate the problem there isn't much he can do
12:19 thd owen: Did he never know of anyone else with that problem?
12:19 owen No
12:20 thd owen: And no one tried hacking the framework before it appeared?
12:20 owen I don't know at what point the problem started, or what work had been done on the framework beforehand
12:22 thd owen: you have to let the gremlins have their own Koha to play with so they do not bother yours :)
12:25 owen: Framework problems could be systematically corrupting your data.  They almost certainly are but you have that nice external store of MARC information with the leader, 008,  and everything else that Koha erased for you with an incomplete framework.
12:28 owen: The joy of seeing subject subdivisions working at all in Koha worth anything that you have to do to see that.
12:33 owen: Has the LibLime demo had the same framework problem as you have had at NPL?
12:36 indradg: are you about?
12:37 owen thd: I don't know about Liblime's installation
12:38 indradg thd, yep
12:39 thd indradg: what practical advantage do structured barcodes have for you.
12:39 ?
12:39 indradg thd, ok explaining
12:40 thd, u see we started with automating the Univ's central library
12:40 now that the system is working people want the system to slowly replicated to the 76 colleges under it
12:41 these colleges have their own libraries... the students studying there access their local library
12:41 but "technically" the students in these colleges can also use the Univ library
12:42 the central database as u mentioned is present only at the university
12:42 the colleges are not electronically networked with the university yet
12:43 if it was only that the students from the colleges have to be given access to the university library, we wouldn't have this prob
12:44 but to replicate the Koha-based setup across the colleges as well which are not networked to the university presents problem without the classification schema
12:45 plus a lot of the University's functions (non-library) but tied to library nonetheless aren't yet computerised... old paper processes
12:45 so to migrate the system without a total failure we had to go for the compromise solution
12:46 thd, hope that clarifies :)
12:46 thd indradg: Is this merely to ensure that barcodes are not reused and are unique throughout a system that is not networked together yet?  If it were networked to gether then the central system could enforce uniqueness?
12:47 indradg thd, yes... if the entire system was networked we wouldn't have to perform this circus act
12:48 thd indradg: is the power grid reliable for that eventuality?
12:49 indradg thd, basically blocks of serial ids are reserved for the colleges... they get to play with only their own blocks
12:51 thd, power grid is reliable enough... what is proving tougher is migrating librarians from CDS / ISIS based or proprietary system  (and even more the sysadmins to migrate to Linux)
12:51 thd indradg: is 76 colleges an unusually high number for a single university in India?
12:52 indradg thd, not really... there are universities with higher number still
12:52 the Univ I'm engaged with is the umbrella university for all engineering and technology colleges in my state (West Bengal)
12:53 thd, higher education used to be govt funded... now in the last 10 years things are all moving to the private sector ... or euphemisically called as public-private sector ;)
12:56 thd indradg: So many colleges elsewhere that I know of would have formed their own autonomous existence free from any university.
12:59 indradg thd, technically the colleges here have that freedom too... and it doesn't matter in the private sector jobs... employment opportunities / higher educational (post-graduate, PhD programs and such) get restricted unless the students have the stamp of one of the recognised universities
13:00 thd indradg: I expected that it was an accreditation issue.
13:00 indradg thd, the best academic, technical, management education institutions in india are all in the public sector and funded by the govt... the IITs, the IIMs et al
13:02 owen Hi jdtysko
13:02 indradg the competition there is extremely tough -- entry is like 1:10000 for the IITs... we have a huge population ;-)
13:02 jdtysko hey
13:04 thd indradg: Is their not a set of examinations administered by select universities that anyone can take wherever his college is located?
13:04 s/their/there/
13:04 indradg thd, yes... the entry into the IITs and IIMs are all through common entrance test conducted all-over the country
13:05 thd indradg: I meant sitting examinations for degree qualification.
13:07 jdtysko: have you solved fines.pl?
13:07 indradg thd, no... the student and his collges has to be accreditated to the University... the exam is common to all the colleges under one particular university
13:08 thd, the degree exams and certificates are directly managed by the universities here.. the colleges have little role in that
13:12 jdtysko thd: fines.pl? what is that?
13:12 thd indradg: there once was a time when the university leaving exams for most commonwealth countries were set by the University of London examination board wherever the local university or college happened to be located.  I suppose that was dispensed with in India after independence.
13:13 jdtysko: sorry, I guess I have you confused with someone else.
13:14 jdtysko thd: oh okay
13:32 thd timing: EAN-13: http://www.adams1.com/pub/russadam/upccode.html and http://www.barcodeisland.com/ean13.phtml .  EAN-14 is an extension.
13:46 indradg thd, yes
13:53 owen jdtysko: are you John Tysko from SEORF?
13:54 jdtysko owen: no i am his son
13:54 owen Oh, cool.
13:54 Nice to meet you.  I'm Owen Leonard from the Nelsonville Library.
13:55 jdtysko i'm working on the cataloging project for the library
13:55 oh, so you're the web adn interface designer
13:56 owen Yes
13:57 jdtysko well, i have to go to class. my group will be on at 4 though. bye
16:10 rach morning
16:11 owen Hi rach
16:11 rach hi owen, long time no chat :-)
16:12 owen It's been quiet around here in general
16:12 rach must all be working hard
16:13 thd rach: have you been reclaiming the OPAC default template for non-MARC Koha?
16:14 rach I don't believe so
16:14 we did new templates
16:14 for the libraries we're working on at the moment
16:15 and I think that we would have left in the "if marc show this"
16:15 type code
16:15 thd rach: Someone has modified the OPAC default templates so that they do not support MARC features or link to them.  I noticed with 2.2.4.
16:16 owen the OPAC default templates haven't been updated in ages
16:16 So they never did support MARC features
16:16 Paul's CSS templates should be renamed 'default' and the current default should be removed.
16:16 rach there's your answer
16:17 thd owen: they at least had links to MARC, ISBD, etc.
16:17 rach We have been reporting bugs when we find them so that owen & paul could update their templates if needed
16:19 owen The last update to /opac-tmpl/default/en/opac-detail.tmpl was over a year ago
16:19 rach the new templates we did were sort of a mix of the default and npl ones I think
16:19 sounds like a bug you should report thd
16:19 thd rach: The OPAC default templates just look now as if they had been adjusted for non-MARC.  The most curious thing is the subject linking does not appear in them at all.
16:21 rach: It really seems to be a bug by design.  They do look fairly nice.  I like their colour scheme better.
16:22 owen thd: I say again, the default opac templates haven't been updated in ages.  They were superceded by Paul's css templates.
16:23 No one is supporting them anymore.
16:23 rach Paul said he'd changed the colours
16:23 didn't he?
16:23 owen He changed the colors of his css templates slightly
16:24 rach they did have a bug that even if you chose "non marc" all the marc stuff still showed up, so he may have changed that after we pointed it out
16:25 thd owen: I never used the CSS templates until yesterday.  Some of the translation files only support default for the OPAC.
16:25 rach my guys reckon it wasn't them :-)
16:25 thd rach: now they have the opposite bug :)
16:27 owen The last update to files in /opac-tmpl/default/en/ was 17 Aug 2004.
16:28 thd, are you sure those are the templates you've been using?
16:28 rach do you meant the css templates?
16:30 thd rach: I know the difference.  the CSS templates are fine except for the bug where the MARC view obscures the navigation links but that is not new.
16:31 rach ah well just checking, sounds like one for bugzilla
16:33 thd rach: I had just expected that you would tell me that you had rewritten them to correct some bug that prevented non-MARC from working.
16:33 rach nah we're too scared of breaking the MARC stuff :-)
16:33 we made new ones
16:33 owen Are you going to commit them rach?
16:34 rach well we were wanting much simpler ones
16:34 yep they are being committed for v3 I believe
16:34 those are the v plain black and white jobs
16:36 thd rach: will those be the only ones where full acquisitions works, that is will full acquisitions work in MARC Koha or will it need non-MARC templates?
16:37 rach hmm that is a v good question
16:38 thd rach: I have a demonstration on Friday :)
16:39 rach: Of course, I could just pretend, and maybe she does not care about full acquisitions :)
16:40 rach they go live in a non-marc environment on Monday and I suspect we won't have tested with Marc on
16:40 but by the time v 3 comes out I would hope that they would work in both marc & non marc
16:42 I would hope that once we have our ones in production, there will be a bit of a "regroup" on what the coding differences are between the templates
16:43 and the functionality should be able to be resynced - we're making changes to just one set of templates because of course
16:43 we don't want to change all the templates until we've got one set right
16:44 owen would that be your take on things as well?
16:44 thd rach: Well that could be a suitable time if 3.0 is still somewhat on schedule.
16:45 owen But I doubt that 3.0 is going to be on schedule.
16:46 thd owen: what happened to you blind faith
16:46 owen :)
16:46 It got glasses
16:47 thd rach: has any significant Koha release been on schedule since version 1.0 ?
16:47 rach I'm not sure what would need to be done to make full acquisitions work with Marc on - well I have some idea, and I'd have thought that "not much" should be the answer
16:47 kados hey jdtysko ... how's the meeting going?
16:48 owen Whaddaya know, kados is alive!
16:48 jdtysko well, well, we're finally all here and we have a few questions
16:48 thd rach: It is only the templates that might be different which is why I asked about them.
16:49 rach it's more that full acquisitions represents quite a different business process within a library to simple acquisitions
16:49 kados hehe
16:50 rach which might get tangled
16:50 thd rach: Of course, but some odd problems had crept in to what had been working code.  Maybe chris has fixed them all now.  I have not tried testing full acquisitions since installing 2.2.4
16:51 rach there may still be anomolies, our libraries are still testing, and we're still bug fixing
16:52 I think that our templates should be in CVS if you want to check them out and take a look
16:54 thd rach: If the point where the invoice number was not being saved and one other show stopper has been corrected then I should be OK showing the possibility.
16:55 owen I don't think so rach
17:00 rach sorry I'm not sure wether chris is waiting to commit when they are actually right, or if he's doing it as he goes - we haven't changed the main templates AFAIK so if they were template bugs they'll still be there
17:02 chris is on the road today going library visiting
17:08 thd rach: chris had said a month ago that he had committed many fixes for acquisitions but still had more to finish.
17:09 rach yep they have been coming thick and fast
17:11 thd kados: are you still here?
10:56 owen Hi paul
10:56 paul hi owen
10:57 everything quiet on the channel today...
10:57 owen Joshua and I have been very busy lately...not much time for Koha unfortunately
10:57 paul some news about PROG templates ?
10:58 owen No. :(
10:58 paul (because I should have some time to spend on HEAD in a week or 2)
10:58 (and would prefer work on PROG...)
10:58 owen I'll see what I can find out from Joshua.
10:59 paul my main problem is that I get an Internal server error when changing to PROG.
10:59 a missing template it seems.
10:59 do you want it's name ?
10:59 (an included one)
10:59 owen Sure.  I can fix that at least

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