Koha and old books

Basics

In 1999 the Informationsverbund Deutschweiz (IDS) published Rules for old Books. Those rules are a translation DCRB (Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Books) adapted to Swiss particularities. It's chapter 2A of the actual collection of rules is used in Swiss academic libraries.

The most important changes regarding the default MARC-framework of Koha

In MARC 21 two new fields are introduced:
- 901: Persons connected with the work or the present item (e.g. autographs, marginalia, former owner etc.).
- 902: Persons connected with the work or the present item (e.g. publisher, paper manufacturer, former owner etc.).

The field 752 $d shall take the authorized value of the place of publication/print.

These three entries should be controlled by references to authority records.

The new bibliographic MARC-framework for old and rare books

Add MARC-fields 901 and 902. It is reasonable to copy the subfiels of field 100 and field 110.

Connect subfield 901 $a to the thesaurus PERSO_NAME.

Connect subfield 902 $a to the thesaurus CORPO_NAME.

Connect subfield 752 $d to a new thesaurus PRINT_PLACE (see below). Subfield 752 $9 must be must be present and visible in the staff interface, otherwise the connection between authorized value record and bibliographic record won't work.

New authority type for places of production

It is useful to have the reference to the place of publication/printing controlled by authorized values. In administration->authority types create a new type:(PRINT_PLACE). In the field authority field to copy add 152. You can take GEOGR_NAME as an example to copy for the new one.

The fields 151 and 181 can be deleted.

A new field 152 is added with the subfields:
- $6 Linkage (NR)
- $8 Field link and sequence number(R)
- $a Country or larger entity
- $b Primary political jurisdiction
- $c Secondary political jurisdiction
- $d Town
- $f District

A new field 452 is added for managing "see from":
- $6 Linkage (NR)
- $8 Field link and sequence number(R)
- $d Original form of place name

(The subfields are defined according to field 752 of the bibliographic MARC-Framework).

Managing Zebra Configuration

The new authority type Publication/Printing place

Authority is controlled DOM style. Therefore /etc/koha/zebradb/marc_defs/marc21/authorities/authority-koha-indexdefs.xml has to be changed.

After the rules for geographic names add:

 <!-- Printplace -->
  <kohaidx:index_subfields tag="152" subfields="abcdf">
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic:p</kohaidx:target_index>
  </kohaidx:index_subfields>
  <kohaidx:index_heading tag="152" subfields="abcdf" subdivisions="bcdf">
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic-heading:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic-heading:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic-heading:s</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Heading:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Heading:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Heading:s</kohaidx:target_index>
  </kohaidx:index_heading>
  <kohaidx:index_heading tag="152" subfields="a">
    <kohaidx:target_index>Heading-Main:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Heading-Main:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Heading-Main:s</kohaidx:target_index>
  </kohaidx:index_heading>
  <kohaidx:index_match_heading tag="152" subfields="abcdf" subdivisions="bcdf">
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match-heading:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match-heading:s</kohaidx:target_index>
  </kohaidx:index_match_heading>

  <kohaidx:index_heading tag="452" subfields="d" subdivisions="">
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic-see-from:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic-see-from:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Name-geographic-see-from:s</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>See-from:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>See-from:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>See-from:s</kohaidx:target_index>
  </kohaidx:index_heading>
  <kohaidx:index_match_heading tag="452" subfields="d" subdivisions="">
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match:w</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match-heading-see-from:p</kohaidx:target_index>
    <kohaidx:target_index>Match-heading-see-from:s</kohaidx:target_index>
  </kohaidx:index_match_heading>

These new rules have to be managed by:

  xsltproc ../../../xsl/koha-indexdefs-to-zebra.xsl authority-koha-indexdefs.xml > authority-zebra-indexdefs.xsl

(in the directory /etc/koha/zebradb/marc_defs/marc21/authorities/).

The bibliographic framework Old books

Bibliographic data are managed grs1.

Therefore the following files are to be altered:

/etc/koha/zebradb/biblios/etc/bib1.att

Definition of new inedexes:

# Koha Local-Use Biblio Indexes
[...]
att 9013    AD-Persons
att 9014    AD-Corporate bodies
att 9015    AD-Locations

/etc/koha/zebradb/marc_defs/marc21/biblios/record.abs

Connect the fields with the indexes:

melm 752$9      Cross-Reference,Koha-Auth-Number
melm 752$d      AD-Locations
melm 752        AD-Loctions
melm 901$9      CrossReference,Koha-Auth-Number
melm 901$a      AD-Persons
melm 901        AD-Persons
melm 902$9      Cross-Reference,Koha-Auth-Number
melm 902$a      AD-Corporate bodies
melm 902        AD-Corporate bodies

/etc/koha/zebradb/ccl.properties

# Koha Local-Use Biblio Indexes
[...]
AD-Persons 1=9013
AD-Corporate bodies 1=9014
AD-Locations 1=9015

/usr/share/koha/lib/C4/Search.pm

sub getIndexes{
    my @indexes = (
                    # biblio indexes
            [...]
            'AD-Persons',
            'AD-Corporate bodies',
            'AD-Locations',

/usr/share/koha/intranet/htdocs/intranet-tmpl/prog/de-DE/includes/search_indexes.inc

Also in de-CH (or any language file)

<option value="AD-Personen">Alte Drucke, Personen</option>
 <option value="AD-Koerperschaften">Alte Drucke, Körperschaften</option>
 <option value="AD-Orte">Alte Drucke, Orte</option>

[Above using English terms:]

<option value="AD-Persons">Old books, Persons</option>
 <option value="AD-Corporate bodies">Old books, Corporate bodies/option>
 <option value="AD-Locations">Old books, Locations</option>

Pros and cons

These steps have been established by trial and error. They have to be controlled and corrected by someone who has a major understanding with the way Zebra works (and even Koha).

What works?

The data can be entered and be found. A specific search for printing places, persons and corporations connected with the record is possible. It should be possible to export the data so that the IDS can import them without major problems (not checked!).
It is possible to enter new authority records when managing bibliographic records.
In the MARC-View you can find the corresponding authority records.
The authrity records show how many bibliographic records use them and give the link to the list.

Problems?

In this solution files are changed which probably are overwritten by each update (for certain: search_indexes.inc, probably also: Search.pm).
Only one subfield ($a and $d) can be searched.
The definitions of the Zebra indexes are very rudimentary.
When the new authority records (PRINT_PLACE) are displayed the name of the cities ($d) are not displayed. Maybe the file /usr/share/koha/lib/C4/AuthoritiesMarc.pm has to be edited. (A work around: Keep field 151 and enter the name of the place twice: in 151 $a and in 152 $d).
When searching for the authority record in the pop-up window (auth_finder.pl) the first field (Main-entry (only $a)) can't be used. (The work around above helps here too).

Versions

Koha 3.12 on a debian server (installed by the packages – koha-common).