Linking reader preferences to bibliographic subject headings using authorised values

Linking reader preferences to bibliographic records

Status:	unknown
Sponsored by:	Oslo
Developed by:	Peter Lorimer
Expected for:	2011-03-23
Bug number:	Bug 5934
Work in progress repository:	No URL given.
Description:	Linking reader preferences to bibliographic subject headings using authorised values

Introduction

A feature to allow librarians to create title lists based on preferences and previous choices. This is targeted towards libraries essentially home bound users for the blind or partially sighted where books are predominantly posted out to the borrower.

Overview

There are two levels of coding used to identify broad preferences for readers

Categories and Sub Categories

There are 2 or more codes attached to categories, we have defined the following two:
FICTION
NON-FICTION

There are more codes attached to Sub-Categories.

Broad subject heading-like data is constructed from these two lists and inserted into the catalogue record. Similar groupings are also attached to the borrower record. These are then used to link borrower interests to items in the database to help library staff quickly identify appropriate items for clients.

Structure of data in Koha

The Category and Sub-Category information has been added to Authorised Values lists to ensure consistency of data entry.

The Category and Sub-Category information has been inserted into the bibliographic database using the 690 tag and sub-fields $a(Category) and $x(Sub-Category). These sub-fields are linked back to the Authorised Value list for the codes, so the cataloguer can only enter data from the list for consistency of data entry.

The Category and Sub-Category information has also been inserted into the borrower record as “additional attributes”

We will only enter one iteration of each category type into the borrower records.

With this set of codes, we can expect to have about 10-15 iterations derived from each main Category.

Requirement

The requirement is to enable library staff to identify all the items in the library catalogue that match the borrower’s preferences.

The table below shows a borrower record:

Additional attributes and identifiers

BRAILLE (Braille)	No (No)
CATEGORY1 (Cat)	FICTION (FICTION)
CATEGORY1 (Cat)	NON-FICTION (NON-FICTION)
CATEGORY2 (Sub-Cat)	BIOGRAPHY (BIOGRAPHY)
CATEGORY2 (Sub-Cat)	CLASSICS & LITERATURE
CATEGORY2 (Sub-Cat)	HISTORY & POLITICS
CATEGORY2 (Sub-Cat)	LITERATURE
CATEGORY2 (Sub-Cat)	POETRY, ESSAYS & PLAYS
Collection (Collection)	DAISY
Collection (Collection)	LARGE PRINT
DECEASED (Deceased)	No (No)
JUNIOR (Junior)	No (No)

This borrower has 2 Category Preferences and 5 Sub-Category preferences. Potentially, this borrower has 10 combinations of preferences:

FICTION – BIOGRAPHY
FICTION – CLASSICS & LITERATURE
FICTION – HISTORY & POLITICS
FICTION – LITERATURE
FICTION – POETRY, ESSAYS & PLAYS
NON-FICTION – BIOGRAPHY
NON-FICTION – CLASSICS & LITERATURE
NON-FICTION – HISTORY & POLITICS
NON-FICTION – LITERATURE
NON-FICTION – POETRY, ESSAYS & PLAYS

The intention is to make the system create searches for each combination of the Category and Sub-Category, search the database and present results. Some of these will be invalid (eg FICTION – BIOGRAPHY) but they will return no results and will be ignored.

As returning the full combinations in a single list would be unwieldy, it would be better design to allow library staff to click on the value against the Category and have the system just process the iterations for it.

For example, from the screen above, clicking on FICTION would return
FICTION – BIOGRAPHY
FICTION – CLASSICS & LITERATURE
FICTION – HISTORY & POLITICS
FICTION – LITERATURE
FICTION – POETRY ESSAYS & PLAYS

It would ignore those searches that returned no results (eg FICTION – BIOGRAPHY above)

We will also add the ability to add information from the Collection code list to the borrower’s additional attributes list. This will be used as a refining criterion – see below.

Filtering Options

There are three desirable filters that could be applied to the searches:

• There should be the option to exclude records from the search result where the borrower has ever borrowed an item attached to the title.
• There should be the option to select a date range. This would restrict the results to records added to the database since a certain date.
• If we link the Collection Code to the Borrower record, the system could only return results where the format of the item matches their choices. IE no point in showing Braille items to borrowers who cant read Braille.

Caveat: These filters will be of limited use initially:

• All records will have a date added of the date the system is converted from the current system. Over time this filter will become more useful as live data builds up.
• As the database currently has a one bib record / one item record structure, the search results will return results for (other copies of) titles that the borrower has already had. This will decrease as records are merged to form a more standard one bib/many copies structure.

Processing of results

When results are returned, there should be an option to allow the staff member select an item and automatically pass the barcode back to the checkout screen so that it can be issued to the client.

Proposed design

The Category entry (FICTION/NON-FICTION) will be made a clickable link.

When the user clicks on the link they will be presented with a grid, which shows the “subject” grouping and has three radio buttons:
All Items / Items not borrowed / Items not borrowed since (date)

The logic here is to return fewer options at each stage.

	All Items	Items not borrowed	Items Added since <date> but not borrowed
FICTION – BIOGRAPHY	o	175      .	43                  o
FICTION – CLASSICS & LITERATURE	o	63      o	20                   .
FICTION – HISTORY & POLITICS	o	623      o	56                  .
FICTION – LITERATURE	o	240      o	86                 .
FICTION – POETRY ESSAYS & PLAYS	.	5      o	2                 o

The user can then select one or more lines, but only one option per line (a radio button), which will then return a list of items which has had 2 further filters applied: only display items where there is a collection that matches the selection on the borrower record. And only return items that can be issued.

The staff member can then see a list of the titles with a tick box allowing them to select items which can be passed back to the circulation function to issue to the borrower.

Title                                                                                 Collection           Barcode                 Issue
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban                           DAISY                                             o
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban                           LARGE PRINT                                 o
Harry's Game*                                                                   DAISY                                            o
The Loves Of Harry Dancer                                                 DAISY                                            o

From the issue screen, the staff member will be able to see the items just issued and can then note the barcodes to retrieve them from the stacks. }}