Newbie guide

Koha: A Newbie's Guide

Audience!

This guide is meant for people brand new to Koha. This guide is for people that aren't on any automated library system whatsoever. That's right kiddies, it's for folks that covet stamper, card catalogue, and typewriter. We are old school. You might be a small rural public librarian, or you might be someone that has a big private collection that you want to keep tabs on. 



Koha basically has three big parts - a mysterious Linux part, an Intranet, and an Online Catalogue. When you first get Koha, the Intranet part is white, silver, and blue and usually has the word intranet in the URL. The online catalogue or OPAC will vary heavily depending on what Library you visit. The default is white, silver, and blue with a little picture of the koru and egg in the upper left. 



You want to read this if you're going to be dealing with the Intranet part. The Intranet part is the part that lets you mess with the stuff that people see on the online catalogue. There's a lot to the Intranet, but it's not as mysterious to me as the Linux part of Koha. 



Koha is friendly enough to deal with if you are not a techie. Honest. My husband was kind enough to set me up a long time ago on version 2.0.3r. After I selected all of my server's parts, I gave him a box of stuff which only ran me about $700, and he turned it in to a server. After that, he stuck Debian Linux on it, Apache, and of course Koha. Since then, he's only needed to upgrade us to Koha 2.0, which went swimmingly, and took only about 5 minutes, and then to 2.2, which took a few hours. 2.2 to 3.0 is a bit of a bear, but worth it. The current version is 3.2.


So, you can convince the local tech guru to set this up for you in a couple of hours for the initial installation of Koha, Apache, and Debian (or Ubuntu) Linux. Then you'll need to call on them every now and then to run a rebuild of your records (which is not scary or terribly time consuming) or an upgrade. If you can get them to volunteer here and there, you're set. Pro tip: if it is orange, such as Cheetos, or tasty, such as Dr. Pepper, your techie prolly likes it. Bear in mind that I've been able to install Ubuntu myself, as well as work from a VMWare image containing Koha.

 
 Koha has an implied etymological string attached to it; one's meant to give back. I was at a small rural public library, so I couldn't afford to give money to the developers then. Hopefully when I'm someplace else, I'll be able to divert a little money to the project so that all may benefit. If you do have the money to spend, Koha is very valuable, and all of the developers are working hard. I can offer my thanks to all involved in my project, as well as a huge amount of gratitude. This manual is my way of helping, because I can't do much else. A hearty thanks to all of you developers. You are truly helping to make a difference. A thanks in particular to Stephen Hedges who has put up with more than his fair share of pestering from me, Paul Poulain for developing all kinds of features that I wanted in a snap of his fingers, and Josh for doing the same as well as plugging me into the v3 community. I am of course ever willing to serve as Chris Cormack's peanut butter mule.



I've been messing around with Koha for a few years now. I've found in computer science there is generally more than one way to do things. My degree is in Library Science, though and not computer science. I'll tell you when I'm not sure about how a feature works. 

 Unfortunately for you, there's a good chance I might be doing things the slow and stupid way. I know that what I've been doing works, but if you know a better way, please share it. I'm finally constructing this as a wiki where everyone can edit as things progress. 



Stuff You've Got

Got Koha

I'm operating on the presumption that you have a computer with Koha installed on it. It doesn't matter whether you got someone else to do that for you, or whether you did it yourself. If you did do it yourself, give yourself a pat on the back.

I'm using ByWater's demo in authoring this. It should be the out of the box version. Please do tell me if this is not so. If you don't have the system running yet, or are trying to migrate data, please visit http://koha-community.org/documentation/ for all sorts of stuff that will most likely be useful to you. Also, that little blue "?" in the upper right of your screen was meant for you! It's your link to the online help for a given topic. Drop us a line if it's blank, or not terribly helpful.

Got stuff to catalogue

This is the stuff that physically comprises your library. It could be books, it could be records, it could be DVDs. Koha doesn't care what kind of materials you catalogue. To date, I've helped catalogue a bagpipe chanter, some AV cable, and a cricket bat for other Koha Librarians.



As a further note, when I say hit, click, enter, or submit, I want you to left click on an option with your mouse.

What Now?

If you're like me, you got all excited about having Koha, and you want to start adding stuff to the catalogue as soon as possible. 

From the Welcome screen, pick 

More 

in the upper left hand corner and select Administration from the drop down menu. 
 This will whisk you away to the text filled Koha Administration page.

Put on your thinking cap and remember the good ole days of library school. If you didn't go to library school, don't despair. It's still possible to deal with Koha. There are a number of Librarians on the Koha listserv that are willing to help out with Library related questions. 



You'll only have to do this once, so don't despair! 
Important 

A little time spent on this step will save A LOT of time later. So think first. Hard.

You'll notice that next to Basic parameters Koha tells you 



Hint: Configure these parameters in the order they appear



Let that sink in. Okay. Take a deep breath and continue on.

Adding a New Branch

Your first step is to define Library Branches.

Click on the super slick gear icon that reads

Koha Administration

in the middle right of the page

and select

Libraries and groups to get started. 



Now click on the silver New Library button at the upper left of the page. 



You will now arrive at the New Library page.



If you only have one branch like me, this is a cake walk. Just like if you are doing your collection at home, or just one collection of something, you'll only need one branch.

If you expand later, Koha can deal with adding a new branch later on. 



Enter a short branch code. Koha will only take 10 characters here. I entered "MAIN" for my library. "ILIKESPACE" will also fit, but alas, "SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS" will not.



Name is the name of your library. I entered "Hinsdale Public Library." You probably want to save the creativity for your writing projects as your Staff will hate you if you are too clever.



For the Address fields I entered the street and mailing address for my library. You might think that three lines is a wee bit excessive, but it will prove happy for data purposes later.



Fill in your Library's Phone, Fax (people still use this?), and Email using the text boxes next to the fields. The URL is the widget that will let your website shine. :D



Click

Submit 

and that will ensure that the data you've worked hard on will be saved.



If stuff changes, or you mess up, you can go back to



Welcome Page

Koha Administration


Libraries and groups



click the dark blue Edit link on the right side of the table in the row you wish to change, change stuff and hit

Submit

to save your changes.



If you would like to annihilate an entire Branch FOREVER click the dark blue

Delete

link. Koha will only let you do this if there are no items in that branch. 

You'll be sent to a confirmation screen. If you really, really, have your heart set on blowing things up, click the silver Delete Library Button.

Item Types

This is super dooper important. Really. But don't panic.

The database can handle many, many different types of materials; I got all of mine in without busting anything.

I've got 28 item types, but I can only see the first 10 on the Item Types screen. 

Don't worry, the other 18 are in there. If you select a new number at the top centre in the blue box thing under the word administration, you'll be able to get to your other item types. Selecting showing all the entries will do just that. :D



So, what the heck are item types, anyway? 

Well, I like to have an item type for each sort of thing that has its own shelving location in my library. 

If you have a different spine label prefix, that's a great indicator that whatever it is you're trying to shelve that will need its own itemtype.

For example



J 
Carle



Tells me that I have a kid's book written by Eric Carle. The J is letting me know that I need a category for Children's since



Fiction
 Carle



Would be an adult fiction title. 



The more categories you create here, the more detailed your reports and statistics can be later.



On the other hand, if you create too many, your processing Staff might get frustrated.



If you forget a group, or start acquiring a new material type, you can come back to this screen and add the new category. 



You might need more or less than the 28 that I have.

For ease of understanding, the first 21 of my item types are:



Adult Audio Book Fiction 
Adult Audio Book Non Fiction
 Adult Audio Book on CD Fiction
 Adult Audio Book on CD Non Fiction
 Adult Fiction
 Adult Magazine 
Adult Non Fiction
 Board Book
 Caldecott Award Book
 Comic Book
 Musical CD
 DVD
 Kid's Easy Reader
 Graphic Novel 
Kid's Audio Book Fiction 
Kid's Audio Non Fiction
 Kid's CD 
Kid's Fiction
 Kid's Magazine
 Kid's Non Fiction (Interfiled with Adult).

In theory the 06 field in the leader should be a help to the computer in addition to the itemtype.

Adding Item Types

From the Item Types Administration page,

click on the silver



New Item Type 



button in the upper left. 



Input up to a 10 letter code for your item.

For example, the code for "Adult Audio Book Fiction" in my library is "AAF". You won't really see this code anywhere else again, it's just there for the computer to mess with. Koha will fidget and place the description in ALL CAPS so don't freak out.



What you and Patrons *will* see is the description. When I listed the first group of my item types, those were what I had written for all of my descriptions. A good description gives the Patron and the Staff a general idea of where the item is found and what the item is. This is NOT where your Dewey goes or where the precise location goes. It's just general. 



Next, select an icon to give Patrons a picture to go with your item type. These let OPAC visitors see what something is at a glance, and it makes your catalogue friendlier to children. 



The remote image option is a radio button that allows you to link to your own icon. Neat, huh? You need to give a path to the picture you wish to link to in the text box next to remote image. 



If you don't want the old icon that used to be next to your itemtype, or you change your mind during the process, you can select remove image to negate your selection.



If your library genrifies fiction, you need to create a new item type for each genre. I.E. an Adventure item type for adventure books, a mystery item type for mystery books. Luckily for you, Koha comes with many different images to go along with your genres.



Don't panic if you accidentally forget something. I forgot my DVDs when I first set up the item types. Since we don't have an old database, it's not a big deal. All you have to do is add the new item type, and you're set. 

Just like if you decide to start collecting something new, like music, at your library you can go back and add an item type for music.



Some Librarians have chosen to use itemtypes to differentiate between special circumstances or subjects at their Library. For instance, rotating collections would have their own itemtype. Different departments at a school library might warrant their own itemtype if they occupy a range of shelves. 

If this is not totally clear to you, keep struggling with it until it is. It is super dooper important. If you've got questions about it, feel free to email me at

abesottedphoenix @ yahoo.c0m

, and I'll try to help you understand it. Just swap the zero out of .com and close those spaces.



Not for loan 



This is essentially your "building use only" box. 

I don't use not for loan, because we don't have much that doesn't circulate at my library. The stuff at my library that doesn't circulate is local history, so I didn't want to ruin the old maps and books by barcoding them. 

You would check or tick off this box if you had a collection, like reference, that you wanted to keep track of, but you didn't want to let leave your building.



Rental charge 



Rental charge is where you would assign a fee if you want to rent your patrons stuff. Some libraries charge money to rent a video instead of just lending it out. If this is the case for materials in your library, you would put that fee in this box.



DON'T mess around with this box if you want to charge an overdue fee on an item. 



Summary



Koha lets you attach a summary to each itemtype. So, suppose something came from your downtown branch. If you stick an anchor in there to your downtown branch's website, it will show beneath the title in the catalogue.



Click

Save Changes



After all that work, it would stink to not save it. So make sure you click 



Save Changes



after you've puzzled it all out. 
 You can double check right away if your new itemtype was saved by browsing the list of itemtypes.

You don't actually have to touch

Authorized values

pretty much ever, so guess what? You're done with Basic parameters! Hooray!

Patrons and Circulation

Now that you've sorted your materials, time to sort out your people. To the database, there are types of people as well as types of items. 



So that you better understand what impact the borrower types have, I'll go through what I put into patron types and categories in Koha. 



Just as defining item types was super dooper important, so is defining your borrower categories.



I've set up 9 borrower categories. They are:


Adult


Youth


Trustee


Staff


Non Resident Borrower


Non Resident Youth


Out Of State


Out of State Youth


and Out of Country




I didn't want to lump in Non Residents with the rest of these fine folks because in Massachusetts, we get funding to offset non resident borrowing. That doesn't count if the person's from out of State, so I needed new categories to keep my data clean for reporting.



You also might later want to know how many residents of your town use your library. You might want to charge an annual fee for non residents. Having a separate category lets you do all of that.



I didn't want to charge my trustees, my staff, or my library kids fines. I also wanted my staff to know when they were waiting on a trustee. So there's the rationale behind those categories. 



Notice that I didn't set up male / female categories. You'll see that option, if you absolutely *must* use it, when you go to actually add a borrower, which happens later. 



Again, it's crucial to understand how this works, or you'll have a big headache later. You can always change things, but you have a choice between assigning a category now, or changing a bajillion patron records later. So if you still don't get it, feel free to email me at

abesottedphoenix @ yahoo.c0m

just remove the spaces, and change the 0 to a o.

New Category

Click on the silver 



New category

button at the upper left of the



Patron Category Administration

page when you're ready to start.

Category code

This field will take 10 characters. This code is primarily around so that the database can manipulate things. Koha will convert it to ALL CAPS. I just used A,Y,T,S,N et cetera for my category codes.

Description

Just like in itemtypes, it's the description field that will show later on, so it's worth the extra time to put a good description in that field.

Enrollment period 



This is the number of months that the person's record will last. Suppose you wanted to charge non residents an annual fee. When you set up a non resident record, you would set this slot to 12 and the enrollment fee to whatever you wanted to charge.

Age Required 



This is what tells Koha the minimum age someone can be for a given category. For my Adults, I set this to 18.

Upperage limit 



This is what tells Koha the maximum age someone can be for a given category. 

This is what you would mess with if you want a separate category for children. 

I set mine for my children's category to 18



Enrollment fee



This would be what you charge people to use your library patrons per annum.

Overdue notice required



This is a yes or no dropdown menu. It helps keep track of overdues for a borrower category. It's used when creating overdue reports. As an aside, this is what an authorised value looks like in person. "No" and "Yes" are the authorized values for this dropbox.

Hold fee



This is the amount you wish to charge a patron for placing a reserve. We don't charge, so I kept it $0.00.



Category Type 



This is the sort of demographic your Patron falls into. If it's an agency card, you'll want to switch this to Organisation. If it's a teacher, you would pick Professional.

Default messaging preferences for this patron category

There ought to be tiny checkboxen in the columns of this table that allow you to customize who knows about what and when. There should also be a drop down that allows you to select how many days in advance a Patron will receive notification about a given event.

Don't forget to hit

Save

or you'll cry.

Cities and Towns



Defining cities and towns will allow you to save Staff time by entering information for common Patron neighbourhoods. You'll be able to select the City or Town that you enter in this part later on in a drop down menu when you issue a card to a borrower. (This concept is what is known as an authorised value.) So very little effort here will save you a lot of effort later. 

Click on

Cities and Towns

underneath Patron Categories on the left hand side of the administration page to get to the Cities management page. If you haven't added anything yet, this page will pretty much be blank. Add a new location by clicking the silver

New city

Button. 

Type in the city name and zipcode in the two textboxes and hit the

Submit

Submit button to save.



Your location should now appear in the cities management page.

Road Types

Road types works in a similar fashion to Cities and Towns. Entering Street, Boulevard, Avenue, et cetera into this section will save you from typing these by hand later in the Add Borrowers screen. 

Click on the blue

Road Types

option from the middle left of the Administration page to arrive at the Road Type screen. Click on the silver 



New road type

button 

to define a new thoroughfare.
 Simply enter a designation like "Court" into the empty text box and hit



Submit

to save. (Save early and often!)

Your road type should now appear in the table on the Road Type screen.

Patron Attribute Type

This should be renamed "Nosy additional unnecessary data." This is the thingamajigger you would use if you wanted to enter in someone's Driver's Licence number, Student ID, Employee ID, or any other unique identifier that you probably oughtn't be asking after. (If you don't collect the data, hackers can't get to it, and neither can certain three letter bureaus. Just sayin'.)

A lot of this junk can't be undone once you do it, so be sure to read up on the manual if your heart is just set on being nosy.

For argument's sake, click on the silver

New Patron Attribute Type

to start. Funnily enough, this will bring you to the

Add patron attribute type

page.

Pick a short code similar to your item types to go in the Patron attribute type code box. I picked

DRIVERS

for driver's licence.

I then went ahead and stuck

Driver's Licence

into the next text box.

I didn't figure on folks having more than one driver's licence, so I DIDN'T click repeatable. I *DID* select Unique identifier. I didn't check allow password. I _definitely_ did not click display in OPAC. I did click searchable. After all, picking on my poor husband, this would make it easier to distinguish _my_ Thomas Johnson from the 40,000 other ones in the system when he inevitably doesn't bring his card. I let the authorised value category stay happily blank before hitting

Save.

Circulation and Fines Rules AKA Issuing Rules

Rosalie will make me crack more macadamia nuts if I don't keep the word issuing or issues alive for Kiwi Librarians. (Alright, alright, she never *made* me do anything, and I probably ate more than I shelled, but you get the picture.) You'll also notice that when you click on

Circulation and fines rules

on the left of the administration page, it sneakily takes you to the

Defining default issuing rules

page. This is because deep down, we know that Yanks want to speak proper English.

The good news is that Koha is very granular, which makes for a lot of flexibility so that your policies can be any way you want them to be. More good news is that you've already dealt with setting up Patron and Item types and are now ready to decide what goes out to whom and for how long.

The bad news is that this information appears in a super long seemingly confusing table. It is one of a few screens that garbles if you look at it using IE, too. So if it's garbled, try a different browser.

However, there is hope. Just persevere. You shall come to love the table. Be one with it.

Before you do anything else, if you have different branches, be sure that you select the right one from the pull down menu at the top labeled:

Select a library:

since you don't want to go setting rules for Foxton when you meant to set them for Levin, after all. (Not that mistakes ever happen in Horowhenua, or that this particular one could.)

The most important boxen in this whole enchilada are marked simply

default 



This is a wildcard, which means that if you leave a value someplace else blank, these are the numbers that will take over. 

You can get things quite well regimented by itemtype and Patron type should you so choose.

It also means that if you keep things simple like I do at my Library, these are the only values you needs fill in. This is because everything at my Library goes out for two weeks and there is no charge associated with taking anything out of my Library. 



You can revisit this table later on, but it's best to do it properly the first time. Anything that is in a Patron's hot little hands will have the old rules until discharged.

So using the pulldowns, if I have

Default Default 999 14 .05 1 1 0 1 10 0

• Take a deep breath!

A Patron can withdraw 999 Normal Things (that's what default default is in technical terms), for 2 weeks each cycle. When you're busted for turning them back late, it's 5 cents a day, buster. Stick it to em every day, save the first since you've a day's grace for telling the Librarian how absolutely intelligent she truly is.

The next zero is for a suspension based fine instead of a monetary one. You can charge a book out once more. You may place 10 holds before the Librarian spanks you for requesting too much stuff then not bothering to call by and pick it up. (The nerve!) If we like you, we might just give you a rental discount, say if you're the Lord Mayor or em a Trustee or summat.

This is a crucial table to fill out, so take your time. If you need help, feel free to email me. abesottedphoenix @ yahoo.com 


Library Transfer Limits

This section is only of interest to people that have multiple branches. So if you don't, skip! :)

Also, the toggle for UseBranchTransferLimits has to be flipped for this stuff to work right.

This is basically the thingamabobber which will tell Koha what stuff can be returned where.

Just like real life, some folks share everything, and some folks won't part with anything. Figure out which of your branches are miserly or lazy and which aren't. Some itemtypes might be fine to share via courier like normal popular fiction, and some might be a bit on the fragile side, like art prints or DVDs. These options will let you force the folks with art prints or DVDs to take em back to where they found em in the first place.

Your branches are listed in a drop down menu in the centre towards the top of the page, with a choose button to it's right. So it might read summat like

Foxton Choose

to reflect that the settings listed below it apply to the Foxton branch of HLT.

The next blurb

For all Collection Codes: Check All | Uncheck All

is a wildcard of sorts. If you pick Check All, it'll let everything get traded. Conversely, uncheck all will result in nuffin doin. You can always click check all, then find the thing you DON'T want swapped and unclick the checkbox under

Allow Transfer?.

You can even get more granular than that, bebe. Pick a tab, any tab!

Each tab will have the Collection Code for an ItemType on it, which will let you stop Foxton from nicking all of the DVDs if you so chose.

As always, none of this will stick if you don't hit

Save.

Item Circulation Alerts

One, two, skip a few, 99, 100.

Chances are, if you're lazy like me, you can choose to ignore this altogether.

Hey, it's another big scary table!

This table starts all minty green, signifying that it will spam someone anytime someone has stuff issued. There's a toggle on the user end of things, too, so an individual user can choose to just not be notified and they won't be.

This can once again get very confusing very quickly, but that degree of granularity can be quite nice. Overall, anything you choose to change red on the table will not send an alert.

If you insist on messing with this, make sure you look at the upper left pulldown. That jiggamabobber will have one of your lovely Library branches displayed. (Hopefully if you only have one branch, it has that branch up!) The rules you set will apply to the branch that is displayed in the pulldown, so make sure that matches what you've got in mind.

The big scary table is populated by all of those item types and descriptions you made up before. So, if you spelled summat wrong, you can go back to that area, fix it, and behold! the table will be different.

You should also see two tabs on the top of this table. One for Checkout and one for Checkin. That's right, you can have Koha yell and scream on return but not issue if you so chose.

So how do I mess with this junk, enyway?

Right, put your cursor someplace in that green minty sea and click. It'll change to noncommital salmon and tell you that you've disabled notification for Foxton. If you wanted to axe everything across the board like a government regulator, use the default table, and it will switch the colour to fire truck red.

MARC Bibliographic Framework

If you play World of Warcraft, your frameworks would be the spells you click on your action bar (or closer to home macros of rotations). The stuff that you do quite frequently should have its own framework. I will give you a French you don't need to use this option. (What is unsaid is that refusal to adopt frameworks would be quite backwards, so don't. You don't have to use heavy cream...)

Do have a framework for stuff you see often. Have I driven that home well enough? If it's an itemtype, chances are you want a framework for it.

These are cataloguing jigs. The more time you spend fleshing out the fields you'd like covered, the less time you'll spend cataloguing each individual record.

See that default framework? Well you can just stop looking at it now, buster. Might as well put your hand on the cooker.

Click the

New Framework

silver button if you'd like to start summat new.

You'll get a textbox for a short code and a wee blurb for a description. Prolly want to just mimic your itemtype codes if you're not creative. Your blurb is what you'll see regularly, so make sure it makes sense to you, and preferably it ought make sense to other people.

Submit

will save your work. You'll see it in the framework table now. It isn't actually useful at all just yet, alas.

Go down the table to your new framework, and hit

MARC Structure

Koha will be all like "Who do I copy offa?"

You prolly only have the default structure, so select it. (See! I told you not to touch that ever!)

Now you have yourself a big scary table.

Begin whittling down the fields you use if you're cataloguing a material of this itemtype. For example, it's prolly safe to be rid of

009 PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION FIXED-FIELD FOR ARCHIVAL COLLECTION (VM) [OBSOLETE]

once and for all.

When you click delete, Koha will freak out. You'll get a ginormous yellow box that screams "Dude for real?" Okay, fine, it really only says

Confirm Deletion of Tag 009?

Go for it. Be a baddie. Hit that yes button. Revel in your new found powah.

But what's this? If I revisit the default framework, I still find 009! The nerve!

Well, not really.

Remember this is a cataloguing jig. You need the right jig for the right job. You probably do not need a fence jig if you're putting up partitions. So, you want to ditch all of the fields from the hardcover framework that deal with audiobooks since you aren't cataloguing an audiobook with the hardcover framework. Got it?

Feel free to take a walk over to the manual if you still don't understand this.

http://koha-community.org/documentation/3-2-manual/?ch=x4488

There's also the IRC channel. This truly is one of the more important things to get your head round.

Koha to MARC mapping

In theory, if you did all of your homework like a good Librarian, you don't have to touch this, since it partners with the above section. Also, you can lean on clever defaults.

Do review the linkages to ensure that in general, they point to the right MARC fields.

Don't forget that the little pulldown at the top will contain

biblio

biblioitems

and

items

If one goes to biblio

and selects

author

then edit

I am told, by the geeks that be, that one can in fact also select 700, and that way back in the bowels of the mysterious database, this will take up to a certain limit. So: One is best, but sometimes untenable, two is possible, et cetera. This is still rooted in Koha not originally being designed to work with MARC, but rather being non MARC and FRBR before there was a FRBR.

In theory the MARC bibliographic frameworks will trump this bit. However, since I just barely grok what's going on here, it's best to ask someone like Chris, Paul, HDL, Ian, Galen, or another ubergeek.

Keywords to MARC Mapping

This, yes this, is the jiggamabobber you needs mess round with to get things to appear in the OPAC as you'd like them.

No, you may not just go here first since it works from the frameworks. That was a naughty shortcut though, now go sit in the corner and think about what you've done.

The pulldown that reads

Framework

is ironically what you needs to change in order to ensure that the stuff you're editing is relevant to the right sort of material.

Nicole's example of the field name subtitle is excellent. Hook that in as

245

and

b

and you're hot to trot.

You might even be able to get away with

author

100

and

a

and

700

and

a

but such fanciness would need a test.

MARC Bibliographic Framework Test

I cannot fault the name of this function.

There are no switches to flip here, hooray!

This will simply show you whether you did summat truly naughty in setting up your rules.

You *want* to see

OK

all along the first column of the table. (That's the up and down part.)

If that is *not* the case, pop on over to IRC and get an ubergeek to help walk you through your mapping, since something went all pear shaped. Hopefully it's only one thing, but be sure to note what the second column says so that you can give someone that can help enough information for them to be pointed in the right general direction.

Authority Types

One, two, skip a few...

There's a very good chance you don't need to mess with this.

Wait, what?

Okay, fine. Sit.

Authorities are the things that theoretically help stop this sort of junk from happening:

Evanovich, Janet

Evanovich, J.

Janet Evanovich

Evanovich, Janet.

You'll notice that you already have some frameworks populating a table. These are the jigs for your author fields. Again, you probably don't need to play with them.

Just like with the MARC Frameworks, keep your hot little hands away from the Default template.

Also just like the MARC Frameworks, you probably do not want to delete a field unless you are certain that it's obsolete and you'll never touch it.

Classification Sources

Guess what?

You're getting to the end, because there probably isn't cause to mess with this, either. Hooray!

Classification is basically a fancy way to say the thingy on your spine label what lets you keep order on your shelves.

So, if the thingy on your spine label is Dewey, you're rolling DDC.

If it's LC, you'd probably not need to read my newbie guide, since you're probably and advanced user and are wincing at my description of Classification.

It might be summat hawt that squirrels and deer can understand, like SuDocs. Hollah!

It could even be Cutter. Oh yeah, I went there.

If you're running Cutter, you're also probably too sechsy for this guide, but I will humour you.

Hit the shiny

New Classification Source

button.

For source code

cec

will do.

Why not cc?

Because CC is for Colon Classification, that's why :P

Wait, so what's the E for?

Expansive.

For description

Cutter Classification

is just fine or you can be bril and put in

Cutter Expansive Classification

Tick the Source in Use box or nothing you do here will ever matter.

You have to trick Koha to use the filing rule box. For now, select generic. Don't whing at me, just do it. Cos.

Which brings us to

Classification Filing Rules

The nerve! Cutter isn't here, either.

Hit the shiny

New Filing Rules

button at the top.

you can fill in

cec

and

Cutter Classification

and choose

Generic

from the dropdown.

You can now go back and change the classification source dropdown to Cutter. Neat, huh?

Record Matching Rules

One, two, skip a few...

See that little ? in the upper right hand corner.

That's the online help.

Go read it for this option.

Also, take a look at Nicole's manual page.

Still want to mess with this?

Didn't think so.

Basically, these rules are the burly bouncer for the backend of cataloguing. They will not let similarly dressed nerdy kids past the velvet rope. This is *good* because you don't want too many of the same record bouncing about in the reservoir. This is *bad* because if you set the bouncer's standards too high, he won't let anyone into the pub.

Got it?

Currencies and exchange rates

We're getting to the home stretch now.

If you don't get books from outside of your country, or you don't use the budget module, this option is prolly not for you.

What's that, you're a glutton for punishment? Fine.

Hit the shiny silver

New Currency

button.

Currency

New Zealand Dollar

Stuff will change to ALL CAPS TO HURT YOUR EYEBALLS010010110!

Rate

1

if you're in eNZed, if you're not, ha ha!

(Fine, if you're not do a google search on NZD and that should sort things. This isn't Forex, people.)

Symbol

$

(Might need to whip out an extended ASCII chart if you're on summat cool like ₩)

tick

Active

if you're in eNZed. Again, if you're not, ha ha!

Budgets

If you're not the Duhrector or Head of Libraries, don't bother with this.

If you are the Duhrector or Head of Libraries, I was totally working, so don't bother me.

If you do your budget in a spreadsheet someplace else, or someone else does your dirty work for you, you don't need to worry about this.

I suppose you want to know how this works, too? *sigh*

hit the shiny silver

New Budget

button.

Now, how you slice this is up to you. I am definitely not the person you want handing out accounting advice. However, if you have branches, you might want a budget for each branch just to make things slice easier. What you *don't* want is a budget for each material type here, because those are what funds are for.

I filled

the start and end of the fiscal year in to the start and end boxen.

Then

Materials

in

the description box.

Tick active if you actually want to use this so you don't just waste your time.

I'm taking a shot in the dark here, but tick locked only if it's an old budget or you don't want someone touching your junk.

This will be in your active currency.

Funds

Hit the shiny silver

New

button if you want to add a line item to a budget. The budget you set up should be in a drop down, so make sure you select it so things play well.

The stuff in red is mandatory.

Again, don't want to give accounting advice, but in general folks either do stuff by department or by item class. Sometimes, if you're really thorough, it's both. So you could have summat like

Children's DVDs

waiting for you.

Be sure to hit

Submit

when you're done mucking about.

Funny thing about those Children's DVDs.

There's a

Planning

dropdown. You can select ITEMTYPES because Koha is just that darn cool. Then you don't really have to break things out with a fine toothed comb. However, you can't cross the streams. So you can't have Koha plan by branch AND itemtype simultaneously.

Another thing to take note of here is the suggestions link at the left.

This is where your Patron requests come to haunt ye.

Z39.50 Client Targets

Z39.50 is the thingy that lets one catalogue talk to another. Alternatively, it's the thingy that lets you automagically fill in a MARC record using the Interwebs squirrel tubes.

Just like the voluptuous blonde at the end of the bar, you'll need her number before anything else happens.

It's a good idea to populate this table with Libraries whose cataloguing you respect or aspire to emulate. If they meet your standards, put em in here.

Hit

New Z39.50 Server

to add a new target.

The first text box is the Name that will display in Koha, so pick summat flashy, like Brooke's Catalogue that will let you remember who you're hitting on.

The hostname is where stuff lives so summat like z39.50.brookescatalogue.org (No I do not have a z39.50 server, so this won't work.)

The port is the number after the : so could be 8080 could be 7090, et cetera.

Database is the sort of ILS they're running. In a swank world, this would either be Koha or Evergreen.

Some kids like to have their shtuff behind a fence. If they do, you'll need to convince em to give you a password and username.

If you actually wanna use it (and why wouldn't ye, if you're typing this crap in) put a 1 in the checked field.

If you are keen on a catalogue, give it a lower rank number (so if you want to check my catalogue before LoC, give me a 1 and LoC a 2)

Syntax is basically MARC flavour.

Encoding is self explanatory.