NExpress Shared Catalog

For those of you who have been using the label creator, you might notice that post-upgrade, it looks somewhat different! There is a quick video at the bottom of this post that walks you through how to create a batch of labels, post-upgrade . You will already need to have created your template, printer profile, and layouts. Thanks to Nicole Engard of Bywater for creating & sharing the video with the Koha community.

Note: There is one extra step that you all will need to take for the near future. As you add your items to the batch, you’ll notice that they will start appearing in duplication or even triplication. There’s an easy fix for this. Once you’ve added all your items to the batch, click the Remove Duplicates button (see below) and this process will remove all the duplications. Then, proceed to export your batch of labels.

Video is licensed as Creative Commons 3.0 Non-commercial Share-a-like

Finally, with the upgrade, the label batch list was cleared as of Sunday. In the future, please keep this public service announcement in mind.

So, you have the new Sherlock Holmes DVD, but you can’t put it on the shelf until March 30.
How do you catalog it so that patrons can start placing holds on the title before it hits library shelves?

In the recent past, several libraries have been using these cataloging specs:

Not for loan: Ordered
Collection: On order
Shelving Location: Cataloging
Item type: On order*

*We suspect that Koha gets confused when assigning holds on materials cataloged this way when/if the item type designation on the items are changed from On Order, which is completely unrestricted, to Local Hold.**

**I created an elaborate test video to recreate this scenario, but of course Koha worked just like it was suppose to!  Figures, eh?

The Best Practice is this:

• Go find a Bibliographic record from the ether
• Catalog your items as you would normally (Local Hold as Local Hold, Walk in as Walk in, Book as Book)
• Set the Not For Loan status to “Ordered”
• When you are ready to start circulating these items, edit and change the Not For Loan status back to ‘blank’

Sort of related – There is an outstanding support request regarding the “New Moon” fatal error – search for new moon in the OPAC and see what happens.  A work around for patrons and a faster way to get to the new DVD in the Staff Client is to search for “twilight saga new moon”.   A note has been posted on the Patron Catalog home page.

We have colorful step-by-step instructions for bringing in batches of MARC records from the Hybrid KLC (or OCLC for larger libraries) now available on the Training page, under Circulation.

Or you can download a copy today here:

Finding and Importing Records from the Hybrid KLC (.doc)

This is a friendly reminder; please share this information with the people responsible for your library’s cataloging. Please refer to these instructions when importing MARC records into NExpress from the KLC. If you are importing MARC records from anywhere else (CatExpress, vendor records, etc.), please refer to these instructions.

In both situations, please make sure you change the settings to the ones that marked below in red: