III simulated item (Mitch Turitz) Marcia Tuttle 09 Oct 1998 14:14 UTC
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 16:46:11 +0100 From: Mitch Turitz <turitz@SFSU.EDU> Subject: III simulated item This is a question for Innovative users (please excuse the duplication among lists): > San Francisco State University has version 11 and has the web OPAC up. We > have a question about "simulated items." This is apparently an option in > the OPAC which we chose prior to bringing up the system. What it does is > create an item to display in the OPAC pulling the location from the bib > record's location fixed field, the call number from any 090 (or > appropriate call number field) and the status defaults to "Check Shelves." > It seems to me that we were thinking that this would be good for the > records which had their items stripped off from them during the conversion > from our old database to III. Unfortunately, in many cases, the records > have no call number, so that we end up with a display to the public that > essentially looks like: > > Author: T'Shake, Oba > Title: The San Francisco State Strike. > > LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS > 1 > Main CHECK SHELVES > > > Needless to say, we then get patrons (and librarians) who ask "How can we > check the shelves when there is no call number?" > > Additionally, we have some records that intentionally have no item records > attached, because they do not have physical items (e.g. bib records for > electronic serials): > > These are displaying in the Web OPAC as: > > TITLE Advances in mathematics (Online) > Advances in mathematics [computer file]. > PUBL/DATE Orlando, Fla. : Academic Press, > > Click on the following to: > connect to Advances in mathematics (Online) via IDEAL > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS > > 1 > Internet Check Shelves > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > In some cases, we do not get the "simulated item" if there is either an > order record or check-in record attached to the bib record (no, we do not > create check-in records for electronic serials). Of course we are not > creating order records for every electronic serial when we subscribe to a > package, such as IDEAL. > > > So my questions are: > > 1.) Are others of you using this "simulated item?" If so, what are doing > about the above problems? > > 2.) Is anyone else cataloging electronic serials as above (bib record with > no item records, relying on hotlink only as "holdings")? If so, how do > the public and staff like having a bib record with no item attached? > > 3.) Did anyone else find the "simulated item" feature not useful and turn > it off? If so, I would like to hear from you (If you left it on and found > useful, I would also like to hear from you). > > -- Mitch > _^_ _^_ ( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-( ___ ) | | | | | | Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian | | | | San Francisco State University Library | | | | Internet: turitz@sfsu.edu | | | | http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~turitz | | | | | | ( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==-( ___ ) V V "Warning: Dates in calendar are closer than they appear."