[ale] Linux in libraries (a heads-up for June 2002)

[Joseph A. Knapka]

Ben Ostrowsky wrote:
> 
> >What software?
> 
> Primarily the db that manages library books and who's got 'em.
> 
> Top-end library software is remarkably complicated.  It's got functions for:
> 
> ACQUISITIONS: Ordering books from different vendors via several different
> electronic interchange standards, managing purchase orders and shipments,
> and automatically notifying vendors of missing items.  Ideally, the process
> of selecting books to buy would be made easier too, with an "Amazon-like"
> service that provides rich information about the titles, authors, etc.

Are these interchange standards realy standards (as opposed to, say,
proprietary specs that everyone happens to use)? Are they
well-documented?

> CATALOGING: Creating data records in the MARC format, a flat file with
> numbered fields some of which are repeatable, all of which can have
> subfields, some of which are repeatable.

That sounds like a nightmare. I take it MARC is primarily an
exchange format? You'd clearly want to use a well-normalized
relational representation internally, and be able to import and
export MARC, it seems to me.


-- Joe Knapka
"You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
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