[OPEN-ILS-DEV] ***SPAM*** Re: Serials Schema Proposal - Further De-emphasis of MARC as Record Format

[Dan Wells]

Scott,

Thanks for the reply.  See responses below.

>>> On 5/24/2010 at 12:25 PM, Scott McKellar <mck9 at swbell.net> wrote:
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1. What does serial.base look like?  For example, will it link to
> biblio.record_entry?
> 
> 2. Using last week's proposed schema as a baseline, how will the new
> tables relate to the new ones?   E.g. will serial.subscription link
> to serial.base?
> 
> 3. Will serial.subscription continue to link to serial.record_entry?
> I'm guessing that it won't, since you suggest that we retain
> serial.record_entry only as a transitional measure for the few
> libraries that already use it.

1-3.  Sorry for not being more clear, but I think serial.base (or whatever it is called) will be a direct replacement for serial.record_entry everywhere it is used in the new schema.  So for starters it will have all the fields in record_entry minus 'marc'.  We might consider going without the 'edit' related fields as well, since there won't be much to edit there anymore.

> 
> 4. Does serial.caption_and_pattern hold an MFHD record in the marc
> column?  If so, is there reason not to call that column "mfhd"?
> 

4. The 'marc' column will hold the data for a single MARC field (in this case a MARC field as defined by the MFHD standard).  We could call it 'marc_field' or 'mfhd_field' (or maybe 'marc_data' or 'mfhd_data').  It is common to refer to an arbitrary chunk of MARC-formatted data as 'marc', but I don't think the same really applies to referring to MFHD-specific MARC fields as simply 'mfhd'.  At least I never say that :)  All that said, I am fine with any of these names, 'mfhd' included.

> 5. Can we come up with a better name than "serial.base"?  It's too
> vague.  It could represent sodium hydroxide, the std::basic_string
> class, or Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  Maybe "serial.periodical"?
> 

5.  I agree that serial.base seems too generic.  Honestly it should probably be called 'serial.serial', as some would argue that the term 'periodical' doesn't technically include newspapers (and probably a few other minor things).  Again, however, I am willing to be more pragmatic than technical if people are opposed to a 'serial.serial' table.

> <snip>
> 
> Scott McKellar

Thanks again,
Dan