[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Bar Code Readers, ISBN, and Amazon

[Joel Harbottle]

Hi Ted,

In your quest of finding a web-cam or smart-phone with a barcode reading
capability, your probably best, for your Librarian's sake, and for
productivity and ease, be easier to spend per say $150-$300 on a cheap but
decent barcode scanner.

As you would probably find your librarian would get frustrated very quickly
with having to look at a screen and line up the items barcode with the
webcam and wait 4-5 seconds for the computer to register the barcode with
Evergreen or Koha.

If you have a barcode reader, your librarian just scans the barcode and it
immediately reads and registers the barcode on the computer, because a
barcode reader just acts like a normal keyboard connected to a computer.

Hope this of some help.

Best Wishes,
Joel




> From: "G. T. Stresen-Reuter" <tedmasterweb at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Evergreen Discussion Group
> <open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>
> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:51:56 +0000
> To: Evergreen Discussion Group <open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>
> Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Bar Code Readers, ISBN, and Amazon
> 
> On Mar 14, 2012, at 12:58 PM, Hardy, Elaine wrote:
> 
>> Ted,
>> 
>> The Z39.50 gateway is a client­server protocol for searching and
>> retrieving information (http://www.loc.gov/z3950/gateway.html#about) and,
>> as Ben says, generally involves MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging)
>> formatted records entered according to cataloging standards
>> (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed or AACR2). More information on
>> the MARC format can be found at http://www.loc.gov/marc/ . You can also
>> find a discussion of MARCXML and other standards on the Library of
>> Congress (LC) website -- http://www.loc.gov/standards/
>> 
>> Amazon probably stores their data in ONIX, which is a publishing protocol
>> for bibliographic data. While there are crosswalks between the two,
>> differences make it a little difficult to do a complete machine-based
>> transition. Another issue is the crosswalk between the ONIX data and
>> AACR2. My understanding is this will be a little easier once we implement
>> our new standard RDA (Resource Description and Access). My understand also
>> is that ONIX is much more flexible in transcription of bibliographic data
>> than is AACR2.
> 
> Ben and Elaine,
> 
> Excellent information. Thank you so much for the detailed explanations. I've
> discussed the issue (briefly) with our librarian and she's assured me that the
> (old) existing catalog can export data in MARC format so if I can resurrect
> the system, we can probably import the data into either Evergreen or Koha
> (have narrowed it down to these two and leaning toward Koha).
> 
> I spent a little time exploring bar code reading via webcams and smart phones
> to see if that would help with data entry for new items and found a few
> potential resources but nothing that screams: "This is the solution to your
> problems" so the hunt continues.
> 
> Thank you again for all your help and input.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ted Stresen-Reuter