[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Multi-Valued Fields in the wild

[Geoff Sams]

For my library, we’ve chosen to utilize the parts system to distinguish between the different types of materials within a MVF record.  So for instance on a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack we will have a part that is for DVD and a part for the blu-ray.  This has seemed to work out well enough for us so far, and I’m hoping that I can get the rest of the consortium to adopt a similar plan of action for items of this nature.

There are however instances where this can be a bit misleading.  There was an item recently that was an Audiobook on CD that came with a disc of supplemental PDF files.  It showed up as “Audiobook on CD/ eBook” in the catalog.  This is a case where I would opt to remove the secondary value.  I believe that was what we ultimately did because I do believe it would have caused some non-small amount of confusion for the patron.

I believe that it is worth looking at the possibilities and making some decisions based on what works with your patronage in general.  Thankfully, as tends to be the case with a lot of these requests that get implemented (because the devs rock!), they can be tweaked quite effectively to limit how the types will show up in your catalog.  Otherwise, you can make minor changes to the marc records to fit your needs.

My experience is limited as we upgraded to 2.7.3 in February from 2.3.5.  There were a lot of changes to adapt to, and this was one we felt more or less safe letting sit in the background until we could really look things over well and make good decisions on.  This is my take on what I’ve seen so far.

If you have some more specific questions I’d be happy to answer them!

Thanks,
Geoff Sams
Library Manager
Roanoke Public Library

From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Kate Butler
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 3:31 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Multi-Valued Fields in the wild

As far as I’m aware, our technical services department is still behaving as if the MVF do not exist -- if we get a combo set, we create 2 records, one for the DVD and one for the Blu-Ray. We have yet to start really taking advantage of the opportunity to have multiple values in these fields.

The information we’re really seeking is how this will end up looking on the staff end and on the patron end.

So, for instance, this Evergreen Indiana record has two 007 fields, which have caused it to have two format icons appear (I assume):
https://evergreen.lib.in.us/eg/opac/record/20360738?query=frozen;qtype=keyword;fi%3Asearch_format=dvd;locg=1;page=0

I was just hoping to see more examples like that, and how other libraries are taking advantage of the feature.

Kate Butler
Technology Librarian
Rodgers Memorial Library (Hudson, NH)
http://www.rodgerslibrary.org/

From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Mike Rylander
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 7:10 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Multi-Valued Fields in the wild

Kate,

What is the use case you have in mind?

I ask because anyone on 2.6 or greater is actually already using them.  For instance, if you have a record for a DVD/Blu-Ray combo set that has two 007 fields, one for each video recording format, you can search by either (or both) and find the record.

Hope that helps!


--
Mike Rylander
 | President
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com<mailto:miker at esilibrary.com>
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com


On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:49 PM, Kate Butler <KateButler at rodgerslibrary.org<mailto:KateButler at rodgerslibrary.org>> wrote:
Has anyone implemented Multi-Valued Fields in their catalogs?  We are considering taking a look at these later this summer and I wondered how much people had used this feature yet.  (Any words of wisdom?)

Thanks,

Kate Butler
Technology Librarian
Rodgers Memorial Library (Hudson, NH)
http://www.rodgerslibrary.org/


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://libmail.georgialibraries.org/pipermail/open-ils-general/attachments/20150617/83b6ccbf/attachment-0001.html>