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    p_item_04: handling of Oversize

     

    • Product: Aleph
    • Product Version: 20, 21, 22, 23
    • Relevant for Installation Type: Dedicated-Direct, Direct, Local, Total Care

     

    Description:
    We are trying to get the z30_call_no_key sequence of their Oversize books to correspond to the actual sequence of the Oversize books on the shelf -- so that p_item_04 can use a file of scanned barcodes to detect which ones are out of place. 

    An example. The Oversize "P" items are in a separate section after the regular size "P" items, like this:

    P746 .M56
    P746 .Pa64
    P773 .T436
    P9462 .B53
    P746 .M58 [q.] Oversize
    P749 .N98 [q.] Oversize

    But they are, of course, filed by the system like this:

    P746 .M56
    P746 .M58 [q.] Oversize
    P746 .Pa64
    P749 .N98 [q.] Oversize
    P773 .T436
    P9462 .B53


    The following would give a correct sort:

    P746 .M56
    P746 .Pa64
    P773 .T436
    P9462 .B53
    Pzz746 .M58 [q.] Oversize
    Pzz749 .N98 [q.] Oversize

    or this:

    P~746 .M58 [q.] Oversize
    P~749 .N98 [q.] Oversize


    but such a call number would not correspond to what's on the book and would be confusing.

    Of course, having the Oversize at the beginning ("[Oversize] P746 .M58") would not help this sorting either.

     

    Resolution:
    [From Alan Exelby, University of East Anglia, on Global Aleph Users list:]

    We do have collections like this, and so did the only member of our (former) consortium ever to use item-04 – and they had no real problem with the collection aspect (lots of very time-consuming problems with call number types, but with collections, only problems when they found they had had different collections interfiled on the shelf). Their different collections were recorded correctly as collection codes, so different collections were scanned separately and an item-04 was run separately for each collection.

    The question seems to imply that the customer is not using collection codes for distinguishing Oversize. If so, and they cannot adopt collection codes for this, the only suggestion I can think of would be quite non-standard – use a different call number type for the Oversize?

    <end Alan's response>


    We think that the "Q" Collections, such as "MAINQ", is the best solution.

    Whoever is scanning the barcodes from the shelves will need to skip over the Oversize in doing MAIN and do only the Oversize in doing MAINQ.

    You could scan -- and run p_item_04 -- for each Oversize section separately or include multiple Oversize sections as part of the same scan -- as long as they are done in sequence and include only MAINQ (--no MAIN).

     

     


    • Article last edited: 12-Mar-2016