---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 16:46:11 +0100
From: Mitch Turitz <turitz@SFSU.EDU>
Subject: III simulated item

This is a question for Innovative users (please excuse the duplication
among lists):

> San Francisco State University has version 11 and has the web OPAC up.  We
> have a question about "simulated items."  This is apparently an option in
> the OPAC which we chose prior to bringing up the system.  What it does is
> create an item to display in the OPAC pulling the location from the bib
> record's location fixed field, the call number from any 090 (or
> appropriate call number field) and the status defaults to "Check Shelves."
> It seems to me that we were thinking that this would be good for the
> records which had their items stripped off from them during the conversion
> from our old database to III.  Unfortunately, in many cases, the records
> have no call number, so that we end up with a display to the public that
> essentially looks like:
>
> Author:   T'Shake, Oba
> Title:    The San Francisco State Strike.
>
>      LOCATION            CALL NO.                        STATUS
> 1 >  Main                                                CHECK SHELVES
>
>
> Needless to say, we then get patrons (and librarians) who ask "How can we
> check the shelves when there is no call number?"
>
> Additionally, we have some records that intentionally have no item records
> attached, because they do not have physical items (e.g. bib records for
> electronic serials):
>
> These are displaying in the Web OPAC as:
>
>  TITLE        Advances in mathematics (Online)
>               Advances in mathematics [computer file].
>  PUBL/DATE    Orlando, Fla. : Academic Press,
>
>               Click on the following to:
>               connect to Advances in mathematics (Online) via IDEAL
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     LOCATION             CALL NO.                       STATUS
>
> 1 > Internet                                            Check Shelves
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In some cases, we do not get the "simulated item" if there is either an
> order record or check-in record attached to the bib record (no, we do not
> create check-in records for electronic serials).  Of course we are not
> creating order records for every electronic serial when we subscribe to a
> package, such as IDEAL.
>
>
> So my questions are:
>
> 1.) Are others of you using this "simulated item?"  If so, what are doing
> about the above problems?
>
> 2.) Is anyone else cataloging electronic serials as above (bib record with
> no item records, relying on hotlink only as "holdings")?  If so, how do
> the public and staff like having a bib record with no item attached?
>
> 3.) Did anyone else find the "simulated item" feature not useful and turn
> it off?  If so, I would like to hear from you (If you left it on and found
> useful, I would also like to hear from you).
>
> -- Mitch
>

  _^_                                                 _^_
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-( ___ )
 |   |                                               |   |
 |   |     Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian           |   |
 |   |     San Francisco State University Library    |   |
 |   |     Internet: turitz@sfsu.edu                 |   |
 |   |     http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~turitz           |   |
 |   |                                               |   |
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==-( ___ )
   V                                                   V

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