Relational Databases

Melton, Beth “Databases: Access Terminology and Relational Database Concepts.”

• http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=73

Is an ILS a relational database

• Microsoft Access

• What is a relational database?

• How does it relate to an ILS?

• One-to-One

• One-to-Many

Database Design

• How do you determine how many tables you need?

• What fields you need?

• How to prevent redundant data?

Acquisitions

• Selection• Ordering• Budgeting• Receiving• Payments• Claiming and canceling late and unfulfilled

orders• Generate Routing Slips

Selection

• Collection development policy– Library users– Curriculum support

• GOBI/TitleSource II/BWI– Web based selection tools

Ordering

• Acquisitions staff create or download bibliographic and order records

• Order records track the progress of orders

• Staff create and maintain vendor records

• Vendor records contain contact info, account numbers etc.

• An order is placed with a vendor and order and vendor records are linked

Budgeting

Financial component of acquisitions module tracks

-allocations

-encumbrances

-payments

Receiving

• Search for order records

• Record arrival, number of copies

• System updates status with received date

• Order amount is charged against budget fund, reducing the free balance.

Payments

• As items arrive, system removes estimated amount, and charges correct amount to proper fund.

• Some vendors offer EDIFACT invoicing so that library system can interact with vendor system directly.

Unfulfilled Orders

• Claim – request sent to a vendor for an item not received– Claims for serial issues are handled in the

Serials Module– Can be electronically transmitted to vendor

• Cancel – late item is no longer required– Vendor cancels due to lack of availability

Statistics

• Budget reports– Fund balances– Expenditures– Encumbrances– Appropriations

• Vendors Reports– Items ordered, received, claimed, cancelled– Amount spent– Delivery times

Profiles & Approval Plans

• Profile can be based on– Subject– Geography– Readership

Approval Plans allow libraries to get materials the fit a specific description without having to order title by title.

Libraries may return titles that they don’t want.

Electronic Approval Plan

• Staff download a MARC file by FTP and check for duplicate titles and/or ISBNs.

• Staff then review duplicates and either accept or reject.

E-books & E-journals

• How are acquisitions procedures different for e-books and e-journals?

Bibliographic records

• First Record added to the database– Brief description

• Title• Author• Publisher and date of publication• ISBN or ISSN

Z39.50

• Standard protocol often used for searching remote bibliographic databases

Order Records

• Fund• Vendor• Format• Order date• Price• Currency• Number of copies• Library location

Monograph

• One-time publication

• Standing Order – continuous order for a series of monographs

Serial Order

• Subscription to a journal, newspaper etc.

Purchase Order

• Unique number is generated by system

• PO Number is used as a reference for communicating with vendor and for matching invoice for payment.

Standards for sending POs

BISAC

EDIFACT

Order information is transmitted electronically to vendor. System extracts contact information from vendor record and inserts it into the purchase order.

System automatically updates order status.

Open Source

• “Software that is created by a collaborative group of individuals and then has its source code distributed to other programmers for them to alter. Open-source software is often free (at no cost), but it is always freely available (to anyone who wishes to use or improve on it.”– John Burke

Troubleshooting

• You can’t access the OPAC. What would you check next?

• Can you get to other Web services?

• Can other PCs access the catalog?

• Isolate the problem. PC, Branch, Other servers, domains, etc.

LIBR 56

• http://fog.ccsf.edu/~acosta/56.htm