Drupal DiY Library Module - Cataloging Question

http://drupal.org/project/millennium crawls a Millenium OPAC and parses MARC records into taxonomies. You might be able to reuse some of its approach.

Some library school students are blogging the topic of Drupal-as-small-ILS at http://blog.anchorarchive.ath.cx/. Also, check out http://drupalib.interoperating.info/, maybe someone there can offer some assistance.

Do you know LibraryThing? Perhaps that could fit the bill! Take a look at: http://www.librarything.com/

Now... for what *I* would do for your case... =)

To set up your Catalog

The workflow might be:

• Have something that just takes your barcodes and converts that into categorized/tagged nodes in Drupal. This would result in nice title/author/subject/year published/etc. book information. Yes, you could use MARC import, but then you would have to first get the MARC =) Perhaps one could write a simple Bookmarklet that, once you are in an item in Amazon, sends that info onto a pre-filled Drupal form? This way you can have just about anybody "Catalog" (Note: I am not saying Amazon is neither all the information nor is it the best quality you will get, just that's there's a lot of it it in one convenient spot).
• I think the ASIN module just shows the Amazon product info and Drupal can't search upon it...
• The important part here is to import some of the info onto taxonomy instead of the node content, so you can then use modules that take advantage of taxonomy; similar_by_terms, faceted_search, etc. After importing, you will most definitely realize that you have slightly different terms for the same thing; like authors' initials missing or having a period, or subjects being in plural and singular forms... c'est la vie! =) Using similar_by_terms and faceted search will surely help them discover things they might have otherwise missed without those features
• On the above step, you might want to specify that you have several copies; then you would also need to generate N number of "item" nodes (or something else?). Now you could track which copy is loaned out to whom. Maybe you would also need to specify if a certain copy has gone missing, or in repair, etc. This would require a new module I think =)
• After loading, have a batch process generate barcodes to print; then a Drupal module might let you scan the item's UPC (the barcode used for buying stuff), then scan the barcode you are about to stick on the item, and Drupal will then relate the "item" node to the actual barcode on it. This is would also be part of some new module =) If you only plan on having one copy of each item, then just use the UPC as the barcode =)
• Question: how are you going to shelve? Believe me, if you have 300 or more books, they WILL be difficult to find without some shelving scheme (if the shelves are going to be browsed by your patrons, then pick something logical. It doesn't have to be Dewey, but putting subject-related items close together helps them discover things).

Circulation

Now for the actual circulation:

• Well if the catalog is set up, users might want to know if you actually *have* the item in the library first. So you would have to show that in your Catalog.
• You would have to have a "staff" module for checking out, that would:
  • let you scan a user's barcode (or enter his/her ID manually). Possibly this is where you want to know if the user has 40 zillion things on loan and was supposed to return them 6 months ago...
  • You then scan the item-to-loan barcode. This is where the system would tell you stuff like "OK, please return Monday, Feb 18th 2009" or "This item is supposed to be on loan, do you want to chek this item in instead?", etc.
  • You might want to scan additional items before finishing with this user.
  • When finishing you might want a receipt, via mail or printer.
• For checking in:
  • Check the item barcode (no user barcode is needed here... allowing for goodies like a 24hr book return box) =)
  • The system might say "OK", for you to reshelf. Or "This item was late, Send user X an email informing of a $2.00 per day fine --OR-- override this fine?". You might want a copy of that email =) Fines are a complex and touchy issue, perhaps you can gather more info on this later on =)