I am working with a small DiY library project here in Columbus, Ohio called the Sporeprint Infoshop, see http://sporeprint.info. We are currently using Drupal for our web-site and upon reviewing many of the ILS (integrated library systems) they seem like over-kill for our small library of a few hundred books.
What I'm trying to do is create a simple library module that will allow users to check-out books and track where they are. This shouldn't be too difficult to code.
What I'm running into a barrier of knowledge and I thought that I might see if someone else out there was aware of how to do this.
I want the cataloging to be as easy as possible. The ASIN module that works with amazon seems like a good potential starting point, as well as the Z.3950 module which looks up MARC data on the library of congress. My question is what would be the best way to import this information directly from a look-up to map it to CCK fields tied to the MARC module and faceted search. I'm guessing I would need to parse it or use XML or something along those lines. I guess I'm just looking for examples to develop from since I'm a novice programmer and I wanted to see if anyone else was interested in this type of project or could give some advice.
Comments
Check out the Millenium module
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.
Possible DIY Library workflow
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:
Circulation
Now for the actual circulation:
I need more
I need more info/examples/step by step on how to get book information imported as nodes... This was very helpful. Are there more good discussions on this topic?
I want people to have some easy way (like input isbn, or marc, or the marketlet via amazon you mentioned. With the idea to reduce the time to enter the book info and also hopefully reduce typos or other information goofs.
Please post any links to more examples about how to import book info...
Like install module xyz
Select add book
Enter isbn
Fields get filled in
Click accept
Only I know it is not that simple... For example you referred to needing to getvthe marc info in order to use the marc module ...
Cathy Theys
YesTrainingAndEducation.com
same here, any updates?
Hey, I want to do exactly the same thing, except maybe allowing users to check books in/out by themselves, and eventually extending functionality to non-books (lawnmowers, welders etc.)
We were planning on doing the data entry manually (no barcode scanner).
Any updates on useful modules to do the circulation? I'm also trying to get hold of the circulation module developed by the zine library at http://www.robertsstreet.org/
cheers, Brad
Drupal ILS using Circulation module
I had the exact same issue with our library at UCIMC (http://www.ucimc.org). We use Drupal for our website infrastructure and wanted to integrate collection management and circulation into that. Amanda and Zac from Roberts Street graciously provided their Circulation module, which was running on Drupal v5. I updated the code to v6.x and can provide that to anyone who is interested.
Here's a description of how we're using it: http://library.ucimc.org/content/ucimc-online-catalog-description
And the a basic search interface: http://library.ucimc.org/itemsearch
The Circulation module does several things:
- Identifies one content type as a bibliographic record
- Identifies one borrowable content type, nodes of this type have a node reference to a bibliographic record
- Associates borrowable content type nodes with user nodes
- Defines #days items may be loaned
- Maintains circulation history for borrowable nodes
We're using Dublin Core metadata for our bibliographic records, but would like to extend the module to allow copy cataloging from some external source. We're using the Book Post module to grab Open Library data on books with ISBNs as well.
Hi Critzo, I would be
Hi Critzo,
I would be interested in looking at the 6.x code for the circulation module. I've got a fairly good understanding of how to setup the Work/Item/User records, but I'm having a rough time getting my head around how to maintain the circulation data.
For copy cataloging, if you have access to MARC records, there's a MARC module available that does batch processing. I find the Node Import module to be helpful also. The Prepopulate module looks promising too if you have access to some bibliographic data API, all you would have to do is generate the appropriate URLs with the API to create a Works record.
Circulation module
Apologies for taking so long to get back here & post this. Hope this helps someone and please contact me if you have any questions or want to help with this module.
Circulation for Drupal 6.x
Description: Used to create a functioning integrated library system within Drupal.
Some basic documentation:
How does this differ from Library?
Thanks for sharing your module. How does this differ from the Library module at http://drupal.org/project/library? I also am looking for basic circulation functionality. Can you explain how your module might be different than the Library module?
Drupal 7
Have you guys started updating this for Drupal 7? If so, I'd love to test it for you all.