Knowledge Organization Reflection #3: MARC Record Displays
20 February 2024
Log into Koha Klassmates and find the MARC record for a chosen resource. Reflect on how this compares to what a patron might see on the public-facing catalog. Include screenshots.
Wilson, J. (2024). Koha catalog comparison [Screenshot]. CC BY-NC-ND.
Seeing as the records we're browsing for are two fronts of a single platform managed by a single organization, I figured there would be significant gulfs in the complexity of each, with most of it weighted in favor of the internal view...which very much is not the case with Koha's. Outside of a couple of metadata fields that are omitted from the OPAC, the main viewport of individual resources are very similar in both the internal and external catalogs. Where they deviate is in how they display the MARC record of a given resource—and more surprisingly, taking in all this information about MARC for the first time, I find the OPAC's display of MARC records easier to grasp than the internal client, as the labeled view clearly differentiates between a label and its entry with its formatting, and the plain view is just, well a no-frills plaintext example.
Wilson, J. (2024). Koha MARC viewing options [Screenshot]. CC BY-NC-ND.
These impressions, of course, are just my own. Assuming your average patron is using the catalog to browse, or to make up an applicable situation, looking for the exact edition of a certain book, they would almost certainly find the bigger-sized metadata fields and location information of the OPAC easier on their eyes than the internal view.
References
Wilson, J. (2024). Koha catalog comparison [Screenshot]. CC BY-NC-ND.
Wilson, J. (2024). Koha MARC viewing options [Screenshot]. CC BY-NC-ND.