You can read about OpenBiblio and how i’ve set it up for the school library right here. In this post i’m going to explain how to use OpenBiblio, along with some screenshots. It’s fairly simple, but i taught i should make this for who will be using the system after me, here at EAL.
Creating a new bibliography (adding a new item in our library database)
Go to the “Cataloging” tab and choose “New Bibliography”
Choose the appropiate material and collection. We have agreed so that “Call Number” and “Title” have the same values, those of the title displayed on the label. “Personal name” will be the full item title, with company, version and other specifications. Use the appropiate values and the click “Submit”.
Bibliography succesfully added. Now it’s time to add copies. Click on “Add new copy”. Check the “Autogenerate” checkbox. You can add anything in the description field like item color, or what part its missing and so on, but it’s not necesary. Now click “Submit”
You should see the folowing after you pressed “Submit”. Now either add another copy or do anything else.
After creating copies we most likely want to print the labels and attach to the items. When we added a new copy we could have seen that a barcode has been generated. Copy the desired barcode and go to the “Reports” tab and click “Search Copy”. Paste the barcode in the “Barcode starts with” field. You can either copy the entire barcode number or you can exclude the last number so that you can get more labels to print.
Click “Submit”. Now you should see some items displayed as a list. Click on “Labels” which is in the left, under “Report results”.
Now you have the posibilty to exclude some labels from printing or just print them. Click on “Submit” and now you should see the small label PDF(s).
Now all that is left is to print. You can do that by pressing the “print” button in the upper-right part of the page.
Adding a new material or collection
Go to the “Admin” tab and select “Material types” or “Collections”. Now click on “Add new material” and fill the forms with the appropiate values.
Check out an item (lending to student)
First we need to select the student or teacher that wants to borrow something. We can either search for him or make a new entry. Let’s first try searching using the teachers last name :
A window like the next one, containing student/teacher details should be displayed. Now click the field next to “Barcode Number” and simply scan the barcode on the item that is to be borowed.
Click “Check out” and you should see that the item has been added to the students/teachers list of borrowed items.
When the student has brought the the item back we simply have to check it in. Go to the “Circulation” tab and click on “Check in”. Here you just scan the barcode and click on “Add to shelving cart”.
Ok, now let’s see what can we do when we have to add somebody to the system. Go to the “Circulation” tab and click on “Add new member”. In the “Card number” field we are using the students unilogin. In the case of adding a teacher or staff we will use some initials. The “semester” field will be filled with the current year and season. The “specialisation” field will be filled with an area/level of study , e.g. IT Networking.
Now you should be able to use OpenBiblio for what it’s designed to – add members, add items, lend items, print labels and putting items back into database.