Serial Subscriptions in Koha 3.10

by Nicole C. on Apr 24, 2013

This tutorial video will walk you through the process of adding a serial subscription to Koha 3.10. Be warned that this video is a bit longer than most of the other ones we have offered in the past.

To summarize, subscriptions can be added by clicking the ‘New’ button on any bibliographic record or by visiting the Serials module and clicking ‘New Subscription’

If you are entering a new subscription from the Serials module you will be presented with a blank form (if creating new from a bibliographic record the form will include the bib info).

• ‘Vendor’ can be found by either searching vendors entered via the Acquisitions module or entering the vendor ID number
• ‘Biblio’ is the MARC record you’d like to link this subscription to
• Next you can choose whether a new item is created when receiving an issue
• ‘Location’ is for the shelving location
• ‘Call Number’ is for your item’s call number prefix
• ‘Library’ is the branch that owns this subscription.
• The ‘Grace Period’ is the number of days before an issue is automatically moved from ‘expected’ status to ‘waiting’ and how many days before an issue is automatically moved from ‘waiting’ status to ‘late’
• Use the ‘Public Note’ for any notes you would like to appear in the OPAC for the patrons
• ‘Nonpublic Note’ should be used for notes that are only visible to the librarians via the staff client
• To set up a routing list for serials, choose ‘Routing List’ from the ‘Patron notification’ field.
• The Staff and OPAC Display options allow you to control how many issues appear by default on bibliographic records in the Staff Client and the OPAC
• In ‘First issue publication date’ you want to enter the date of the issue you have in your hand, the date from which the prediction pattern will start
• There are several pre-defined options for the ‘Frequency’ of publication
• Checking the ‘Manual history’ box will allow you to enter serials outside the prediction pattern.
• ‘Numbering pattern’ will help you determine how the numbers are printed for each issue
• ‘Subscription start date’ is the date at which the subscription begins. This is used for setting up renewal alerts
• ‘Subscription length’ is the number of issues or months in the subscription. This is also used for setting up renewal alerts
• ‘Subscription end date’ should only be entered for subscriptions that have ended (if you’re entering in a backlog of serials)
• The ‘Numbering formula’ is editable to match the way you’d like your numbering to print on the item record and subscription information pages

Click ‘Save Subscription’ to save the information you have entered. Find sample serial patterns in the Koha 3.10 manual appendix.

If you have an idea for a Koha tutorial video I should do or that you have done yourself (or found on the web) that we should include in this series, just drop me a line and I’ll add it.