[Firefly-dev] Database

[firefly-dev]

Hi, 
since relic.net seems to be always down and I'm waiting savannah for a
cvs member access, I'll post here some considerations about the db.

I've done a first draft of the db design, please note that 
this is still very inaccurate and incomplete, because before go on I
would like to hear your comments. You can find an image here:
http://ryudo.altervista.org/db.png
I especially would like to know what do you think about my choice to set
as primary key for the catalog table(that I called BM, book material,
for now) the library_id + inventory_id.

The main reason for this choice is that for an  interlibrary system the
inventory_id is not enough. 
For example, library 01 can have a book with inventory # 000052 titled
"pippo" while library 02 can have a book with the same inventory but
called "pluto". The only way to univocally identify a book is using
inventory id in combination with library id. In this way book "pippo" is
identified by 01 000052 while "pluto" is identified by 02 000052.

But there is a problem...many libraries are not part of an interlibrary
system and in this case the library_id is totally useless....A
workaround could be to give a fake id to the library, for example 00 or
01 but I'm not sure, it's not elegant as solution however it could be
effective.

Another problem is the books classification. I searched on the net and I
found out that there are *lots* of classification systems. These are all
incompatible between them, maybe a simple varchar field could be a
solution but again, I'm not sure.

The BM table is also incomplete because I have to read some
documentation about bibliographic descriptions standards. 
About this I think we can make the table follow the guidelines of the
International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD), but I'm open to
other ideas.

Once the db will be almost completed I'll start to do some test scripts
to insert books. I'll keep you informed.


Marco