Re: [Koha-devel] UTF-8

[Thomas Dukleth]

Comments inline.

On Mon, March 12, 2007 4:26 am, Dorian Meid wrote:
>

[snip]

>
> In this example I used the host "z3950.gbv.de" port "20012" database
> "gvk" user "999" password "abc".
> I searched for the ISBN "3-552-06027-8"
> The title should be "Die Süße des Lebens"
>

I have tested and found that the problem is with GBV at least for this
record.  I had never tested their records retuned in UTF-8 from port 20012
previously.

I only tested for the record you provided just now but found that all
their other encodings served over various ports seem to be correct for
this record.  In my extensive previous testing of GBV I had only tested
the MARC-8 encodings returned from port 20011.

I had occasionally seen problems of encoding with individual records which
had not been correctly encoded in MARC-8 but that may be unavoidable from
any large data source, especially union catalogues like GBV.  Koha does
not yet have support for the other encodings they provide.  I tested with
my own client, not yet ported to Koha, which supports all the encodings I
have found in use anywhere except for UNIMARC records from Greece.

When different encodings are available as options from a particular target
catalogue I have found that using the encoding most likely to have used in
the original records is probably safest.  In the case of GBV, that would
be ISO 5426.  Koha has no support for ISO 5426 yet unless it was added
when I was not looking.

Your best option for use with Koha is to use the MARC-8 encodings from
port 20011.

Not enough systems use UTF-8 records, therefore, UTF-8 services are often
not well tested at many libraries.  Even the Library of Congress, when
returning records in UTF-8 will frequently have improper encodings so that
MARC-8 is also the best option there.

Please report this problem to GBV if you have any good contacts there.

>

[snip]

>


Thomas Dukleth
Agogme
109 E 9th Street, 3D
New York, NY  10003
USA
http://www.agogme.com
212-674-3783