Posted by Anonymous on September 4, 2012 at 8:38pm
I am trying to create a library site for my own personal book collection. I've figured out that I need to use the Field module (using Drupal 7) to create the books catalog, but what do I use to track users and the books they borrow?
Also I have some books that are in sets i.e. multiple volumes make up the book (like encyclopedias). I want to create one record for the book and under it include the details of each single volume just like a regular book. How do I do this nesting?
I've installed the Views Module, L4LT module what other modules could be helpful?
Any info would be great.
Comments
booking systems modules
Here is a list of booking systems modules that might be of help.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/137544
titles vs. items, users can be users
One strategy that library catalogs use is to use different types of records for each title - a "bibliographic" record holds metadata for the book, and an "item" represents the physical item. A bibliographic record might have 1 item record attached or 1,000.
If most of your books have multiple copies and/or multiple volumes, you could use the "field collection" module to replicate this structure - use nodes for metadata and field collections for the physical items.
If you only have a few multi-volume sets, you could use a node reference field on your main content type. Leave it blank for the first volume, then reference that node for the second and subsequent ones. If you have some PHP chops, you can create a custom page template to display information about the referenced nodes.
or create a separate content type for sets and use a node reference field there for each volume.
The Node Clone module might come in handy for creating those sets. Or consider Feeds for importing data from a text file or spreadsheet.
If one of the 'booking' modules doesn't work out, create users for all of your lenders, give them a special role with very limited access, and create a field in your book content type for who has it checked out, when it is due, etc.