View authority record by database id

[Mark Cooper]

Evergreen master ...

View an authority record by id

Suggested by cataloging staff, there is no way to view an authority record directly by id. The 'Manage Authorities' interface does not allow retrieval of an authority record by id. This branch leverages Supercat to display an authority as marctxt in the staff client. Staff are ambivalent about the right-click interface for viewing authorities in the marc editor (which could be a separate issue), so they feel this is important. Primary use case is to quickly view authority using id indicated in $0 subfield. Outstanding question -- should this really load the authority in the marc editor?

Here's the working branch:
http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=commit;h=82f4844b39819578c2a90a77b7991d59cca4196e

[Mark Cooper (markchristophercooper)]

Having sat on this for two weeks, it's useful, but better if it would really load the authority in the marc editor. Will look into that when I get some time ... but no idea when that will be.

[Jane Sandberg (sandbergja)]

Quick note: this is sorta possible in the Web client. You can just use your browse to navigate to:

https://mydomain.edu/eg/staff/cat/catalog/authority/AUTHORITY_ID_HERE/marc_edit

[Jane Sandberg (sandbergja)]

I created a simple new branch that allows a user to type in an ID and retrieve an authority record, similar to the existing Retrieve bib by ID/TCN tools: user/sandbergja/lp1164061_retrieve_authority_record_by_id

http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/sandbergja/lp1164061_retrieve_authority_record_by_id

This branch is for the Web client. Like the retrieve-bib-record-by-id, it doesn't prevent a user from entering an invalid record id.

[Jane Sandberg (sandbergja)]

P.S. I can write a release note if y'all think we should add this tool.

I also wonder if there shouldn't also be a quick way to open a linked authority record directly from the MARC editor. For example, having $0s display as links to the authority records.

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Hi Jane, looks great. A short release notes entry would be appreciated. Also, since the 'record not found' code and the preceding br's are not used (unless I'm missing something), please remove those from the code, too, to avoid confusion.

[Jane Sandberg (sandbergja)]

Thanks for the feedback, Bill. I cleaned up the 'record not found' code -- you're right, it wasn't doing anything -- and added release notes to that same branch.

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Thanks, Jane!

Merged to master for 3.2. I took the liberty of squashing the commit to cut down on some of the code cleanup noise.

Ideally down the road this will take the user to a page that allows them to merge/edit/delete like the authority search page, but since that's a Dojo UI, we don't want to get into tweaking that. This is a good step in that direction, though.