Using Mana for Serial Subscriptions

Using Mana for Serial Subscriptions

Mana-kb is a knowledge base for serial subscription patterns that is shared with the Koha community. This means a library can set up their Koha to integrate with Mana-kb and search for Serial patterns within Mana-kb and also share their own patterns with the community.

Activating Mana

By default, Mana will not be activated on your Koha system. To activate it, the library will need to go to the system preference, Mana. This system preference will need to be set to Enable.

The next step would be to get a token to authenticate your Koha site with the Mana-kb. In the Administration module, under Additional Parameters, there is an option for “Share Content for Mana Kb".



To receive a token, the library will need to add a name and valid email address for this token to be emailed to. Once this has been entered, this email will be sent the token with a link to the Mana-kb website.



In the email, there will be a link to continue the activation has occurred, and the token will automatically populate into your Koha site in two places. The token will be added to the “Share Content for Mana kb” page and also added to the system preference: Manatoken.

There is an option for Auto Sharing to occur, so the library doesn’t have to manually share a subscription, this can be done when a new subscription is created. This option is found on “Share Content for Mana kb” page. In addition to this Auto Share option, there is a system preference called AutoShareWithMana. Currently, those options on this system preferences are ALL or Subscriptions. If subscriptions are selected, when a new serial subscription is added, this pattern will be added to Mana without any extra effort on the part of the library.

Using Mana with the Serials Module

The advantage of using Mana in the Serials Module is that if another library has shared the subscription pattern of a specific serial with Mana, then a library will be able to import this subscription from Mana into their library module and have less set up for a new serial!

A library can first Search Mana prior to creating a new subscription to see if this subscription exists in Mana. From the serials module, there is an option to “Search Mana” on the left of the Serials Module. The search can look by the ISSN, Title or Publisher. If a result is found, these results will be listed.



Creating a Subscription in Koha using Mana

A library will go through the same first step of creating a subscription. On the second step of creating a subscription, if a subscription has been found, an alert will appear on this page.



If you would like to preview the Mana results click Show Mana Results. This result will appear:


The options will be listed on the left under Actions - Import or Report.

Import: If Import is chosen, then the Numbering Pattern will be imported into your Koha system. The next step for the library would be to finish setting up the subscription, this would include adding the Last Value of the Volume/Number issuing that the library is starting with. This numbering pattern imported from Mana will now be available in your Koha for any future subscriptions.

Report: If Report is chosen, the library has an option to add a comment to this particular subscription pattern. Any comments will appear in the Comment box.

Close: If the library chooses not to use a subscription from the Mana list, the option to Close this box is available.

Sharing with Mana

Did you find that a serial wasn't in Mana? If you have a subscription pattern that your library has created that you would like to share- it is very easy to send this to the Mana knowledge base for others to use. From the subscription detail page, there is a new option, "Share".

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