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Kit-catalogue is a PHP/MySQL application that needs to be [xyz-ips snippet=”Download-KC”] and installed on a web server. End-users can then log-in and add items to the catalogue, either manually or via an CSV (spreadsheet).
For more information on installation, and detailed information on use, please download the [xyz-ips snippet=”Support-Manual-Link”] here.
Items can be added into free-text categories that have been set up by the system administrator for your local installation, or standard CPV codes which come embedded in the system. Out-of-the-box, Kit-Catalogue provides the ability to browse your catalogue by department, category (what type of equipment it is), access type (who can typically use it) and user generated tags.
You can also enable browsing using any extra fields you may have added to the equipment database through local configuration changes.
At Loughborough, for example, we will also record which “research school” a piece of equipment is relevant to (custom field), as well as its department (built-in field), so browsing by research school will be an option for our users.
Screen shot showing browsing by department.
The equipment records contain the following fields as standard:
Items can also have a number of categories associated with them (e.g. “Thermal Analysis”) as well as a number of access types (e.g. “Full”, “Teaching Only”, etc). In addition, you can also add custom fields to the system to record other pieces of information.
For example, at Loughborough, our custom field includes information about which “Research School” an item is associated with.
Screen shot showing browsing an item record.
To make customising Kit-Catalogue as simple as possible, the system provides a “local” folder, in which you can add your own configuration settings, style sheets and PHP “plug-in” code to customise your installation to your own requirements, for example, adding your own logo and colour scheme.
Before entering equipment information in to the catalogue, your system administrators should use the Kit-Catalogue admin interface to enter information on your organisation’s different campuses, departments and buildings. By setting this information up in advance, your cataloguers can enter information more quickly and easily.
For categorising equipment, Kit-Catalogue uses the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV), a European standard for classifying public procurement contracts. It provides a controlled vocabulary for categorising a wide range of equipment, particularly in laboratory contexts, and is available in a range of European languages.
(See: http://simap.europa.eu/codes-and-nomenclatures/codes-cpv/codes-cpv_en.htm for more information on CPV codes).
When categorising equipment, Kit-Catalogue will give the user a list of categories from the CPV, from which they can choose all that apply. The full CPV list is very long, so a filtering system will be used where the user enters a word, and the list shrinks to show just those categories that contain that word.