The MultiBackend driver allows you to connect a single VuFind instance to multiple ILS backends.

The MultiBackend driver determines which records are associated with which ILS backends by looking for a prefix on ID values. For each set of records, you should use a custom SolrMarc script to prepend an identifier onto each record's ID value. The resulting IDs must be in the format prefix.ID, for example:

Record 12345 from library A: instance1.12345

Record 54321 from library B: instance2.54321

The same prefix must be used to identify the sources in the indexing phase as well as in MultiBackend.ini.

For each individual ILS being connected to VuFind, you will need to set up a separate ILS specific .ini file (e.g. copy Voyager.ini to instance1.ini and Koha.ini to instance2.ini). You will also need to set up a MultiBackend.ini file to specify which of the ID prefixes set up in the previous step maps to which of the individual ILS configurations. Further documentation can be found in all of the relevant .ini files.

For user authentication the MultiILS driver can be used to allow users to log in with a library card of the selected library.

This example makes the following assumptions:

1. Local config files reside in local/config/vufind
2. Records with prefix “anchor” (example ID: anchor.213) come from a Voyager system with REST APIs available
3. Records with prefix “comb” (example ID: comb.3233) come from a Koha system
4. Users can authenticate with a library card of either system

The following steps are required:

• Copy config/vufind/VoyagerRestful.ini to local/config/vufind/anchor.ini and modify it according to your environment
• Copy config/vufind/Koha.ini to local/config/vufind/comb.ini and modify it according to your environment
• Modify local/config/vufind/config.ini and set ILS driver to MultiBackend and authentication to MultiILS like this:

[Catalog]
driver = "MultiBackend"

[Authentication]
method = MultiILS

• Copy config/vufind/MultiBackend.ini to local/config/vufind/MultiBackend.ini and set it up to use VoyagerRestful for anchor and Koha for comb:

[Drivers]
anchor = VoyagerRestful
comb = Koha

[Login]
default_driver = anchor
drivers[] = anchor
drivers[] = comb