BC Code Club: Notes from MarcEdit Session at SFU Library

Penny Swanson at SFU Library generously gave us an overview of how staff use MarcEdit, especially to batch edit vendor records.

Some Advice when processing e-resources records

  • put acquisitions information into bib records
  • put link to ERM (E-Resources Management system) in 935
  • some link to catalogue in 830 or 730
  • need identifier for each set, and then by year
  • only way to keep track of whether gotten everything you paid for

MARC Tools

  • MarcBreaker: input mrc, output mrk
  • Also allows you to convert to/from MARCXML
  • MARC-8 would have curly braces to describe diacritics
  • UTF-8 would have the letters with disacritic marks (corresponds with appropriate LDR character)

MRK Format

  • each line has to start with =
  • followed by field, two spaces, indicators

Tips and Useful Functions

  • find/replace by (sub)field
  • add/delete fields can use x for placeholder number. e.g. all 900 fields use “9xx”
  • change case, by subfield (under edit)
  • Assigned tasks (under tools) – automate repeated steps; loaded on the local computer, so to share, need to export and on the other computer you want to use it on, import it
  • can make a different task for each vendor
  • find a place to keep repeatedly used regex

Dealing with Updates

  • Record Deduplication Tools
  • have to add each file individually
  • save records to dups1 and removed items to dups2
  • but then need update set information
  • use Merge tool to merge 830/856 back in; can choose to merge only unique
  • must have common identifier for merge to work

Evaluating Records

  • Find All of a specific field (find =nnn)
  • Select MARC Records (under tools), can choose which field to display
  • can also select, search, and delete/export records
  • Tools -> Validate Headings; can run against LCSH, can automatically correct variants

Tab Delimited Text

  • convert excel or tab delimited text file
  • edit the LDR/008
  • choose column and which field to map to
  • use asterisk(s) before field number to concatenate e.g. *245$a ; *245 $c
  • can put the arguments in the top row of sheet

Harvest OAI

  • Directory of Open access books example: server address, need to add /request
  • Metadata type: marcxml
  • Crosswalk path: OAIMARC21XML.xsl
  • most important to know which crosswalk to choose
  • can be fussy

Resources

  • Terry’s Worklog / YouTube Channel
  • MARCedit mailing list