What to use, UNIMARC or MARC21 ?
Greetings, I’ve been exploring how to convert our aging church library system (running L4U, which is aimed at school libraries) to koha. So far I’ve got everything installed and running in a vm (so I can easily snapshot and revert when I mess it up) with the patron list imported after running the exported list from L4U through some scripts to fix up data and build a csv file. Next on the list is the catalog. L4U exports in MARC format which should be easy enough to import, however, during koha config, I had to choose between UNIMARC or MARC21. Full disclaimer: I’m a Linux guy, I wouldn’t know a UNIMARC or a MARC21 record if one fell out of the sky and knocked me out cold. :-) How would one know what to choose here? Would I somehow be able to determine what MARC flavour the L4U export is? Does it even matter? I’m sure I’ll come up with more questions but for now I’m going to forge ahead and try to import the catalog and see what happens. Thanks in advance! Curtis Rempel
Hi
Next on the list is the catalog. L4U exports in MARC format which should be easy enough to import, however, during koha config, I had >to choose between UNIMARC or MARC21.
do you live in the USA and do you use this L4U: http://srbeducationsolutions.com/Library-Management.php ? If yes, 99% your marc export is MARC21, so select MARC21 on Koha setup. Quite often in USA you can do the equivalence marc = MARC21. It is not correct but ask to a librarian to have a complete answer. You can find an intro here: http://www.loc.gov/marc/umb/ If you want to be 100% sure open the export file with this editor, MarcEdit: http://marcedit.reeset.net/ If every record has a 008, you have MARC21 records. Bye Zeno Tajoli
On Sep 15, 2015, at 11:48 AM, Zeno Tajoli <z.tajoli@cineca.it> wrote:
Hi
Next on the list is the catalog. L4U exports in MARC format which should be easy enough to import, however, during koha config, I had >to choose between UNIMARC or MARC21.
do you live in the USA and do you use this L4U: http://srbeducationsolutions.com/Library-Management.php ?
Canada and yes, that is the software.
If yes, 99% your marc export is MARC21, so select MARC21 on Koha setup.
Thanks, I reverted my test vm back prior to configuring koha and this time chose MARC21 and everything imported successfully (well, as lousy as the data is anyway, at least I can see how bad it really is now).
Quite often in USA you can do the equivalence marc = MARC21. It is not correct but ask to a librarian to have a complete answer. You can find an intro here: http://www.loc.gov/marc/umb/
If you want to be 100% sure open the export file with this editor, MarcEdit: http://marcedit.reeset.net/
If every record has a 008, you have MARC21 records.
Thanks very much for the tips! Cheers, Curtis
Bye Zeno Tajoli
On 9/15/2015 5:55 PM, Curtis Rempel wrote:
L4U exports in MARC format which should be easy enough to import, however, during koha config, I had to choose between UNIMARC or MARC21. Full disclaimer: I’m a Linux guy, I wouldn’t know a UNIMARC or a MARC21 record if one fell out of the sky and knocked me out cold.:-) How would one know what to choose here? Would I somehow be able to determine what MARC flavour the L4U export is? Does it even matter?
Yes, it matters a lot, but primarily to the people who will be inputting into the catalog. There are a few library formats, various flavors of MARC based more or less on nationality: there is MARC21 (which is used primarily by the Anglo-American community) but there are all kinds of others. UNIMARC is popular in Europe. Normally when a librarian wants to catalog something, they look to see if another library has already made a record for it, then the librarian can download that record into the local catalog, saving a lot of time and labor. Obviously for this to work, the formats have to be the same. So, the format makes a difference when you import these records. In the US, you can expect to download records in MARC21, but in Europe, you will expect to download in UNIMARC but there are exceptions everywhere. The inputters should know where they want to get the records--if they don't, then they need to figure it out. James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l@gmail.com First Thus http://blog.jweinheimer.net First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus Personal Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/james.weinheimer.35 Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesWeinheimer Cooperative Cataloging Rules http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/ Cataloging Matters Podcasts http://blog.jweinheimer.net/cataloging-matters-podcasts The Library Herald http://libnews.jweinheimer.net/ [delay +30 days]
participants (3)
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Curtis Rempel -
James Weinheimer -
Zeno Tajoli