how to use marc records displayed on library web pages?
I do a fair bit of cataloging for a small library that has a lot of old/rare books, though I am an amateur librarian. I often use worldcat to find a library that has a copy of our uncatalogued book (when I can't find any z39.50 accessible sources). These libraries often have an option to display a MARC record. Is there some way to get such a display into Koha besides manually copy/pasting bits and pieces into a new MARC record? For example: http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3780640/Details#tabnav Copying and pasting the displayed record into a text file and trying to import it via "stage for import" does not work. I notice that Library of Congress has an option to download MARC records for its items, which can be 'staged for import" without a problem. Looking a the contents of the LoC downloaded MARC file, it looks almost nothing like the ones displayed by libraries which don't have a download option. I've searched the web (i think) exhaustively for clues as to how to actually handle or convert these "display" marc records into something usable (something that looks like the LoC downloaded MARC records), but with not success. I've installed and attempted to use MarcEdit and IsisMarc hoping they might have some functionality to convert/transform this data... but no luck. It just seems crazy that there's all this info out there, and I can't find any way to use it beyond the crudest (but better than nothing!) methods of cherry picking. What am I missing?
X, I do a fair bit of cataloging for a small library that has a lot of
old/rare books, though I am an amateur librarian. I often use worldcat to find a library that has a copy of our uncatalogued book (when I can't find any z39.50 accessible sources). These libraries often have an option to display a MARC record. Is there some way to get such a display into Koha besides manually copy/pasting bits and pieces into a new MARC record?
Not easily if they do not provide a Z39.50 server or raw MARC record download. What you are seeing when looking at the "MARC view" is a representation of the MARC format that has been designed to be easily readable for humans. MARC records are actually (usually, anyway) stored in the binary format that LC provides their records in.
For example: http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3780640/Details#tabnav
Copying and pasting the displayed record into a text file and trying to import it via "stage for import" does not work. I notice that Library of Congress has an option to download MARC records for its items, which can be 'staged for import" without a problem. Looking a the contents of the LoC downloaded MARC file, it looks almost nothing like the ones displayed by libraries which don't have a download option.
I've searched the web (i think) exhaustively for clues as to how to actually handle or convert these "display" marc records into something usable (something that looks like the LoC downloaded MARC records), but with not success. I've installed and attempted to use MarcEdit and IsisMarc hoping they might have some functionality to convert/transform this data... but no luck.
It just seems crazy that there's all this info out there, and I can't find any way to use it beyond the crudest (but better than nothing!) methods of cherry picking.
What am I missing?
Most libraries that use copy from libraries other than their national library use OCLC or Skyriver (or a similar union database) for obtaining records. It would be possible to write screen scrapers to harvest MARC data from OPACs, but since there is no standard formatting, you would need at the very least a screen scraper per ILS, if not a screen scraper per catalog to cope with minor customizations made by various libraries. Regards, Jared -- Jared Camins-Esakov Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/
Thanks, Jared, for confirming my suspicions. It still seems weird to me how many library interfaces "display" MARC and don't provide a machine-usable format. It's better than nothing though, I suppose. At least Koha isn't one of these systems -- Koha provides so many options for downloading records it's an embarrassment of riches! I also received a reply from someone (who doesn't seem to have CC'd the list?) who reported they copied and pasted the example link I provided into MarcEdit, and after a bit of manual re-formatting to remove "subfield markers" (I presume the | characters) and possibly adjust some spacing they were able compile the text to an importable MARC record. (They kindly attached the result for me.) To duplicate this prodigious feat, I guess I'd need to do some more research on the MARC format acceptable to MarcEdit... it would be handy to know how to do. On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 12:58 PM, Jared Camins-Esakov < jcamins@cpbibliography.com> wrote:
X,
I do a fair bit of cataloging for a small library that has a lot of
old/rare books, though I am an amateur librarian. I often use worldcat to find a library that has a copy of our uncatalogued book (when I can't find any z39.50 accessible sources). These libraries often have an option to display a MARC record. Is there some way to get such a display into Koha besides manually copy/pasting bits and pieces into a new MARC record?
Not easily if they do not provide a Z39.50 server or raw MARC record download. What you are seeing when looking at the "MARC view" is a representation of the MARC format that has been designed to be easily readable for humans. MARC records are actually (usually, anyway) stored in the binary format that LC provides their records in.
For example: http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3780640/Details#tabnav
Copying and pasting the displayed record into a text file and trying to import it via "stage for import" does not work. I notice that Library of Congress has an option to download MARC records for its items, which can be 'staged for import" without a problem. Looking a the contents of the LoC downloaded MARC file, it looks almost nothing like the ones displayed by libraries which don't have a download option.
I've searched the web (i think) exhaustively for clues as to how to actually handle or convert these "display" marc records into something usable (something that looks like the LoC downloaded MARC records), but with not success. I've installed and attempted to use MarcEdit and IsisMarc hoping they might have some functionality to convert/transform this data... but no luck.
It just seems crazy that there's all this info out there, and I can't find any way to use it beyond the crudest (but better than nothing!) methods of cherry picking.
What am I missing?
Most libraries that use copy from libraries other than their national library use OCLC or Skyriver (or a similar union database) for obtaining records. It would be possible to write screen scrapers to harvest MARC data from OPACs, but since there is no standard formatting, you would need at the very least a screen scraper per ILS, if not a screen scraper per catalog to cope with minor customizations made by various libraries.
Regards, Jared
-- Jared Camins-Esakov Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/
Hi Jared In cases where libraries use commercial cataloguing services, providing downloadable MARC would usually contravene the licence agreement that the library has with the source/consortium. it would add complexity to a library OPAC to distinguish between locally created MARC records which may be available for download, and 3rd party which might not. Cheers, Pru On 19/12/2012, at 7:34 AM, "X Middleton" <x@vaults.ca> wrote:
Thanks, Jared, for confirming my suspicions. It still seems weird to me how many library interfaces "display" MARC and don't provide a machine-usable format. It's better than nothing though, I suppose. At least Koha isn't one of these systems -- Koha provides so many options for downloading records it's an embarrassment of riches!
I also received a reply from someone (who doesn't seem to have CC'd the list?) who reported they copied and pasted the example link I provided into MarcEdit, and after a bit of manual re-formatting to remove "subfield markers" (I presume the | characters) and possibly adjust some spacing they were able compile the text to an importable MARC record. (They kindly attached the result for me.) To duplicate this prodigious feat, I guess I'd need to do some more research on the MARC format acceptable to MarcEdit... it would be handy to know how to do.
On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 12:58 PM, Jared Camins-Esakov < jcamins@cpbibliography.com> wrote:
X,
I do a fair bit of cataloging for a small library that has a lot of
old/rare books, though I am an amateur librarian. I often use worldcat to find a library that has a copy of our uncatalogued book (when I can't find any z39.50 accessible sources). These libraries often have an option to display a MARC record. Is there some way to get such a display into Koha besides manually copy/pasting bits and pieces into a new MARC record?
Not easily if they do not provide a Z39.50 server or raw MARC record download. What you are seeing when looking at the "MARC view" is a representation of the MARC format that has been designed to be easily readable for humans. MARC records are actually (usually, anyway) stored in the binary format that LC provides their records in.
For example: http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3780640/Details#tabnav
Copying and pasting the displayed record into a text file and trying to import it via "stage for import" does not work. I notice that Library of Congress has an option to download MARC records for its items, which can be 'staged for import" without a problem. Looking a the contents of the LoC downloaded MARC file, it looks almost nothing like the ones displayed by libraries which don't have a download option.
I've searched the web (i think) exhaustively for clues as to how to actually handle or convert these "display" marc records into something usable (something that looks like the LoC downloaded MARC records), but with not success. I've installed and attempted to use MarcEdit and IsisMarc hoping they might have some functionality to convert/transform this data... but no luck.
It just seems crazy that there's all this info out there, and I can't find any way to use it beyond the crudest (but better than nothing!) methods of cherry picking.
What am I missing?
Most libraries that use copy from libraries other than their national library use OCLC or Skyriver (or a similar union database) for obtaining records. It would be possible to write screen scrapers to harvest MARC data from OPACs, but since there is no standard formatting, you would need at the very least a screen scraper per ILS, if not a screen scraper per catalog to cope with minor customizations made by various libraries.
Regards, Jared
-- Jared Camins-Esakov Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/
Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Pru wrote:
it would add complexity to a library OPAC to distinguish between locally created MARC records which may be available for download, and 3rd party which might not.
In theory, that information should be findable in MARC21 by comparing the data in tags 008/39 and 040 with the library's own MARC code to figure out what was locally-created. In practice, a lot of records seem to have nonsense in 040, so it would have to be controllable by cleverly-designed preferences with a default of "offer nothing for download". Hope that informs, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/
Good afternoon from Fiji May I humbly request if anyone has a detailed analysis of Koha in comparison to other LMS systems e.g. NewGenlib and Evergreen in relation to the modules such Acquisition, Serials, Circulation, Cataloguing Reporting, Supervisor and Manuals. I ask this because we are trying to find a alternative to our current LMS system, Athena. Athena is no longer supported and the company which bought the previous company which sold us Athena only has a commercial software called Destiny. Destiny is an easy option to choose because of data migration is easy, however, I want to be sure that I have analysed Koha, NewGenlib and Evergreen first before making a decision on which LMS to replace Athena. Your prompt response and assistance will be highly appreciated. Regards.
Bula!
G ood afternoon from Fiji
May I humbly request if anyone has a detailed analysis of Koha in comparison to other LMS systems e.g. NewGenlib and Evergreen in relation to the modules such Acquisition, Serials, Circulation, Cataloguing Reporting, Supervisor and Manuals.
There's an older (2011) but pretty scholarly paper that I like to refer folks to when we get this question. I've had a bit of trouble accessing it, but it's worth a read: How to choose an free and open source integrated library system by Tristan Müller One of the happy problems with OS is that the development pace far exceeds research.
I ask this because we are trying to find a alternative to our current LMS system, Athena.
Athena is no longer supported and the company which bought the previous company which sold us Athena only has a commercial software called Destiny.
Destiny is an easy option to choose because of data migration is easy, however, I want to be sure that I have analysed Koha, NewGenlib and Evergreen first before making a decision on which LMS to replace Athena.
I'd wager that you will be happier choosing any of the three options you've mentioned over Athena and Destiny. It really comes down to what works best for you, which is an entirely subjective sort of beast. Your user experience and mine are very different, though it can be quite helpful to keep a scoresheet to try and get an apples to apples comparison. Along that aim, the FOSS folks over here came up with this: https://foss4lib.org/decision-support/ils-ssm Again, it's an older tool. Yet another palm tree infested library recently produced this preso, which is a kind of nice counter to FUD, and it's brand spanking new. http://prezi.com/bmmktwsqmf3a/open-source-feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway/ There are Koha users in Fiji, and I would encourage you to go visit your neighbours. Unfortunately, the Fiji folks are naughty and didn't edit themselves into the wiki, so folks think there are only Aussies and whatchamacallits, you know the lazy bird ones... *cough cough* hint edit the wiki http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/KohaUsers/Oceania but I know the Fiji folks exist from here: http://lists.katipo.co.nz/public/koha/2012-August/033952.html Hope this helped! Cheers, Brooke
BWS Johnson schreef op di 08-04-2014 om 13:39 [-0700]:
There's an older (2011) but pretty scholarly paper that I like to refer folks to when we get this question. I've had a bit of trouble accessing it, but it's worth a read:
How to choose an free and open source integrated library system by Tristan Müller
http://eprints.rclis.org/15387/1/How%20to%20choose%20an%20open%20source%20IL... -- Robin Sheat Catalyst IT Ltd. ✆ +64 4 803 2204 GPG: 5FA7 4B49 1E4D CAA4 4C38 8505 77F5 B724 F871 3BDF
Greetings, To be honest, I am not familiar with using Athena myself, but I do know this. My colleagues (in the Philippines) and I migrated our data from our old Athena system to Koha successfully. This involved a lot of data clean up, because data entry in Athena was not consistently done properly. However, the results have been nothing but great for us. I'm the computer person involved in maintaining and tweaking our Koha system, and the community support on the IRC channel and mailing lists (http://koha-community.org/support/free-support/) have been invaluable. You can read about the functionality of Koha in the documentation online (http://koha-community.org/documentation/). I know it has Acquisitions, Serials, Circulation, Cataloguing, Reporting, and Manuals (including some contextual help as well as online [see previous URL]). I don't know what you mean by Supervisor, though there is certainly a user privilege system which gives or denies access to various sections of Koha. You don't ask about any of the other functionalities that also exist in Koha, so you really should read the documentation to which I have given a link to see what wonderful things you are missing. Do not let the lack of ease in data migration be the reason you stay locked into a proprietary system. I am sure any one of the paid support providers (http://koha-community.org/support/paid-support/) could assist you, if you find the task too difficult to do yourself. Koha is not going to disappear like Athena or some other proprietary software, and it is only going to continually get better, because an active community is constantly working to make it better. I hope these URLs will be useful in your research. GPML, Mark Tompsett
Hi-- Apologies for not copying to the entire list. MarcEdit is a freely available text editor for MARC records which will also compile records into MARC. There are several tutorials available ( http://people.oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/tutorials.html). Best-- Jane Cothron Chinook Library Network Newport, Oregon P.S. The default marker used in MarcEdit for subfields is the "$" and fields are indicated by "=" instead of the pipe "|". This variation seems to vary by software program. On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 12:33 PM, X Middleton <x@vaults.ca> wrote:
Thanks, Jared, for confirming my suspicions. It still seems weird to me how many library interfaces "display" MARC and don't provide a machine-usable format. It's better than nothing though, I suppose. At least Koha isn't one of these systems -- Koha provides so many options for downloading records it's an embarrassment of riches!
I also received a reply from someone (who doesn't seem to have CC'd the list?) who reported they copied and pasted the example link I provided into MarcEdit, and after a bit of manual re-formatting to remove "subfield markers" (I presume the | characters) and possibly adjust some spacing they were able compile the text to an importable MARC record. (They kindly attached the result for me.) To duplicate this prodigious feat, I guess I'd need to do some more research on the MARC format acceptable to MarcEdit... it would be handy to know how to do.
On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 12:58 PM, Jared Camins-Esakov < jcamins@cpbibliography.com> wrote:
X,
I do a fair bit of cataloging for a small library that has a lot of
old/rare books, though I am an amateur librarian. I often use worldcat to find a library that has a copy of our uncatalogued book (when I can't find any z39.50 accessible sources). These libraries often have an option to display a MARC record. Is there some way to get such a display into Koha besides manually copy/pasting bits and pieces into a new MARC record?
Not easily if they do not provide a Z39.50 server or raw MARC record download. What you are seeing when looking at the "MARC view" is a representation of the MARC format that has been designed to be easily readable for humans. MARC records are actually (usually, anyway) stored in the binary format that LC provides their records in.
For example: http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b3780640/Details#tabnav
Copying and pasting the displayed record into a text file and trying to import it via "stage for import" does not work. I notice that Library of Congress has an option to download MARC records for its items, which can be 'staged for import" without a problem. Looking a the contents of the LoC downloaded MARC file, it looks almost nothing like the ones displayed by libraries which don't have a download option.
I've searched the web (i think) exhaustively for clues as to how to actually handle or convert these "display" marc records into something usable (something that looks like the LoC downloaded MARC records), but with not success. I've installed and attempted to use MarcEdit and IsisMarc hoping they might have some functionality to convert/transform this data... but no luck.
It just seems crazy that there's all this info out there, and I can't find any way to use it beyond the crudest (but better than nothing!) methods of cherry picking.
What am I missing?
Most libraries that use copy from libraries other than their national library use OCLC or Skyriver (or a similar union database) for obtaining records. It would be possible to write screen scrapers to harvest MARC data from OPACs, but since there is no standard formatting, you would need at the very least a screen scraper per ILS, if not a screen scraper per catalog to cope with minor customizations made by various libraries.
Regards, Jared
-- Jared Camins-Esakov Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/
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participants (9)
-
BWS Johnson -
Gyaneshwar Narayan -
Jane Cothron -
Jared Camins-Esakov -
Mark Tompsett -
Mitchell, Pru -
MJ Ray -
Robin Sheat -
X Middleton