[Koha] marc import

[Stephen Hedges]

At the risk of feeding a flame war...

I don't understand why people think Koha is somehow deficient in MARC
support.  (Most of the "problems" I've seen are a result of not reading
the manual!)  When I got my MLS, I was taught that MARC is a way to store,
retrieve and share records between libraries.  I don't remember a single
word being said about how the records are displayed or manipulated by an
ILS.  If you can save, edit, and search on all valid MARC fields, then you
have full MARC support.  Since Koha can do exactly that when it's set up
properly (as well as importing and exporting MARC records), then Koha has
full MARC support.  Period.

NPL has been using Koha for 29 months now, and we haven't had any unusual
problems with any of our MARC records.  To imply that Koha is somehow
"MARC-deficient" may work in the hallowed halls of theory, but in the real
world of day-to-day library operations, it's just not true.

Someday soon, when all of the rest of the world is using XML and only a
few of us MLS folks still give a damn about MARC, I expect to see Koha as
one of the few ILS's that is flexible enough to still survive.

Stephen

Joshua Ferraro said:
> Hi Christine, Steven,
>
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 06:26:35PM -0600, Steven F. Baljkas wrote:
>> > i've got several files of marc records i downloaded from oclc.  i
>> would
>> > like to do a bulk import, but have been reading about the need to add
>> a
>> > 952 subfield.  will i need to change something in these oclc records?
>> or
>> > can i just do a bulk import?
>>
>> ... yes, you can bulk import them. I would recommend decompiling them
>> into
>> editable text outside of Koha first though, using a free tool like
>> MARCEdit (about which see URL <http://www.loc.gov/marc/marctools.html>)
>> then adding the necessary 942 and 952 information, editing or deleting
>> any
>> other fields you like, and then using MARCEdit to reconvert the whole
>> back
>> into valid MARC21 which you will then be able to bulkimport easily.
> That sounds like a bit too much work to me, editing every field. I
> would recommend using a small Perl script to parse the record and mirror
> your holdings data (wherever it may be located) to the default fields
> that Koha uses (942 for the record-level and 952 for the item-level).
>
> Another perfectly valid way to proceed is to map the koha holdings fields
> to the fields where your holdings data lives. With that approach, you
> wouldn't need to edit the records at all.
>
>> Plus, doing things this way you will save any trouble trying to edit
>> with
>> Koha's editor.
>
>> As has been cautioned before (many times), Christine, please remember to
>> keep your original (in this case OCLC) MARC records, as there are
>> elements in
>> MARC records which Koha does not currently handle correctly and some
>> which
>> it just plain ignores.
> I don't see any value at this point in keeping the original MARC records
> as the bulkmarcimport tool doesn't rely on the frameworks to determine
> which
> elements of the MARC record to save. In the 2.2 series, there is 0 loss
> while importing. No ILS makes full use of MARC, it would be absurd if
> one did. The important questions to ask is "is the system going to lose
> information on import" and "can the system export the records again in
> valid MARC". Koha will not lose information and it will export in valid
> MARC.
>
> Where there is a problem, is when a library does not properly set up
> the framework to meet their needs (adding control fields, etc.). See
> below.
>
>>
>> (Given your library type and depending on your long-term interest in
>> keeping with Koha, Christine, you may well want to spend the time
>> configuring Koha to include display of the MARC control fields it would
>> otherwise ignore: see Thomas Dukleth's blessedly helpful explanation
>> on this in the comments to the defining Systems Parameters section in
>> Stephen Hedge's Koha User's Guide at
>>    URL <http://www.kohadocs.org/usersguide/ch01s03.html#lowtags> .)
> If you'd like an example of how this might look, please see this MARC
> edit screen:
> http://koha.liblime.com/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.simple/addbiblio.pl
>
>> > i'm pretty sure they're all sitting in the breeding area right now
>> waiting
>> > to be uploaded,  (must i do this one at a time?)
> The breeding farm is for records that don't have any holdings information
> attached, not for records that already have holdings. I'd follow Stephen's
> advice and use bulkmarcimport (though I would recommend against manually
> editing the files to update the holdings location).
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Joshua Ferraro               VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
> President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
> LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
> jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS
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-- 
Stephen Hedges
Skemotah Solutions, USA
www.skemotah.com  --  shedges at skemotah.com