[Koha] MARC importing tool? ... trepidatiously into the breach

[baljkas at mb.sympatico.ca]

Saturday, August 16, 2003    00:53 CDT

Howdy, all,

At some point in this conversation, Wolfgang (I think) was asking something
about MARC and given the beginning part of the subject line, I am wondering
if anybody checked out the various to/from MARC conversion tools available
off the Library of Congress MARC Tools page at:

       URL <http://www.loc.gov/marc/marctools.html>

Take a look at MARCMakr. You might need to do a two-step dump to regularise
the data but it should be able to handle just about anything.

I wasn't clear on what info was wanted on MARC. Normally, when dealing with
a batch of records in one file (as often with collection exports in
migration), the end-of-record delimiter appears in a text editor as two
boxes, with the next record's leader and directory starting immediately
afterward.

Wolfgang, if I misunderstood and you were asking for what delimiters end
any given MARC field, you have a huge problem in hand because the
variability with even brief records is immense and the delimiting is
regulated by position from the directory at the beginning of the MARC
record (i.e. get out your calculator, it's gonna be a long night).

 ------------------------------------------------
 
On another tangent, if I understood Wolfgang, the bibliographic data from
the different contributing libraries/library branches is of what one
euphemistically hears called "varying quality."

While in the perfect world -- and like the ad currently on in the North
American market reminds us, 'Of course, we live nowhere near Perfect' --
everything would come with clear breaks and all the data would be
sparkingly perfect, too, most retrospective conversions simply aim to get
some version of the data to migrate across, at least in the first pass. I
have friends whose whole contract positions were just cleaning up
catalogues after system migrations.

Wolfgang, you can use global editing tools, outside of Koha, like the
MARCEdit one off that same LOC page, to make systematic corrections to your
records before importing them into Koha. Or is that not working for some
reason? Give it a try if you haven't. You may be able to correct and
standardise enough of the records to make a smoother transition.

Your library staff should realise, though, with any system migration, there
*will* be "interactive" work to be done: i.e. touching up of the records in
the new system. This is *normal*. From what I've been reading, people seem
to be expecting Koha to eliminate this (even Koha people seem to be aiming
pretty high in thinking this can be eliminated). Remember: your cataloguing
staff are there for a reason ;-)

I hope some of this helps. Just remember, guys: you are doing a great job
and people out here DO appreciate it and the beautiful thing you have
created in Koha. Pat yourselves on the back.

Cheers,
Steven F. Baljkas
library tech at large
Koha neophyte
Winnipeg, MB  CANADA