[Koha] Dealing with bad MARC records

[Steven F.Baljkas]

Wednesday, June 20, 2007     1:55 CDT

Hi, Kevin,

That's great that you got a good answer back from LAC and that you found a much better solution to your problem than what I had proposed. Kudos to you!

Cheers,
Steven F. Baljkas
library tech at large
volunteer cataloguer
Koha neophyte
Winnipeg, MB, Canada

============================================================
From: Kevin O'Rourke <lists at caboose.org.uk>
Date: 2007/06/19 Tue AM 09:15:19 CDT
To: "Steven F. Baljkas" <baljkas at mts.net>
CC: Koha Mailing List <koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [Koha] Dealing with bad MARC records


> P.S. Sorry that LAC's records are fouling things up for you. I've encountered those 5|| fields, too. I think they were meant to be normative 500's and something 'exotic' happened in someone's cataloguing editor.
>   If you don't mind taking the time when you have your solution worked out, you can report those kinds of boo-boo's to LAC (using the AMICUS no. for reference) and they will try to correct them. That way, everything improves for everyone.
>   
I got a really nice reply from LAC where they explained that their 
records come from a wide variety of systems, some beyond their control.  
To quote: "The fill character is allowable in MARC coding and was widely 
used in the early years of MARC, but most libraries try not to use it, 
and your system, quite rightly, is rejecting it.  ...  The record in 
question was created in 1981.  The field in question should be a 500 
general note field."

I've modified my program, it now:
- loads records with non-numeric MARC fields
- maps some fields to others (for example, 5|| to 500)
- strips out any remaining non-numeric fields on saving

This should keep everything nice and simple for our librarians.

Kevin

-- 
Kevin O'Rourke
ICT Coordinator, National Teachers' Institute, Kaduna, Nigeria
062 316972

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