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 < > jcam...@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) jcam...@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 > _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha