Terry Reese’s MarcEdit : Practical Uses

TERRY REESE’S MARCEDIT :

PRACTICAL USES

Jenn Nolte

Middlesex Community College25 April 2008

OUTLINE

Introduction: What is MarcEdit?

Setup and Basic Features

Importing into Voyager

Exporting from Voyager

Other MarcEdit Features

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS MARCEDIT?

A free, flexible desktop utility for editing large files of MARC records

Windows-based (sorry Mac users!)

Created by Terry Reese (Oregon State University)

http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/index.php

Not to be confused with marcedit.pl

SETUP AND BASIC FEATURES

Download MarcEdit installation package to desktop

Installs into Program Files automatically and shows up in the Start Menu automatically

Once installed, an icon will appear on your desktop and in your task bar:

Double-click to get started!


The MarcEdit main window will pop up. There are several different mini-programs within MarcEdit- we’ll look at these in a second.

MarcEdit will process any valid MARC file. If a file is corrupted somehow, you will not be able to open it with MarcEdit.

MarcEdit doesn’t care what the file extension (.txt, .bin, .dat, .mrc) name is. If it is valid, uncorrupted MARC, MarcEdit will process it.


Click on MarcBreaker to start editing MARC records.

The input file here is the MARC file you want to work on. Click browse to find it.

Once you’ve found the file you want to edit, copy the path in the input text box and paste it into the Output text box. IMPORTANT: change the file extension from .mrc to .mrk.

Click Execute, then Edit records to start editing.


The text that you are looking now is “broken” MARC. The “raw” MARC of your input file looks something like this:

Obviously you can’t edit that very easily, so thank goodness for MarcEdit!


One more note: Input files can have any extension (.bin, .txt, .dat, .mrc) but all Output or “broken” MARC files should have the .mrk extension.

This will help when you need to go back to a file you’ve been working on, and help the MarcEdit program identify the records.


Now we’re ready to explore some of the basic features of MarcEdit.

Add/Delete FieldThis feature will add or delete entire fields in every record in your file. You can use this feature to delete all fields with a certain tag, or certain field with certain data in them.


Edit SubfieldThis feature is useful for not only adding new subfields to specific tags, but replacing and deleting subfield from specific tags.

Edit IndicatorReplaces indicators in specific tag

Swap FieldsTakes data from one field and transfers to another


Other handy, basic features:

Field CountQuickly tabulates how many occurrences of each tag there are in your file. Helpful when trying to determine if every record in your file has a certain field.

Special UndoAllows you to undo any major changes, like adding/ deleting subfields. Great when trying MarcEdit out for the first time!!


When finished editing your MARC file, you’ll want to recompile or “make” the broken MARC into a raw MARC file that Voyager (or any other ILS) can read.

When compiling your file, it’s a good practice to name the new file “filename.edt.mrc.” This way you’ll know that this is an edited version of your original file.

IMPORTING INTO VOYAGER Now that you’ve edited your MARC file to your liking

and re-compiled it, it’s time to bring it into Voyager.

There are a few things to pay attention to when importing a record from somewhere other than OCLC.

If you are on Voyager with Unicode or higher, than all of your MARC records are using the UTF-8/Unicode character set. This is important, since many vendors still send their records out in MARC-8/non-Unicode.

You will need to identify what character set your records are in, and set up Voyager accordingly.

IMPORTING INTO VOYAGER

If your broken MARC looks like this:

Then you will need to set Voyager up like this:

EXPORTING FROM VOYAGER

But what if the records you want to edit are already in Voyager? If it’s just a handful, then no problem- just use the Cataloging client.

HOWEVER, if you need to make changes on over 50 records at one time, for example, then MarcEdit would help you achieve that goal.


Just as with importing records into Voyager, you’ll want to pay attention to character set when you export from Voyager.

By default, records in Voyager (Unicode version or higher) are in Unicode/UTF-8. You can change what character set you export them in by going back to Voyager preferences.


Export in MARC-8/ non-Unicode

Export in UTF-8/ Unicode


Once you’re done with the edits you want to make, re-compile the MARC file and follow the steps to import into Voyager!

OTHER MARCEDIT FEATURES MarcJoin

This feature is helpful for combining multiple files of MARC records for easy editing. Why edit 3 files when you can edit one?

MarcSplitDivides a file into several different files, based on the number of MARC records you’d prefer in each file.

MarcValidatorChecks the records in your file against MARC21 cataloging standards.

OTHER MARCEDIT FEATURES

SelectMarcAllows you to take certain records out of your MARC file and send them to a new file by themselves.

Marc XMLTranslates your regular old MARC into MARCXML, Dublin Core, MODS, EAD, FGDC, MADS and OAI. Will also take some of these XML files and translate them back into MARC.

QUESTIONS?Jenn Nolte

Applications Manager / Database AdministratorIntegrated Systems & Programming

Integrated Library & Technology ServicesYale University Library

130 Wall StreetNew Haven CT 06520

[email protected] 432 4878

http://www.library.yale.edu/~lso/databaseadmin/

Download this presentation:http://www.library.yale.edu/~jnolte/

Terry Reese’s MarcEdit : Practical Uses

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