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Title: February 2011 User's Group Session
Category: Mandarin
Description: MARC record sources & tips; Adding new library staff to your catalog; the mysterious startup.ini

1. MARC Record Sources & Tips

GSTE WebOPAC (http://webopac.gstboces.org)

ADVANTAGE: Location fields (GSTE and SCOOLS fields exist: edit the school code)

  1. Search for a book
  2. Click a school to see the titles
  3. Add them to your book bag


  1. REPEAT for as many books as you want
  2. Open your book bag
  3. Click MARC
  4. Click SAVE  (text file)


  1. Open your catalog
  2. Import the records, edit as needed. (Location field, call number if different…)

Access Pennsylvania (http://205.247.101.11/search~S1)

How can you not love Access Pennsylvania?  As a native Pennsylvanian (born and raised in Wilkes-Barre), I'm proud of my home state for establishing such a fine resource.  The link above takes you to a search of the entire database - all libraries - but if you go to this site, you can choose just school libraries, just public libraries, etc.

It's a similar process to downloading from the WebOPAC.  (See a detailed procedure guide here.) 

The records here are generally good, clean records - the one disadvantage is that you won't get any 852 fields.  You'll have to add them - remember to add them to BOTH the bib & holding records (the OPAC reads from the Bib record, remember!)

The Library of Congress (http://catalog.loc.gov)

You know I love the Library of Congress; I am positively MAD about the Library of Congress.  I love their website, their blogs, their resources, their catalog.  But they're not my first choice for downloading MARC records, at least not for schools.  Why?  Because you get a lot of extraneous information, plus if you're not careful, you'll end up with a Unicode record.  (Horrors!)  Once again, you won't get 852 fields.  

Having said that, though, they DO have a lot of records, and you have a better chance of finding some of your more esoteric items there.  So if you DO download from LOC, here's a handy guide.

Amazon (http://amazon.libcat.org/cgi-bin/azorder.pl)

Amazon never ceases to amaze me.  It seems you can find almost ANYTHING there - including catalog records.  Who knew?  Well, Gina Beirne did; she sent this source to me (thanks, Gina!).  The records here seem pretty decent, but once again, no 852 fields.  Ah, well - you can't have everything!  Here's how to get the records - it's really simple: