Title: February 2011 User's Group Session
Posted: 02/09/2011 09:28 AM
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)
- Search for a book
- Click a school to see the titles
- Add them to your book bag
- REPEAT for as many books as you want
- Open your book bag
- Click MARC
- Click SAVE (text file)
- Open your catalog
- 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.