[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Cataloging questions

[Jason Etheridge]

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Melissa Lowenberg
<mlowenberg at tnrdlib.bc.ca> wrote:
> Is there a way to "clone" a record in Evergreen?

Hi Melissa,

The original design goal was to make this difficult, since duplicate
records were such a problem for the libraries involved.  However, with
Z39.50 at least, if you add the permission ALLOW_ALT_TCN to your
permission list, and grant that permission to your catalogers, then a
collision in the Z39.50 client would offer an "Import with alternate
TCN <some value here>" option.

In my opinion, it wouldn't take much development to just add a
permission-protected Actions for this Record -> Clone Record option.

> Also, when you are doing a batch upload of records is there any way to
> "force" a record to load even if it matches one already in the database?

I'm not very familiar with the Cataloging -> MARC Batch Import/Export
option (aka Vandelay), but I know there's a desire to improve its
handling of overlays.  We were talking about this recently in IRC:
http://evergreen-ils.org/irc_logs/evergreen/2010-02/%23evergreen.11-Thu-2010.log
(search for 2010-02-11T16:05:31)

One notion was to provide an automatic overlay on collision option if
the incumbent record belonged to a specified bib source.

>  Since I use a different MARC editor than the one in Evergreen, I would find
> it easier to improve records by loading a better version of the record, then
> merging the two.  Is this possible?

You should be able to force an overlay within MARC Batch
Import/Export, but I'm not having any luck currently.  I believe there
is development toward integrating with OCLC's Connexion client, and
there's also a desire to integrate with Biblios, an open source MARC
editor that some Koha users make use of.  Either of these routes
should improve the situation some.  If you use Terry Reese's MARCEdit
program, I know Mike had a prototype MARC editor widget going that
could understand the MARC breaker format, which would allow you to
just copy & paste from MARCEdit.

Perhaps the easiest way to overlay records currently is through
Z39.50.  You mark an incumbent record as an overlay target, and then
choose MARC Editor for Overlay after picking a record from a Z39.50
service.  However, the configuration of Z39.50 sources is done by
server admins and can't be done ad-hoc by an end user, and I don't
know of any easy to use desktop Z39.50 servers (would be nice if
standalone MARC editors offered this, though).

If you can't get tight integration with your preferred client, seems
like the second best option would be development of a new feature, an
Actions for this Record -> Replace Record from File option.

I'd expect for that to be relatively easy too, though maybe too much
for a volunteer developer to whip up on a whim.

Hope this helps!

-- 
Jason Etheridge
 | VP, Tactical Development
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  jason at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com

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