MarcEdit 5.9 Update

I’ve posted the latest MarcEdit update.  This update includes the following:

  • Bug Fix: UTF-8 to MARC-8 Conversion: When converting specific characters from the Extended Arabic set from UTF-8 to MARC-8, some data translations were embedding null characters between translated data characters.  This has been corrected.
  • Enhancement: Generate Call Numbers Tool:  Generate FAST Headings has been added to this tool.
  • New Feature: Generate FAST Headings: A stand alone tool for Generating FAST Headings.
  • Enhancement: Generate Call Numbers Tool: Made some enhancements to improve very specific call number selections.
  • Enhancement: New Preference Tab: OCLC API Settings — MarcEdit’s direct integration components will require users to obtain a developer’s key from OCLC.  To facilitate this process, I’m rolling this out in two phases.  Phase 1 is the integration with FAST and the preference addition (with links to how to obtain a key).  Phase 2 will be the inclusion of a batch holdings tool, as well as the ability to interact directly with OCLC’s WorldCat.

Couple of notes:

  1. FAST Generation utilizes a handful of web services to allow MarcEdit to automatically poll OCLC about specific records and return suggested headings.  Not all records will have headings suggested to it, but you should find that the same level of coverage for data found in the Call Number Tool will be found with the FAST Tool. 
  2. Secondly, with the FAST Generation, this process does come with a cost.  Using the FAST Services requires much more data to be sent from OCLC, and from what I can tell, it appears that generating the FAST headings as part of say, the Call Number service, increases execution time on OCLC’s side.  So be aware that this process does include a built-in time cost.
  3. I’ve been spending the past few weeks working with folks from OCLC on integrating MarcEdit with the OCLC Metadata API.  I have created a C# library and will be writing up some notes on that shortly as I finish getting things checked into GitHub.  This API wrapper will be the bridge that enables MarcEdit to interact with the API.  My intention is to provide both MarcEdit application facing integration, as well as provide access to this API wrapper through MarcEdit’s COM API for users interested in utilizing the wrapper within their own applications or as part of a scripting language.
  4. As noted in the Enhancement note, I”m rolling out integration in two phases.  One of the things that I don’t think many catalogers will realize is that to utilize OCLC’s web services, you need to get a special key from the developer’s network.  This is different than the username/password that one uses to access any of OCLC’s other cataloging services.  Because I doubt many people will have these keys up front, I’ve included a new preferences section in this release that includes information on how you obtain a key from the OCLC’s Developer Network, as well as a place to store the information.  In the next update, I will complete the integration, and activate the Key Validation, which will activate the new tools dedicated around interaction with the WorldCat Database.  The ETA to complete this work is likely 7 days as I’ve done the work, but have not finished writing all the unit tests.

For the new update, you can pick it up through MarcEdit’s automatic updater, or by downloading the version directly at:

–tr


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4 responses to “MarcEdit 5.9 Update”

  1. Kelly Avatar
    Kelly

    Hi Terry, do you know where I can download MarcEdit? The Oregon State U site seems to be shut down. Thanks.

  2. Kelly Avatar
    Kelly

    Oops, found it. Sorry.

  3. John Howes Avatar
    John Howes

    Using 5.9 (this is really a general question but I couldn’t find your direct mail):

    I want to delete parts of records using regular expressions i.e., whole lines e.g.,

    =500 \\$aLots: 1908.

    using the regexp

    =500.+Lots.+

    finds the records

    but how do I delete the entire line? Just leaving the replace field empty leave a blank line. So the question is how do I get rid of the entire line including the CRLF or whatever special characters are left (i.e. I guess not found by =500.+Lots.+ )?

  4. Ted Huntington Avatar
    Ted Huntington

    With the new update we are getting an error about the oclc_helper.dll plugin needing to be updated. Where can we get the updated version?