Ok Alma folks,
I’ve been thinking about a way to integrate holdings editing into the Alma integration work with MarcEdit. Alma handles holdings via MFHDs, but honestly, the process for getting to holdings data seems a little quirky to me. Let me explain. When working with bibliographic data, the workflow to extract records for edit and then update, looks like the following:
Search/Edit
- Records are queried via Z39.50 or SRU
- Data can be extracted directly to MarcEdit for editing
Create/Update
- Data is saved, and then turned into MARCXML
- If the record has an ID, I have to query a specific API to retrieve specific data that will be part of the bib object
- Data is assembled in MARCXML, and then updated or created.
Essentially, an update or create takes 2 API calls.
For holdings, it’s a much different animal.
Search/Edit:
- Search via Z39.50/SRU
- Query the Bib API to retrieve the holdings link
- Query the holdings link api to retrieve a list of holding ids
- Query each holdings record API individually to retrieve a holdings object
- Convert the holdings object to MARCXML and then into a form editable in the MarcEditor
- As part of this process, I have to embed the bib_id and holdin_id into the record (I’m using a 999 field) so that I can do the update
For Update/Create
- Convert the data to MARCXML
- Extract the ids and reassemble the records
- Post via the update or create API
Extracting the data for edit is a real pain. I’m not sure why so many calls are necessary to pull the data.
Anyway — Let me give you an idea of the process I’m setting up.
First — you query the data:
Couple things to note — to pull holdings, you have to click on the download all holdings link, or right click on the item you want to download. Or, select the items you want to download, and then select CTRL+H.
When you select the option, the program will prompt you to ask if you want it to create a new holdings record if one doesn’t exist.
The program will then either download all the associated holdings records or create a new one.
Couple things I want you to notice about these records. There is a 999 field added, and you’ll notice that I’ve created this in MarcEdit. Here’s the problem…I need to retain the BIB number to attach the holdings record to (it’s not in the holdings object), and I need the holdings record number (again, not in the holdings object). This is a required field in MarcEdit’s process. I can tell if a holdings item is new or updated by the presence or lack of the $d.
Anyway — this is the process that I’ve come up with…it seems to work. I’ve got a lot of debugging code to remove because I was having some trouble with the Alma API responses and needed to see what was happening underneath. Anyway, if you are an Alma user, I’d be curious if this process looks like it will work. Anyway, as I say — I have some cleanup left to do before anyone can use this, but I think that I’m getting close.
–tr