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Library Subjects from the Z39.50 servers

Jody Jacobs

September 30, 2011 20:27

Completed

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It is really great that Populi imports subjects when adding new resources, but there are a few improvements needed. 

First, when multiple MARC records are found it would be useful to be able to compare them and choose the best one.  Right now, we just have to hope the library we pick has a good one. 

Second, when importing Subject strings, each 600, 610, 650, 651, 700 and 710 field with all of their sub-fields need to be treated as a single subject string.   In large part, it is the subject cataloging that allows for precision and accuracy of searching.  Getting the best data possible, together with the (already available) ability to easily edit and merge the subjects in the subject list, will allow us to have the best possible catalog.

Third, if Populi is unable to find a resource on the Z39.50 servers (sometimes even when it does) and therefore draws the record from Amazon or elsewhere, it would be nice to be able to add subjects to the cataloging before adding the resource, so that the cataloger does not have to reopen that to that record to finish the cataloging.

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5 comments

• 0
  
  Mark Ackerman September 30, 2011 20:39

  Thanks Jody! I agree that we can improve the way we are parsing subject field data from Z39.50 servers and I see what you mean about adding subjects upon resource creation. I'm going to go ahead and mark this feature request as Planned.

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  Jody Jacobs October 03, 2011 21:32

  If the "subject extractor" could be made to disregard punctuation in a MARC sub- field and then add a standard punctuation between sub-fields such as "-" would cause the subject list to be more integrated, display everything in a consistent order, and greatly reduce the amount of editing that it takes to clean up an old catalog.  (I would only need to find misspellings and not merge duplicate subjects that were punctuated differently.)  Of course there has to be an exception to every rule and there is punctuation that is important like the period after an initial or the hyphen between dates.

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  Jody Jacobs February 08, 2012 21:29

  The same goes for all of the 100 and 110 fields.

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  Damien Kurek February 13, 2012 19:23

  There are a couple of things pertaining to subjects that an auditor mentioned in his report when he reciently reviewd our library. It is as follows...

  <I’m not clear on how Populi imports information from the various sources it’s using for library

  records. They use the Z39.50 protocol, which is designed to transmit library catalogue records, but it

  seems that some standard library meta-data is missing when I try importing some sample books. It’s

  there in the existing records because it was imported from pre-existing library records. However,

  even this Populi doesn’t completely “know” how to deal with it as it was formatted in MARC (MAchine

  Readable Cataloguing), which is the standard way of storing library meta-data. This is may be why the

  subject lists only show a fraction of the books with that subject. I don’t really have a recommendation

  here as I don’t really understand how Populi is functioning “under the hood.” However, if Populi is

  serious about being useful on the library side for a variety of academic users they will need to make sure

  they actually can fully interact with MARC records “under the hood,” and most professional librarians

  will also want to be able to see and edit the MARC records.>

• 0
  
  Mark Ackerman September 26, 2012 23:02

  Sorry for the long delay on this folks. In the future, we wont mark features as Planned until we are much closer to actually shipping them out. MaRC subject fields should now be getting parsed correctly.

  If you feel a MaRC record is not being parsed correctly, please submit a support request and include the LCCN of the resource you are trying to add.

  Cheers,

  Mark