Re: Open architecture ILS?

[Chuck Bearden <cbearden@rice.edu>]

On Fri, 11 Aug 2000, Dick Thaxter wrote:

> 
> While listing ILS vendors with an SQL based back end, it might be helpful
> to point out that being Oracle-based does not mean that one can easily do
> searches or reports or link to records, etc.  In the case of Voyager, only
> a small fraction of MARC fields are stored in tables and columns that can
> be queried.  The bulk of the MARC record is written to one or more rows of
> data in the MARC format.  Querying those fields requires pulling out the
> MARC record and writing custom software to parse the directory and fields.  

A Perl module has been written that will process records in USMARC format:

  MARC.pm (http://marcpm.sourceforge.net/)

Assuming you can extract the records you want from the ILS, it will 
parse leader, directory, & fields, and permit you to do things like 
search by tag, indicator values, subfields, and field/subfield 
contents, update fields, add fields, delete fields, and manipulate 
008.

Chuck
======================================================================
 Chuck Bearden                     Library Systems Programmer/Analyst
 Fondren Library, MS44
 Rice University                                    cbearden@rice.edu
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