Posts Tagged ‘Enhancements’

Free Floater Subfield Validation

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Free-Floater Subdivision Validation (18X)

When a heading is attempting to find a match against Library of Congress (LC) authority records, it is typically the case that the full heading will not find a match. Why is this? It is due to all of the varied possibilities with headings that include free-floating subdivisions. (more…)

We’re expanding! RBMS and TGM databases available for searching

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

We are proud to announce the addition of two new genre databases in which to match your records against.

  • RBMS — Rare Books and Manuscript Section
  • TGM — Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Read more to learn about each of these databases. (more…)

Announcing: New 300 Field Validation

Friday, April 9th, 2010

We’re excited to announce that the 300 field validation that we’ve been working on is now in place and working.  We add this to the hundreds of other corrections and validations that we make to bibliographic records as we process them. Judy, one of our Project Managers, explains the new process:

In an effort to continue improving our bibliographic validation services, we’ve been writing some cleanup steps for the 300 field.  Nothing drastic of course — just some “straightening out” changes.  The cleanup takes place only on records marked with ‘a’ in leader byte 6 … non-print bibs such as media, electronic resources, microforms, etc. are left as-is.  Here’s a list of what the programming will do:

  • * 300 $a = ‘unp.’ [or] ‘n.p.’ is changed to ‘1 v. (unpaged)’
  • 300 $a = a comma is added to #### page numbers if missing (ex.: 5332 p. becomes 5,332 p.)
  • 300 $a = ‘l.’ is changed to ‘leaves’
  • 300 $a = ‘approx.’ is changed to ‘ca.’
  • 300 $a = preliminary leaves and it’s abbreviation (p.l.) are removed (ex.: 4 p.l., xv, 312 p. = xv, 312 p.)
  • 300 $a = ‘unnumbered’ is removed and brackets added (ex.: 48 unnumbered leaves = [48] leaves)
  • If the p. is up against the :$b or the illustrative matter is up against the ;$c we add a space to separate
  • 300 $a = Missing periods are added to ‘p’ (ex.: 135p. = 135 p. )
  • 300 $b = The illustrative matter is rearranged to be in correct order
  • 300 $b = Obsolete illustrative matter is replaced with ‘ill.’ (ex.: ‘tables’ or “fronts.’ = ‘ill.’)
  • 300 $b = If ‘ill.’ is followed by the parenthetical illustrative matter, ‘ill.’ is dropped and the parenthetical matter remains (example: $bill. (ports.) = $bports.)
  • 300 $b = illus. is changed to ill.
  • Adds missing semicolon before $c
  • Adds ;$ccm. if missing from 300 field
  • [various pagings] = changes brackets to parentheses
  • If there is no 300 and the record is a book, the default of $ap. ;$ccm. is added
  • If there is numbered plate info in the $b that is moved to the $a – if plate designation is not numbered, it’s deleted

As with any of validation rules, these are optional, and if necessary, we can work with you to develop exactly what you’d like. These rules are now being included by default in our processing. We hope you find them useful!

What is Marcadia?

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Patricia Stelter, our Vice President of Bibliographic Services put together a really informative primer on what Marcadia is, and how it helps libraries. I thought I’d share what she had to say here.

Trying to get your materials cataloged with less staff? I’ve been in your shoes and I know the solution! Marcadia is exactly what you need in these lean times.

We partner with OCLC to provide Marcadia and it is one of the unique divisions that make up Automation Services here at Backstage Library Works. One of the many advantages of Marcadia is that you don’t need an OCLC membership to get select WorldCat records. Also, it doesn’t matter what type of library you work in –if you complete acquisitions and cataloging –we can help you!

Marcadia is an extraordinary automated cataloging service that matches brief records to WorldCat MARC records according to your specifications. Even if you have newly published materials we can take as little as one or two fields of information and return premium WorldCat records to you for a very affordable $1.75 per result.

I’ve been a Library Director and I know firsthand that patrons can sometimes be demanding and how I struggled to get items cataloged and available to them. If I had known about Backstage Library Works it would have made my life much easier and I would have been able to concentrate more on grant writing, starting my Friends of the Library group and providing needed outreach to my community!

In retrospect, these are experiences that I look back on, but for you that are struggling with today’s budget shortfalls and cutbacks Marcadia can even be more beneficial. You’ve lost cataloging staff? We can do the work for you and make your life easier!

We all know that catalogers have varying opinions on what constitutes a perfect record. With Marcadia you get the perfect record every time. You tell us exactly what you want, including your preferences for certain cataloging levels or records from regarded universities, and we deliver with great efficiency the same records that trained cataloging staff would choose.

Discover how Marcadia can make your life a little more idyllic. Define your perfect record and schedule your free test run today.

Patricia Stelter

VP Bibliographic Services

Backstage Library Works