Review file output: U > Output USER-selected format

["Alfred Kraemer" <akraemer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

For about two months I have occasionally used this new option to export fields from review files.

 

I'm aware of some cautions/bug information that has been distributed by III but I still wonder if other users wouldn't mind sharing their experiences. It appears to me that there is some capability to accomodate fields from different record types:

 

Example: A review file of item records was used to produce a delimited file with several fields from the bib. records (call#, title) and

several fields from the item record (loc, status, vol, barcode).

 

Result: all of the selected fields were found on the correct line after the delimited file was imported into Excel. The columns, however, were not arranged in the sequence in which the fields had been selected from the review file, e.g. the title field from the bib. record was the last column in the delimited file. However, that's easy to change in a spreadsheet/database program.

 

All in all, the delimited file -in this case- provided us with the basis for the spreadsheet we needed.

 

I'd like to mention two helpful aspects of the delimited file output:

    1. Fields that are found in only in some records are handled well, e.g. the volume field in the

        item record. For records with an empty vol field, the delimited file leaves the field empty.

        (This is the way it should be. But in some delimited file options that I have seen (not Innpac!), empty fields shifted          subsequent  fields to the left moving them into the wrong column.

 

    2. Fields that may occur as multiples in one record, e.g. subject fields, have a different field separator which by default puts them

        into one field. This is also a good default option.

 

 

As mentioned at the top, I do not have extensive experience with this Rel. 12 feature but would like other users of this feature to share their experiences/discoveries.

Despite some shortcomings, the option to save a review file as a delimited file has quite a few applications in this library. Best of all, it makes it possible for more staff to be able to export and utilize Innopac data.

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

Alfred Kraemer
Head, Technical Services
Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries
8701 Watertown Plank Road
Milwaukee, WI 53226

 

Phone: 414-456-4273
E-Mail: akraemer@xxxxxxxxxx