Re: Loading MARC records...

[Karen Perone <peroneka@xxxxxxxxxx>]

We're in the same situation and recently began batch loading MARC 
records from Web Feet. Here are a couple of hints:

- Get a small sample to start with. We loaded 20 or so sample records 
and checked them over to see how they would load.

- We only have one load table for bib records. We don't add item records 
for these records.

- Clear out your headings report files BEFORE you start the load. If you 
don't plan on doing any authority work on these records, clear the 
headings report file AFTER you load the records.

- Load the records in small increments. We learned the hard way that 
loading all 7,000 records at once can bring a normally robust system to 
its knees very quickly and overload your Control program to the point 
where no one can do any work.

Good luck!
--Karen Perone

Barbara Szalkowski wrote:

> We will be acquiring a large microformat collection (18th century legal
> treatises, remainder of 19th century legal treatises, if I understand
> correctly). This purchase can come with "free" MARC records for all of
> the titles.
> 
> We are still text-based at the present. We have never loaded MARC
> records since our original load in 1995/transfer of records from
> Innovacq in 1996. I am concerned that these "free" records may indeed
> cost more to load them than to just add them as usual, and perhaps will
> cost as much of my time to edit as I don't know anything about the
> records.
> 
> Has anyone ever loaded any of these 18th/19th-century legal treatise
> MARC records? How are the records?
> 
> Could anyone clue me in on the costs, if any, of loading MARC records if
> we've never done it before? Can we just run them through our original
> load table or do we have to make a new one (and I *know* that costs)?
> Setting holdings on OCLC (batch upload I guess, like I said, we've never
> done anything like this)?
> 
> Any thoughts, pro/cons, on loading records versus handling them
> individually like everything else? We are a pretty small institution (1
> professional, 1 paraprofessional/copy cataloger, Innopac database just
> under 60,000 bib records) and I have no problem with workflow on things
> like this -- I've already done a lot of the 19th-century fiche
> individually (about 4400 titles) over the last several years.