MARCEdit

Many libraries like to use MarcEdit for modifications or data cleanup. If you’d like to do this you will need to download it at: http://marcedit.reeset.net/

Important: Many of the actions described on this page can be done in Koha using Marc Modification Templates, but this section is here for those who are used to MarcEdit.

Adding a prefix to call numbers

When bringing data into Koha, you may want to first clean it up. One common action among Koha users is to add a prefix to the call number.

• Open MarcEdit:

• Select ‘MarcEditor’
• Select Tools > Edit Subfield Data:

• To prepend data the special character is: ^b  To simply prepend data to the beginning of a subfield, add ^b to the Field Data: textbox and the data to be appended in the Replace:

• To prepend data to the beginning of the subfield while replacing a text string, add ^b[string to replace] to the Field Data textbox and the data to be appended in the Replace With textbox.

Importing Spreadsheet data (e.g., Excel data) into Koha

Suppose you have records of your library in a spreadsheet data format (e.g., comma-delimited) and want to import them into Koha. But how will you do this? Koha will not let you import spreadsheet data format records directly. There is a very simple solution for you which will let you import your spreasheet data records in Koha easily. First, we will convert the spreadsheet file into a MARC file and then will import it into Koha, by following these steps. (For more information on the MARC bibliographic record format, see the Library of Congress' MARC21 Bibliographic website.)

• Converting from Excel format into .mrk format using MARCEdit by opening it and selecting Add-ins >Delimited Text Translator:

• The following window will appear; select Next:

• Browse for your spreadsheet file:

• Locate your spreadsheet file; e.g., for an Excel file, choose the format Excel File(*.xls):

• Similarly, fill all the other entries such as Output File, Excel Sheet Name and check UTF-8 Encoded (if required) and select Next:

• Now you will be prompted for mapping the spreadsheet fields to MARC fields, e.g., suppose for Field 0 (first column in our example) we map to: 022$a (Valid ISSN for the continuing resource), then we select Apply. You can customize indicators, etc.:

• Similarly map all other fields and then Click on Finish:

• A window will appear indicating that your Marc Text File(*.mrk) has been created:

• Select Close, and you will have created your MARC file, and can browse to view it. The next step is to convert the .mrk file that we have created in the above step into raw MARC format that can be directly imported into Koha. For this step, open MarcEdit and Select MARC Tools:

• Next Select MarcMaker to convert .mrk file into .mrc format:

• Locate the .mrk file that we created in the above steps, and name your output file. Then select Execute:

• When finished, it will show you the result:

• Select Close, and now we have raw MARC bibliographic records as an .mrc file. The next step is to Stage MARC Records for Import, using your created .mrc file.