OCLC releases MARCView and MARConvert as open source software

OCLC and Systems Planning are pleased to announce the donation of MARCView™ and MARConvert™ to OCLC, and OCLC's release of MARCView™ and MARConvert™ as open source software under the Apache 2.0 license. MARCView™ and MARConvert™ software, developed by Systems Planning of Bethesda, Maryland, USA, are widely-used applications designed to assist librarians and developers working with MARC records. MARCView™ provides a user-friendly interface to navigate and display individual MARC, MARCXML and UNIMARC records. MARConvert™ supports the conversion of bibliographic or authority records into or out of MARC21, UNIMARC or MARCXML and can also convert MARC records from one character set to another. Stephen Toney, President and Chief Technology Officer of Systems Planning, donated the software to OCLC. The MARCView™ and MARConvert™ source code has been added to OCLC's open source repository, and the library developer community is encouraged to maintain and enhance the services. "We appreciate the contribution from Stephen and Systems Planning and we are pleased that OCLC can continue to make these tools available to OCLC members and the larger library community as open source," said Don Hamparian, co-founder of the OCLC Developer Network. "With such a strong user group, I am curious to see what new ideas the library developer community might bring to the software." The MARCView™ and MARConvert™ software is available for download, along with some documentation, on the OCLC Developer Network Web site.