Patterned data

Get OCLC-MARC from patterned data files

You may send files of structured non-MARC bibliographic data and receive OCLC-MARC records in return. Examples of commonly used non-MARC formats are Excel® spreadsheets, Access® databases and Word® documents. The data must fit a standard pattern, although a record may be a composite of multiple formats that meet these guidelines:

Labeled data—A field descriptor followed immediately by its content (AUTHOR:Smith, John TITLE:My Life Story)

Delimited data—Fields and records separated by a unique identifiable character or series of characters, for example, tab-delimited files; or, columns of data in a spreadsheet

Positional data—Field descriptors and their content related by record position, for example, fixed length formatted records

To process non-MARC records, OCLC “normalizes” your files into a basic MARC format and processed using the standard batch processing routines. This pre-processing step may extend the initial project evaluation period.

No matter how incomplete your cataloging, you can prepare files for patterned data processing if you have any of these access points:

• OCLC control number
• Library of Congress card number (LCCN)
• International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
• International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
• CODEN
• Music publisher number (MPN)
• Government document number (GDN)
• Personal name-title
• Title

• Batch Processing
• At a glance
• Overview
• Holdings maintenance
• OCLC-MARC and non-MARC records
• Bibliographic Record Snapshot
• Ordering
• Support, training and documentation