3rd Party Marc Editing

Polaris
1

Is anyone editing bib records in a 3rd party software and having the records automatically updated in Polaris? I know this doesn’t work in BTCat (as I’m considering a Idea Exchange submission), but rumor is that it DOES work in other programs. Perhaps something like SkyRiver or OCLC? The idea is that you would some how pull a record from Polaris, edit it, and it gets updated in Polaris.

The way updates are made in BTCat right now is: A search can show we already have a bib record for a title. If we update the records in BTCat, the only way for those updats to show in Polaris is to download a mrc file from BTCat which is then imported to overlay the record in Polaris.

There was an offhand comment that this process is more automatic in other software, so I’d like to see that in action, if possible.

2

The process I was aware of in OCLC is like what you’re describing for BTCat. You update your holdings in OCLC, so they know what records you have and then you have a batch of MARC records you can import into your system. I think you can get somewhat sophisticated in OCLC to set up what constitutes an “updated” record for your organization.

You can find out more about the OCLC process here: Query collections - OCLC Support

I would suspect that anything more automated would require use of the Polaris API, but in my quick glance of the PAPI documentation I don’t see anything that would support creating or overlaying of MARC records.

3

I agree and it’s the source of my confusion. I’m putting in an enhancement request for an API update to do “what other systems already do” but that would imply the API already exists or isn’t actually needed. Thanks @wesochuck

4

I will note that even if such an API existed, getting MARC record providers to use it could be tricky. We’ve been trying to get Communico to use the PAPI method for getting pickup locations, which has been available 4 years now, and we haven’t had success.

But… I will say what maybe a common workflow, that I think Sierra and MARC vendors support, is automatically delivering the .MRC files to a folder to your ILS server via SFTP/FTP. Then your server is programmed to automatically scan and ingest those files like aspects of the Acquisitions processing.

5

Yeah, I think this is called Scheduler in Sierra and maybe an add-on but appears to be coming for everyone in Sierra 6.0.

6

Well great news on that front. I already have BTCat chomping at the bit to utilize such an API if it were to be created. Everyone should upvote the related enhancement request (which if successful, would open the way for any bib utility to use as well).