Project Background
Different national MARC (MAchine Readable Catalogue) standards are seen as barriers to wider exchange of bibliographic records in Europe and beyond. Throughout the world nearly 50 different MARC formats are currently in use, with 10 employed in the national libraries of European Community countries. Such variation is a fundamental problem for libraries wishing to obtain or supply data internationally and often results in the re-cataloguing of material for which records are readily available in formats other than the library's own The UseMARCON project aimed to develop a generic toolkit for ISO2709 compatible MARC formats to enable libraries to create rules based systems to convert records between national MARC formats. This would give libraries the ability to obtain records from a far wider range of potential sources than those currently available to them and stimulate an increase in the international exchange of bibliographic records.
The UseMARCON Project, which was successfully completed in February 1997, was funded by the consortium partners and the EU's Telematics Applications Programme (DGXIII-E). The partners of the UseMARCON Project consortium were drawn from a variety of library and information technology backgrounds and comprised the following:
Partners: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Holland - Instituto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro, Portugal - The British Library, UK
Associate Partner: Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Germany - Jouve, Systèmes d'Information, France
The UseMARCON Software
The UseMARCON software application is a highly versatile rules based conversion program capable of running in either the MS Windows (3.1x, 95 or NT) or Unix (Solaris 2.5/OSF Motif/CDE) operating environments.
The USEMARCON software is designed to provide users with two specific services.
- The facility to convert MARC records compliant with a specified input format into MARC records compliant with a specified output format.
- The facility to create and modify rules files, used to achieve MARC conversions, in order to meet specific local requirements. The present software is designed to be used by senior cataloguers or others with a detailed knowledge of the structure of the MARC formats they wish to convert between.
The software has been developed to work on a modular basis allowing users to perform several levels of conversion. These range from simple character set or exchange format translations using individual tables to full MARC format conversions using an entire cluster of tables and rules.
The program allows rules used in the conversion process to be created, edited and tested as simple ASCII text files. Conversions may be run either in interactive mode, or in non-interactive or batch mode. Interactive mode is particularly useful when testing rules or tables to check the accuracy of conversions before undertaking a large batch conversion. Sample rules files and related format conversion tables are supplied with the USEMARCON package for the following conversions:
- UNIMARC to UKMARC (Bibliographic)
- UKMARC to UNIMARC (Bibliographic)
- UKMARC to UNIMARC (Authorities)
- USMARC to UNIMARC (Bibliographic)
- UNIMARC to USMARC (Bibliographic)
It should be noted that the rules files supplied with UseMARCON are illustrative examples of the program's functionality rather than complete conversion systems.
Software Availability
Following completion of the UseMARCON project the consortium and Jouve S.A. agreed to place the software, example conversions, documentation and source code into the public domain as unsupported freeware without warranty.
The software is available from the website of the KB or the British Library FTP Site
Program Source Code
The UseMARCON program was developed using an object-oriented methodology and written in the C++ programming language using the XVT C++ Toolkit to enable cross platform development. Modification of UseMARCON source code requires the use of a copy of the XVT C++ Toolkit appropriate to the target platform in addition to a C++ compiler.
Use and recompilation of the UseMARCON application is encouraged. The only condition being that users of the package acknowledge the UseMARCON Consortium and Jouve S.A. in any new version of the program they develop. A freeware license giving further details of the terms and conditions of re-use for the UseMARCON source code is available from the UseMARCON FTP sites.
Customisation and Training for USEMARCON
Although UseMARCON has been released as unsupported freeware, Jouve S.I., developers of the UseMARCON software can provide a range of priced services based on the UseMARCON application.
These include
- Training on rule creation and program modification
- Construction of MARC conversion rules
- Development and customisation of the UseMARCON software
- Consultancy
For further details please contact:
Catherine Marion
Jouve S.I.
11 Bd de Sebastopol
B.P. 2734
75027
Paris Cedex 01
France
Tel: (33) (1) 44768619
Fax: (33) (1) 44768610
Email: cmarion@jouve.fr
Further Information
Koninklijke Bibliotheek
Research and Development Department
PO Box 90407
2509 LK The Hague
The Netherlands