Andy,

Since I write marcedit, maybe I can help.  If you can give me an idea what you are up to, I'll see if its something that can be dealt with.

Tr

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Terry Reese
Gray Family Chair for Innovative
Library Services
Oregon State University Libraries
Corvallis, OR  97331
tel:  541.737.6384
web: http://people.oregonstate.edu/~reeset/
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On Aug 19, 2010, at 6:16 PM, "Andy Kelly" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Greetings all,
> I am in a bit of a fix. I am working to get my library working up a more
> effective copy-cataloging workflow and was looking for some software
> suggestions.
> I'm more or less trapped on Windows XP and have so far been running Mercury
> Z39.50 client with some success. My search would end here if exporting one.
> record. at. a. time. wasn't so painful.
> I've been evaluating MarcEdit and it's associated Z39.50 Client. I've found
> it to be slow, buggy and always trapped in windows of fixed sizes. It can
> also only search one Z39.50 server at a time, so it replaces one bottleneck
> with another. I get the impression I'm sort of in the Dark Ages here in that
> we're not just OCLC copy-cataloging subscribers, but I can't seem to
> convince my superiors that that service is worth making room for in the
> budget, though perhaps this is a more common situation than I'm aware of.
> 
> Ideally: I feed in a txt file or CSV of ISBNs and I get out one big MARC
> record to feed my [ancient, fussy] OPAC.
> 
> This might be one of those "...why don't you do it with a Perl script?"
> problems that might get me to really dive into my copy of Introducing Perl.
> (I've looked at the ZOOM Perl Bindings and MARC module on CPAN, both look
> promising but far beyond my current limited abilities and likely even
> further beyond my boss, future replacements and/or student worker's ability
> to maintain or use.)
> 
> Thanks for your help & suggestions.
> ~Andy