Andy,

We find the marcedit 5 series z3950 client quick and reliable and you
can feed it a txt file of isbns and get a marc record of results. But
you are correct - at the moment you can only search one target at a
time. You could use zoom perl, but it is pretty difficult to install on
Windows XP. I managed by doing a manual install on Activeperl, but you
do need to make sure you have the correct version of Yaz installed first
and make some changes to the makefile (yaz version 2.1.50 change path to
the yaz libraries as listed in the makefile).

I found this method better than trying to use the activex yaz interface
http://perl.z3950.org/support/windows.html. I found this messed up utf-8
marc records.

HTH

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Kelly [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 20 August 2010 02:06
Subject: Copy Cataloging & MARC record manipulation

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
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