Woah, there is a library in Perl to do that? Sweet!  Okay, now I know 
two languages with such a library, Perl and Java.

Anyone want to write one for ruby? :)

On 10/24/2011 2:47 PM, Doran, Michael D wrote:
>> Okay. How do I go about converting MARC-8 encoded records into UTF-8?
> In Perl... using the handy MARC::Charset module (tip 'o the hat to Ed Summers, and now maintained by Galen Charlton).
>
> -- Michael
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric
>> Lease Morgan
>> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 1:39 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] marc-8
>>
>> On Oct 24, 2011, at 2:34 PM, Doran, Michael D wrote:
>>
>>>> In Perl, how do I specify MARC-8 when reading (decoding) and writing
>>>> (encoding) data?
>>> You can't.  MARC-8 is a character set that is unknown to the operating
>> system.  Your best bet is to convert MARC-8-encoded records into UTF-8.
>>
>> /me throws his hands up in the air and screams!
>>
>> Okay. How do I go about converting MARC-8 encoded records into UTF-8? I know
>> yaz-marcdump changes the encoding bit in MARC leaders. Does it also convert
>> MARC-8 characters to UTF-8? (I guess I could simply try it and see what
>> happens.)
>>
>> --
>> Eric Morgan