In PINES, catalogers work mostly through OCLC, so the functionality for directly creating local MARC records was always being pushed low on my priority list. But today is their lucky day, and perhaps an unlucky day for you, because I’m going to share some of the process. 😀
Warning: If you’re not a software developer, this blog entry will likely bore you to tears, and if you are a software developer, it’s still likely. Reader beware.
Disclaimer: I’m the staff client developer, so my perspective is focused on only a small part of Evergreen as whole, and I shamelessly embrace all the abstractions Mike (database guru) and Bill (middle layer guru) afford me with their code. I also shamelessly peek behind (not break) the abstractions to see how stuff works, so that I don’t have to bug them with so many questions.
The requirements for this function is pretty simple. Take a handful of MARC files from Bin, PINES’ head cataloger, and offer them as templates to cataloging staff through the staff client program. Staff will edit a template as a new record, and when they’re finished it will receive an auto-generated title control number. A lot of the functionality needed is already in place, and the interface is stubbed out in the menu system, so hopefully this will be a short post. We’ll see. 😉
[Read more…] about a peek at implementing a feature in Evergreen