Tip of the Week

Tip for: 11.04.02

SmartMARC

How much time do you spend manually cataloging books for your collection? Do you want a way to automatically update your brief cataloging records to full MARC values? How much time would that save?

Cataloging can be a very time consuming process. One of the ways that COMPanion Corporation has tried to help with this task is by creating a product called SmartMARC. SmartMARC allows the user to search other libraries for records using ISBN, LCCN, Title, Author, etc. These records can then be saved and imported into Alexandria or other library systems. The preferences can also be set to have the records saved directly to an Alexandria database.

There are many different databases to search. A few of the ones that we recommend are Penn State University, Boston Public Metro Network, Florida State Library, and the Marin Public Library in California. You can experiment with different databases to find the ones that are best for your library.

Some other features that make SmartMARC helpful are being able to do a match against an export file from Alexandria. SmartMARC will search for the titles in the file in order to update them to more complete records. You can also set several searches at once using the Queue Search mode. This gives you the opportunity to type in several titles to search for and then go do other things while SmartMARC does the searching for you.

For those who already have SmartMARC and for those who may buy it in the future, here is a tip you may find helpful. There may be times when you don't seem to be getting responses from a database that has worked well in the past. To test a site to make sure there is a good connection, go to Edit, then Preferences. From there, use the drop-down menu to choose Set database. Next, click on the Address Book button and with the database you were searching showing click the Test button near the bottom right of the screen. A message will then come back telling you the speed of the connection, or if there is no response. If it comes back saying that there is no response, select a different database and try the search again.

We hope this will help as you work to enter items into your collection.

Thank you
The Alexandria Staff Librarians