MARC Field Coding Procedures

Purpose: Following is an explanation of fields and terms used for coding the MARC fields where search terms appears. The purpose is to better analyze the ways that users are engaging with the catalog and gain a sense of how users’ search queries interact with the MARC records.

Tools Needed

Airtable – Discoverability Research Base

OPAC (Online Library Catalog)

NOTE: You may add additional MARC tags to the appropriate columns, as need.  Please only add the three-digit tag (no subfields, except for 245 subfield C)

Procedures

1. For each Batch, select the “Sierra” view

2. Select your name in “Claimed by”

3. Click on the link in the MARC URL column

4. Copy and paste the MARC record into the MARC Record Text column (Be sure to double click inside the MARC Record Text box before pasting or it will overlay all the lines beneath it)

   1. If the link pulls up a blank page, select “Record Unavailable” in the Record Created By field and move to the next item.

5. Using the MARC record, select the appropriate Material Type

   1. Look at the 300 or 33x fields or click on the “Regular Display”.  Where present, please use the 338 field as the primary field for determining this.

      1. All serials and Music Scores (unless single sheets or folded sheets) should be considered a “book” for the purposes of this project.

      2. Please do not use “Gov Docs” as a material type.  For the purpose of this research project, the material type refers to the physical format of the item.

      3. All microfilm and microfiche are being combined into “Microform” for simplification.

6. Using the MARC record, select which entity was responsible for creating the record. Following are options for record creator along with likely indicators.  Please note that these are not guaranteed, just likely.  Looking at the record history and item types in Sierra is a good way to help determine the creator.

   1. CMS

      1. 040 with an |dUUS

      2. 907 with only the bib record (and no dates)

         1. Note that this field was also used for large cleanup projects (like authority record cleanup).  If dates are included in the field and/or one of the following  is also present in the record, it likely means this was a match point for cleanup, not for copy cataloging.

            1. This record was loaded with m2btab.authbiboverlay

            2. This record was loaded with m2btab.insertoclcno

            3. This record was loaded with m2btab.skymatchfirm

         2. 949 with an |x18  (indicates gift item)

   2. Vendor (Look at the following fields to determine if a vendor is listed - for example, Project Muse, YBP, Springer, Elsevier, ebrary, etc.  Electronic resources are commonly vendor records.

      1. 037

      2. 049 with the codes: “GPO” “gonline” or “MAPS”

      3. 910

      4. 949

         1. NOTE: Look for a “|x29” or “|x30” – these indicate shelf ready items

      5. 994

         1. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.collectionsets

         2. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.streamingvideo

         3. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ebookapproval

         4. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ebook

         5. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ebookfirm

         6. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ybpdda

         7. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ualcybpdda

         8. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ddapurchase

            1. NOTE:  the following 994 text do NOT indicate a vendor record – only that there was maintenance on the record using batch processes.

               1. This record was loaded with m2btab.authbiboverlay

               2. This record was loaded with m2btab.insertoclcno

               3. This record was loaded with m2btab.skymatchfirm

   3. Eastern Libraries

      1. “035 (Sirsi) CEU” followed immediately by a number

   4. Circulation/LMC/ILS

      1. Look for brief records (without the SCA Barcoding note) written with regular capitalizations (not all in caps)

      2. “Regular display” of the item should indicate a reserve copy

   5. CMRS

      1. 830 McNaughton popular books collection.

      2. Brief records all in caps

   6. Quinney

      1. 001 Quinney

      2. 590 S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney BARN Collection

      3. 590 QBARN

      4. 949 with a |x200

7. Using the Scraped Search String, review the MARC record.  Record all MARC fields that include the entirety of the search terms in the “MARC Tag – ALL SEARCH TERMS” columns and/or the MARC field number for all items that have some or part of the search terms in the “MARC Tags – Partial Search Terms” column

   1. Please ignore commonly used or stop words such as “a,” “an,” “the,” “of,” “to,” etc.

8. Please note if common field categories are missing entirely, such as:

   1. Author (1XX or 7xx or 245 subfield C fields)

      1. No 1xx or 7xx or 245 subfield C fields are in the record at all

   2. Note fields (505 or 520 only)

      1. Neither the 505 or 520 are included in the record

   3. Subject (any authorized field)

      1. Do not consider 690s – these are local, unauthorized fields. All other 6xx fields count

9. Copy and paste fields that include the search terms (full or partial) into the appropriate Text Column

   1. Other Title Text (NOT 245):

      1. Note that the title has already been pulled in the “Item Title” column.  Do not copy it.  Use this column for other title related fields (246, 776, 490, 830, etc.)

   2. Author (1XX or 7xx fields)

      1. Please paste any 245 subfield C text into this column.  Please copy the entire field (including subfields a, b, etc.)

   3. Note fields (any 5XX field where the term is shown)

   4. Subject (6xx fields)

How these fields will be used

•  Claimed by:

  • Used to mark who has is/has worked on a field.  Can be used to measure progress on the project

• MARC Record Text

  • Used to verify data and have a preserved copy of the MARC record to compare against

• Material Type

  • Used to cross calculate with the type of MARC tags, frequency of appearance in search results, search result ranking, missing fields

• Record Created By

  • Used to assess how often vendor records are missing key fields

• MARC Tags – ALL SEARCH TERMS

  • Used to assess how often the entirety of search query is found in the record along with where they most often occur

• MARC Tags – Partial Search Terms

  • Used to assess how often partial search terms are found and in which fields

• Other Title Text / Author Text/ Notes Text/ Subjects Text

  • These column pull out the actual usage of the search terms from the MARC record.  They will be used to analyze how the terms appear.  Subjects will be used, in particular, to measure which authorized search terms are appearing the most and find patterns in their construction (i.e. how often the search terms appears in the main heading or the subdivision).

QUALITY CONTROL PROCESSES

 QC Process 1 – MARC record text

This process verifies that all lines in the Airtable base have valid MARC record text for all search results and record results.

1. Use the Misc. QC view in each search and record results lists for batches 1, 2, and 3

2. Filter for Sierra items in the Record Source

3. Filter for two MARC Record Text fields that are empty

   1. Copy and paste text into field, using the MARC URL to pull up the record

   2. For URLs that are broken, select “Record Unavailable” in the Record Created by

4. Reset the filter for just Sierra items and followed by MARC Record Text fields that do NOT contain “LEADER”

   1. Copy and paste text into field, using the MARC URL to pull up the record

   2. For URLs that are broken, select “Record Unavailable” in the Record Created by

QC Process 2 – Reviewing “Record Created by”

This process verifies that the correct record creator is selected.

1. Use the Misc. QC view in each search and record results lists for batches 1, 2, and 3

2. Filter for the following items in the MARC record text and update as needed to “Vendor”

   1. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.collectionsets

   2. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.streamingvideo

   3. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ebookapproval

   4. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ebook

   5. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ebookfirm

   6. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ybpdda

   7. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ualcybpdda

   8. 994 This record was loaded with m2btab.ddapurchase

   9. |x29

   10. |x30

3. Filter for the following items in the MARC record text and update as needed to “CMS”

   1. This record was loaded with m2btab.briefbibovrlay

   2. |dUUS

   3. |x18

4. Filter for the following items in the MARC record text and update as needed to “Eastern Libraries”

   1. 035 (Sirsi) CEU

QC Process 3 – Reviewing Material Type

 Use the Misc. QC view in each search and record results lists for batches 1, 2, and 3

1. Filter for Sierra items in the Record Source

2. Correct the following:

   1. Gov Docs

      1. Filter for Gov Docs in the Material Type Section

      2. Review each MARC Record text 33X fields to determine physical format type

         1. If needed, click on the MARC URL to see the MARC and item records to determine format types

   2. Unknowns/Other

      1. Filter for Unknown or Other in the Material Type Section

      2. Review each MARC Record text 33X fields to determine physical format type

         1. If needed, click on the MARC URL to see the MARC and item records to determine format types

         2. OR look up in Sierra to determine the material types

   3. Standardize the Microforms

      1. In the Material Type column, select “Customize field type” from the dropdown menu.

      2. Change the Microfilm and Microfiche entries to “Microform”

      3. Select “Customize field type” again and change the column to Text

      4. Select “Customize field type” a third time and change the column back to “Single Select”

   4. Search for the following text strings in the MARC record text field and adjust to the correct material type (IF APPROPRIATE):

      1. 338 online resource -> E-Resource

      2. 300 1 online resource -> E-Resource

      3. 338 audio disc -> DVD/CD

      4. 338 volume -> Book

      5. 338 microfiche -> Microform

      6. 338 microfilm -> Microform

QC Process 4 - Multiple Bib Records

This quality control process will double check bib records that appeared more than once to verify that search results are coded the same way.  These procedures will address the following issues that were caught during a quick QC examination:

Common issues:

• Different tags in “Material types”, “Records created by”, or “Missing Fields”, for example this record for the Journal of Consumer Affairs shows three different record creators and two different material types. The goal is to make all coding for the same bib record the same.

Open

• Different tags in MARC Tags (all or partial), for example the 580 and 785.  The goal is to verify these tags against the search terms to make sure they are accurate. If the search terms are the same, the tags should be the same.

Open

• Tags included in both the all and partial MARC tags fields, for example the 245-C listed below.  For any individual line in airtable, a tag should appear in either the all or the partial MARC tag field, but not both.

Steps for Multiple Bib Record QC

1. For each Batch, select the “Sorted by Bib Number-Multiple” view

   1. Note that the records in this view are “grouped” together by bib number, so all records with the same bib number will appear together

2. List your name in “Reviewed by”

3. Verify that the following fields are identically tagged

   1. Material Type

   2. Record created by

      1. Where different, verify using the directions in Step 6 of the Procedures listed above

      2. Also note that the original procedures did not include a space for indicating non-CMS authored records created by other Library departments, such as Circulation/LMC/ILS.  If the record is a fast add, brief record, or ILS record, please change the tag to “Circulation/LMC/ILS”. Many of these are also noted with a comment.

      3. Where MARC records are missing and the link pulls up a blank page, select “Record Unavailable” in this column.

   3. Missing Fields

4. For the following fields, ensure that the coding is appropriate to the search terms used (these are available in the “Scraped Search Terms” field).  Where terms are the same, the codes should be the same.  Where terms are different, the coding may be different. Consult the MARC record to rectify any inconsistencies.

   1. MARC Tags – ALL SEARCH TERMS

      1. Please note that the terms do not need to appear in the same order as the search string in order to qualify for this field.  Any field where all terms appear (even out of order) should be included in this field.

   2. MARC Tags – Partial Search Terms

   3. Other Title Text (NOT 245)

   4. Author Text

   5. Notes Text

   6. Subjects Text

5. Ensure that title, author, notes, or subject text match the tags in the all or partial MARC tags field and appear consistently for records with the same search terms.