Cataloging is a shared enterprise. A bibliographic record created by one cataloger in Connexion can be enriched by catalogers around the world. But if your library catalog is not synched to Connexion, many of these bibliographic enhancements – things like summary notes and tables of contents – won't ever appear in your records. We work in one such library, so we developed a process for adding these enhancements (specifically the 505 and 520 fields, though the process could be adapted to work for other fields) from Connexion records into our integrated library system.
Since implementing this workflow, we’ve enhanced thousands of records in our catalog, greatly increasing the accessibility and discoverability of our collection. While it is an involved process, we have broken it down into manageable steps that other libraries will be able to replicate and modify to their own needs. In addition to Connexion, we relied on open-access tools such as MarcEdit and Notepad++ to efficiently batch edit data. In this poster, we will provide access to step-by-step documentation so that other librarians can replicate this work at their institutions.
Just as cataloging is a shared enterprise, we believe these sorts of technical workflows ought to be as well.
