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Types of Files
There are two forms that MARC files take. We’ll call them Human Readable MARC (HR) and Raw MARC. An HR file is the sort you might edit manually in MarcEdit or Notepad or anything. They look like this:
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That’s messy, but if you know what the tags mean you can read it and edit it. On the other hand there is Raw MARC. The same file in Raw MARC looks like this:
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That’s impossible to read or edit, but that’s the form the file needs to take when it is transferred between systems. That’s the file format required when loading into Sierra. If you open the file in notepad, and you can read it, like the first one, then it won’t load into Sierra.
File Extensions
The most common file extensions are .mrc and .mrk. HR files are .mrk and Raw files are .mrc. That’s the most common, but not the only ones used. The fact is the file extensions don’t really matter, it’s the format inside the file that matters. You could just change the file extension from .mrk to .mrc, but if you don’t change the format inside the file, it won’t load in Sierra. You need to use MarcEdit to change the format inside the file.
MarcEdit
If you open a Raw MARC file with .mrc extension with MarcEdit it will automatically create a copy in HR MARC. Then you will have two files, a .mrk file and a .mrc file. However, if you have an HR MARC file, regardless of the extension, you have to use the MarcEdit MarcEditor to compile a Raw MARC file that you can load.
With the file open in MarcEditor click on the button that looks like a funnel:
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That will open a dialog windows where you can name the file, and choose the file type. Set file type as either MARC files or UTF-8 MARC file.
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Now you have a .mrc file that’s in Raw MARC format ready for loading into Sierra.
Settings in Connexion
Under the Export tab, choose File to set Connexion to export a file of records.
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Reload in Sierra with Data Exchange
Load profile (R) will match on OCLC number, and check for a match in the first five characters of the TITLE field.
The extra TITLE check is useful because there is bad data in Sierra and some records have numbers in the 001 that are not correct OCLC numbers.
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Titles that don’t match will be inserted. These should be checked.
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