Web Z: A Non-Programmers Perspective

Sandy Card

State University of New York at Binghamton

March 23, 1999

The Goals• Provide patrons with a web-based version

of our online catalog.

• Provide patrons with a means to request materials from our remote storage facility.

• Provide a vehicle for ILL requests. HOWEVER

• The product must provide no less information than our character based version.

The Timeline• OCLC training -- October 27-28, 1998• WebZ loaded in test--November 3,

1998--NT Server 4.0• Deadline for WebZ to go live-- Jan. 25,

1999 (8:00--start of Spring semester)• Implementation--Jan. 25, 1999 (7:55

a.m.)

The Team

B arb ara H arris -P ru ittin i an d htm lP ro g ram m er

P au l Ro g ersjava

P ro g ram m er

S an d y C ardM A R C

L ib ra rian

A n d y P erryC o -ord ina tor

L ib ra rian

Assumptions

• Our most important database is our own NOTIS catalog

• If a change would enhance NOTIS but not other databases, that would be acceptable

What we started with:

NOTIS site

release 6.5

At present we have 39 databases--6 catalog based and 33 article based

WebZ--Out of the box:Sample monographic record

WebZ--Out of the box - sample serial record

Needs Assessment

• What are your formatting needs

• Learn file structure

• Basic understanding of Java code

• Develop patience or sense of humor

Tools for needs assessment

WinGrep

TextPad

dumpgadget

Dumpgadget supplied formatting needs by showing what fields that

were provided by our Z39.50 server were not showing in our display

• Series not showing, nor hot• 856 not hot• No 780 or 785 fields• Subject headings search by subdivision• Lack of specifically labeled notes fields • 7xx fields not separate from authors• No ability to separate fields out by indicator

WinGrep--shows file structure

WebZ File Structure

MarcCatalogFmt MarcArticleFmt

MarcCatalogFullFmt MarcArticleFullFmt

MarcCatalogBriefFmt MarcArticleBriefFmt

MarcCatalogBookmarkFmt MarcArticleBookmarkFmt

plus some specific structures for databases:

MarcPapersFrst…..

MarcContentsFrst…..

TextPad

• Handles multiples files

• Text editor

• Complies the java files--easier than using the jdk

To make changes to the MarcCatalogFmt.java files

• Decide which of the fields that are given behaves most like the field you need included.

• Ex. To make the 785 show as “continued by” you need to find a field that matches the requirements.– Is repeatable– Not hot– Has a line break

• This leaves out 1xx, 245, 250, 260, 300, 4xx(didn’t want to mess with them), 6xx (or them either)

• The closest field that behaves like a 785 is the 505 contents note, as odd as this seems

Once you have chosen a field to replicate, you need to replace every instance of it in the file. For example replace each instance of “contents” with “continues”. It is critical that you are consistent in your usage of spelling and capitalization.

Change the MARC tags wherever in the file they appear, for ex. change the 505 in contents to a 780 in continues, changing the using the right subfields

Using TextPad’s search command, find each instance of whatever field you have chosen to replace.

There are 2 major sections to change in the MarcCatalogFmt.java file

Defining the variable ...

and

Creating the method

Part of method missing due to space limitations

You also need to change the label of the field in the method “labelmaker” to whatever is appropriate for your new field.

The Addcontinues method is then added to the MarcCatalogFullFmt.java file

And to the MarcCatalogBookmarkFullFmt

Other changes may need to be made to a method such as the problem we had with serials, where for us, a 8xx field would not show unless there was also a 440. Since 8xx’s are paired with 490’s we did not have most series showing. Changing the method to reflect or instead of and solved this problem.

We had solved most of our problems, even though we had hit a wall with our biggest problem--the subject heading redirected search. We had one week left and were ready to put our system into production when ….

Enter Tim and UMich’s version of the MarcCatalogFmt files.

Tim very generously provided us with a copy of his files to try and they proved very easy to work with--especially for a non-programmer.

We made a few changes to Tim’s files.

Added new fields for:

590 -- Local notes (was in “notes”)

538 -- Technical notes (was in “notes”)

550 -- Issuing body notes (was in “notes”

775 -- Other editions available

776 -- Issued in other form

242 -- Translated title

Added some very local fields we wanted:

852 -- Other holdings

866 -- Library has

952 -- RLIN holdings

With our NOTIS system we had trouble with redirected author searches.

People with no dates and really dead people (those with closed dates) were fine.

People with open dates caused our system to return a no hits result.

We were able to easily correct this by simply making the |d in the field not hot.

This is easily accomplished by simply putting a colon before the delimiter that you want to exclude from the redirect.

We also chose to make series hot links. This became a problem with attributes and we were able to make the title and corporate series into links, but not the name series.

We split the series out and ….

Monographic record on NOTIS

WebZ--Out of the box - sample serial record

Serial

record

on

NOTIS

Some fields removed for viewing

WorldCat subject headings

from dumpgadget -- note multiple |a in field

Need to set up it’s own package using the oclc files

Create new packagesedu > suny > fmt > obi

edu > worldcat > fmt > obi

Change the methods called in the java files

And you’re done

MarcArticleFmt files

Databases using MarcArticleFmt files were adequate for our purposes.

Databases don’t use the complicated MARC description that Catalog records use.

Our database files do not use LC headings

Changes• Add 300 tag for pages• finished writing issuing body tag• changed 260 tag back to one line

(published) rather than place, publisher, year

• added 945’s to GPO monthly catalog• add 590 local notes• change 690 to local subject heading• added ERIC no.

945’s (Gov. Info:) -- GPO Monthly Catalog

Fields:

Published

Local subject(s)