360 MARC Load Procedures

Every month on the 15^th day, Ex Libris / Serials Solutions will send us an email notification letting us know that our 360 MARC updates are available to download from the ProQuest ftp site. Using the link provided, you will be sent to the ftp site where you can download the latest 360 serials file. It should have a name similar to “VFI_360MARC_Update_serials_YYYY_MM_DD.zip” with the date being the upload date.

Save this file to the Cataloging Drive in the 360 MARC Records folder – W:\360 MARC Records – create a folder for this month’s records titled “YYYY-MM-DD Serials” to save it under.

Right-click the .zip file to extract, with the extraction destination being the same folder. Create a new folder labelled “Serials” in this folder and extract the new .zip file containing the .mrc records into there. There should be three .mrc files with the distinctions “serials_changed,” “serials_deleted,” and “serials_new.”

• When it comes to loading, these files must be loaded in the order they were generated / received for the load to progress smoothly. This order should be: changed > deleted > new
• For serials, there should not be multiples of these, but in some cases there may be an exceptionally large amount of files we are downloading for the month. In such a case there may be for example “serials_changed_1,” “serials_changed_2,” etc. which will want to be joined together in MarcEdit until you have the three distinct file types: changed, deleted, new.

MarcEdit pre-check

Open MarcEdit and locate the provided Marc (.mrc) files in the Cataloging drive that were just extracted. If you are joining multiple files of the same type together, follow the next few steps, or skip the MARCjoin segment if not.

For joining Marc files, locate MARCJoin under the “Tools” tab in MarcEdit. To select the files to join, press the file icon next to the second box:

Highlight all of the files you want to join, then select a destination to save it and a file name.

Save as “YYYYMMDD Changed Joined Files,” then select “Process” (this may take a while if the file sizes are large), then close out of MARCJoin when it is finished.

Open MarcEditor, then open the first .mrc file (the default file type is .mrk, so be sure to change it to see your files). Under the “Reports” tab, open the Field Count report and check the total number of records under “results” to ensure they line up with what you expect.

Look for field counts to match in the following fields:

000, 035, 245, 949, 999 fields should match the total number of records

• 949 field creates item record
• 999 sets b-code3

Preparing the files

In Sierra, navigate to the Data Exchange function, under Cataloging. In the “Select Process” dropdown, select “Load Records via a Locally Created Load Profile (local).”

1. Select Get PC at the top right to upload the files from your computer.
2. Locate the .mrc file then upload.
3. Change file suffix to .lfts when prompted, then select OK.

4. Sort the list by clicking the “Last Modified” header twice so that the most recently “Last Modified” files will appear at the top, which should be your files.
5. Click on one of the files to highlight it, then select “prep” (pre process) to prepare the file for loading (this will create a duplicate file of the same name with a new suffix, .lmarc).  Note that if there are errors in the file, this is a good place to catch them.
   1. Double-click the file to open it
   2. Select Start at the bottom of the page
   3. Check total records to see that they match, then select “close” at the top right
   4. Continue doing this until you have processed all the original .lfts files

Loading the files

1. When you have finished processing all of the original files, highlight one of the new files with .lmarc extension then select “load” at the top right
2. On the Load Actions menu, select “(6)  Load 360MARC records”

3. On the next screen, check “Use Review Files” on the top left

4. When you are ready, select “Test” to test the loading of the file (This will take a while, and will take longer the larger the file size. If the screen freezes, the task is still running so wait a while to let it finish)
   1. The amount of bib and item records created should match. At the end, it will show how many titles will be overlaid / created
   2. If there are errors, investigate where the error occurred and attempt to fix the original .mrc file with MarcEdit, then try the process again (Start and Stop block can be used to test only a few records rather than the whole load, which will reduce the test processing time)
5. If there are no errors, proceed with the load by selecting “Load”
   1. If errors were caught before, there should be none here, but check the error count to be sure
   2. Record the load statistics on the “Vendor Supplied Records” Excel spreadsheet in the “Record Loads” folder of the Cataloging drive
6. Highlight the load files when you are finished and delete them using the “Delete” button at the top right, unless they are needed for error logs or troubleshooting

Deleting item records through Create List

The 360 bibs from the “deleted” 360MARC file will be automatically marked for deletion (bcode3 changed to “d”) as part of the load cycle, but bibs cannot be deleted as part of the automatic deletion process that occurs so long as there are item records attached to them. Item records for these bibs will need to be deleted manually since they are not deleted during the 360 MARC loads.

1. Navigate to the Create List and find a handful of empty lists that have enough capacity (you will want at least one to have enough space to fit the total number of records loaded)
2. While highlighting the desired list, select “Copy” at the top right and scroll down the list until you find “Load: Overlaid Records,” then select the one that matches the name of the record you loaded
   1. Remove files being copied from
3. Repeat the above step with the rest of the files you loaded (changed, deleted, new), which may also appear under “Load: Inserted Records” on the list
4. Append the additional lists to the first list, rename the primary list “360 MARC serials (this month) update,” then empty the other lists
5. Find a new list with roughly enough space for however many titles were in the deleted load, then run the list against the main list of titles that gathers item records, with the following conditions:
   1. Type – Bibliographic
   2. Field – Bcode3
   3. Condition – Equal to
   4. Value A – Delete code
6. Rapid Update this list of items to have all item records deleted, or let a supervisor know that the list is ready to have the items deleted if you do not have permissions