MARC Records Overview

Lauren Deutsch

July 11, 2018 15:12

About MARC Records

Infobase provides MARC Records for use in your catalog system. If you are unfamiliar with MARC, it stands for Machine Readable Cataloging and is standard format for bibliographic records. For additional information about the MARC standard, visit: https://www.loc.gov/marc/.

The MARC files provided here utilize the MARC21 UTF-8 character set. At your discretion, MARC records can be converted and edited using the MarcEdit software available at: https://marcedit.reeset.net/.

Below you'll find instructions for creating and downloading MARC record files. For assistance importing the MARC records into your system, or if you aren't sure if MARC records are the best way to add content to your catalog, please contact your catalog's support team.

Most Infobase products have MARC records:

All Streaming Video Products (FOD, AVOD, CVOD, and Learn360)
Credo Reference and Source Reference
Ebooks
Health Reference Center
All History Databases
Science Online

These products do not offer standard works such as books or videos, so do not offer MARC records:

Chelsea House
Curriculum Resource Center
Ferguson's
Issues and Controversies, Issues and Controversies in History
The Mailbox
Polling the Nations
Today's Science
World Almanac and World Almanac for Kids
World Geography
World News Digest
Writer's Reference Center

Creating MARC Files

In the Admin Portal (login required), look for the MARC Records button under each resource on the "My Resources" page. (If you do not see a listing in Admin for the correct resource, click here *) MARC files can be created and downloaded in a few different ways.

NOTE: Only custom records can be encoded; please skip to the "Custom Records" option if you use OpenAthens authentication.

Using the "Download New Records" method is the easiest way to get just the records added since your last download. It will include everything that has been added since the indicated date. For first-time users, pressing this button will create a single file that includes all available records.

You can also download all available MARC records by clicking on the Download button under "Download All Records."

You can download a delete file of all discontinued records since your last download. This will generate a "purge" file with a d in the LDR field, which should remove matching records from most catalogs.

You can also create custom records by clicking on the Create Custom Records button on the right.

You will see the Custom MARC records interface. If you input nothing on this page and click "Generate File," you will download a file of all MARC records.

For eBooks and streaming video products, a "delete file" option is available. The "Delete file" option does NOT show only discontinued records. It will generate purge records for any records that match your criteria; if no criteria are entered, it will generate purge records for all of your titles. For only discontinued records, use the "Download Discontinued Records" option above.

To encode the MARC records, click "Encode URI", and ensure that "Include Proxy Prefix" and "Use Https URLs" are checked (they should be by default). To limit encoded records to a specific date range, see "By Date" below.

To see instructions on how to use a pre-existing profile or create a new custom MARC Records profile, please see the Custom MARC Records Profile article.

Custom MARC record files can be generated in one of three ways (if you chose not to use a pre-existing profile) and are available as options to create a new profile:

By Title - input specific title item numbers or ISBN numbers, separated by commas. This is ideal if you only need to obtain records for a single title or specific handful of titles. These values can be found by exporting a title list at My Content > Title Data or My Content > Custom Data. Please note that Credo and Source MARC records require the title ID in this field, which is found in column I of the title spreadsheet; ISBNs will not work in this field for Credo products.
By Date - Enter your desired date range and the tool will return all MARC records created during that time frame. These dates refer to the MARC record creation date, which may not align with the date that title was added to collections. This option also provides further filtering options for specific collections.
All Records - This will return all MARC records available to date with the added option to filter by specific collections, subjects, producers, or content types.

Once you have decided on your batch retrieval method, filter options, etc., you can enter a custom filename. This is optional. If you do not enter a filename, a generic name will be assigned.

The final step is to click the Generate File button. Note: large batches may take several minutes to download. You will be given the option to be emailed a link to the download instead of waiting for it from the browser.

Previously Downloaded Files

When the batch file is ready it will display in the table below.

To download the file, click the download icon in the download column. The last download date will always display in the status column.
You can see information about the record, such as description, date added, and title count, in the table columns.

Video platforms MARC records are updated nightly, eBooks MARC records are updated quarterly, and Database MARC records are updated monthly.

Email notifications are sent out when new MARC records become available for your account. For video platforms, an email is sent out once 200 new MARC records are available. If you are not receiving these notifications and would like to, please contact Technical Support (support@infobase.com).

* Customers who only have a la carte purchases of ebooks or videos will not have a listing in their Admin for the resource, and therefore be unable to obtain their MARC records as described. As a workaround, please log into your Infobase Admin in another tab of this browser and click the appropriate link below. If you're not sure what the appropriate product is, or have any other questions about this process, please reach out to support@infobase.com.

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