Add/Delete Fields

The Add/Delete Field function performs actions on a single field.  Using options in the tool, evaluation for purposes of deduplication or the adding data based on the presence of another field or value, can be used to expand the scope of the function.

Build New Field Function

The Build New Field Function is a special function that enables users to pull data from other fields within a record at a subfield or position level, and create a new field based on a user defined pattern.  The function was originally created to support the creation of openURLs within MARC records, but can be used to fill a wide range of use cases.

Copy Field

This function copies a field or manipulated field data (via regular expression) to new field.

Edit Field Data

The Edit Field Data function enables users to edit field data, which includes all data but the field indicators.

Edit Indicators

The edit indicator function is scope only to the indicator data of a field.

Edit Subfield Data

The Edit Subfield function enables users to edit or create data in a user defined subfield.  When using regular expressions, the tool exposes the subfield code, and all data in the subfield.  When working with control data, information can be processed by character position.

Swap Field Function

The Swap field function can be used to take subfields from different fields and create new fields (or add them to existing fields).  Unlike the build new field tool, which allows the processing of data prior to insertion, the swap field tool copies subfield data for use in other MARC fields.

Edit Shortcuts

Edit Shortcuts were initially conceived in MarcEdit as a way to provide commonly requested editing tools for users, particularly when the solution within the global editing tools required a non-intuitive regular expression.   Over the years, a handful of these shortcuts have been created to simply problems related to character casing, math functions, or specific field level processing.  As of this writing, MarcEdit includes the current Shortcuts:

Case Shortcuts

Case shortcuts include functions that can turn all data in a subfield to lower case, upper case, title case, and initial character case.  These functions are MARC agnostic, and language aware.

Field Edits

Field edits are special shortcuts designed to provide some level of specialty functionality at a field level.  Presently, this includes:

• Smart Character cleanup: the ability to define and then replace “smart” characters with more appropriate equivalents
• Find Fields Missing a Word
• Find Records Missing a Field (or Field with a Subfield)
• Find Records with Duplicate Field Tags
• Limit the number of a particular field tag in a record
• Swap Title: Moves data from 245 into a 7xx field. This field makes assumptions specific to MARC21.

Math Edits

More recently, I’ve been working to develop some mathematical edits to MarcEdit to perform tasks that cannot be accomplished via a regular expression.  Currently, the following functions are available:

• Convert Degrees/Minutes/Seconds to Decimal Degrees

Within MarcEdit, the Edit Shortcut functions can all be integrated into the application’s task processing engine, and are fully logged within the applications extended logging features.

Inline Data Tools

MarcEdit provides several inline data tools.  These tools generally can be run both inside of and outside of the MarcEditor, and unless noted, can be embedded into the application’s task processing toolkit.  The current inline data tools are: