MARC Validation

Page status: IN PROGRESS

What is MARC record validation 

FOLIO already supports a basic level of MARC record validation when a user creates/edits/derives a MARC bib/authority/holdings record via quickMARC. This page represents additional development to support a.) robust record validation based on Library of Congress (LOC) MARC documentation and b.) library's ability to customize default validation settings. MARC record validation IS NOT contextual help OR making certain MARC fields/subfields drop-downs/auto-complete/suggest. 

Why do MARC record validation

Cataloging team wants to make sure that their staff is following MARC standards and the library's cataloging rules to ensure consistency and quality in the bib/authority/holdings records that are used in many library workflows and is also made available to library users via discovery service/opac layers. Without validation, the library's catalog maybe difficult to search/browse and with missing/duplicate records. 

Assumptions 

• Initial development: Validation will be implemented for create/derive/edit MARC bib and authority records. In future releases, this implementation should span to support
  
  • Data import (support MARC bib and MARC authority records only)
  • Data export (support MARC bib and MARC authority records only)
  • MARC holdings support via quickMARC/Data import/Data export 
• Configuration 
  • Each tenant will have a default MARC bib record validation that can be customized per workflow. Initial development: Create/Derive/Edit MARC bib via quickMARC
  • Each tenant will have a default MARC authority record validation that can be customized per workflow. Initial development: Create/Edit MARC authority via quickMARC
  • Initial implementation - No UI will be provided. Future releases will support a UI to customize validation rules. 
• Localization and Unicode support 
• Enhanced Consortia Support  
• Release upgrade
  • When initial development is complete and released, there should be minimal impact to existing libraries. It should not require multiple hours to update records. 
  • It should not require significant work for hosting providers. 
  • Ideally existing libraries will not be asked to update all bib and authority records once this capability is released. 
• Migrations from one ILS to FOLIO
  • Customizations should be setup prior to loading records
  • If loading records outside of data import, then we need to assume that MARC bib/authority validation is bypassed and if so, we need to ensure that the user can view and edit the record when the record has errors. 
• Changing rules expectations 
  • Ideally a global change to MARC bib/authority validation rules can be done easily and not require an update all bib and authority records. 
  • A tenant should be able to customize MARC bib/authority validation rules at anytime AND does not require an update all bib and authority records. 
  • If the tenant updates a rule and it now conflicts with existing records then we need to ensure that the user can view and edit the record when the record has errors. 
• Data import 
  • Initial development: No impact (includes single record import) 
  • If the imported record conflicts with validation rules then we need to ensure that the user can view and edit the record when the record has errors. 
• Reporting
  
  • TBD
•  Performance
  • No change to performance when Create/Derive/Edit via quickMARC

Phased approach

Technical Design High-Level Requirements 

• The tech design should not be MARC centric meaning that it should be flexible enough to assign a set of validation rules per record type + format. 
• The tech design should also allow for any flow that creates/updates/export MARC to opt-in to using these validation rules (this includes data import and data export) 
• Technical design will focus on MARC bibliographic and MARC authority records. MARC holdings will be handled at a later release. 

Feature Matrix - Phase 1

Supporting Materials 

Market Intelligence

Review Later

Supporting Materials 

Market Intelligence