OCLC WorldCat, p_file_96, and p_file_90

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 19.01

Description:
[From Karen Douglas, Duke U., on ALEPH-NA:]

I am considering an implementation of WorldCat Selection for selecting and acquiring books. Is anyone using this service with Aleph? How much configuration is necessary? We are on version 18. I am interested any advice or information you can provide about making this work Thanks for your help.

Resolution:
[From Corinna Baksik, Harvard U:]

We plan to start WCS in the near future and will be using p_file_90, although I think it might only be available in v19. Unlike p_file_96, p_file_90 has a matching step, so if an incoming title already exists in the catalog, a new order will be added to it. For us, p_file_96 introduced a lot of duplicates into the catalog that had to be resolved manually. [It would need to be preceded by p_manage_36 to prevent this.]

Both p_file_96 and p_file_90 can be used to create bibs, orders, budget transactions, and items.

Because selection in WCS doesn't actually place an order with a vendor, I wonder whether any libraries are loading orders with Send Method EDI, List mode, and status RSV. Running p_acq_14 would then create a list of orders and send it to the vendor, removing the need for placing orders manually. Not having staff mediation could cause some problems, but it would certainly be quick.

[From Daniel Cromwell, FCLA:]

To the present my libraries have always loaded files generated by one specific vendor at a time, so the p-file-96 method regarding vendor population in the order has worked fine. Having a definition table for each vendor has meant that we were able to use the traditional 049 code to map to a specific location for multiple vendors. So for us it will take some work to make unique 049 codes per vendor.

[Additional response from Corinna Baksik:]

"So for us it will take some work to make unique 049 codes per vendor."

Yes, that was my experience. There was a lot of up front config work moving from pf96 to pf90.

We apply fixes to all files, depending on the filename. We have a config file that our script reads to know which fix to apply to which file. The config file has a regex parameter, e.g.

filename regex = (ybp_us_firm_wid1120\d{6})\.
fix = YBP

For vendors like YBP that post files on their own FTP site and use different file naming conventions, we have a download script that grabs their files and rename them. We were doing this for pf96 too, but I had to edit all the fixes to add unique 049 codes for the appropriate vendor/order-unit. For YBP, I just left their account number in the 049, e.g. 999901. This tells me what vendor code and order unit to map to. For other vendors, I use some short code and a suffix so I know what order unit it's for, and an "A" if it's for approvals so I know what Acq Method to load. Now that all the initial work is done I find adding new configurations a bit easier than it was when we were using pf96. Here's a sample from tab_loader_def:

Z68-VENDOR-CODE HRSW###### HRSW
Z68-VENDOR-CODE EBC####### EBC
Z68-VENDOR-CODE COUT###### COUTTS
Z68-VENDOR-CODE WEIN###### WEINBERG
Z68-VENDOR-CODE ####6##### LINDSAY
Z68-VENDOR-CODE ####7##### LINDSAY
Z68-VENDOR-CODE ########## YANKEE

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013