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- If the vendor provides a list of ISBNs OCLC numbers in a spreadsheet, you will need to put them in a text file. You can just highlight the column and copy and past into Notepad.
- Save the file. I usually name it vendordate, in case I need to find it later.
- You will either need to select OCLC number as the default index or insert an asterisk before each number.
Extracting OCLC numbers from MARC record sets
If you have a set of MARC records with OCLC numbers included, you can extract a list to batch search using MarcEdit.
- File → Select Individual Record(s) To Make → Display Field 035
- Select all records that contain an 035 field
- Generate Report → Save As .txt (tab delineated)
- Open file in Excel
- Replace all prefixes [ i.e. \\$a(OCoLC) ] with an asterisk (Ctrl H is the keyboard shortcut in Excel)
- Copy column of numbers into a .txt file
- Follow the above instructions for the general process
ISBNs
- Searching by ISBNs will often retrieve many, many hits, and have at least a few errors. This is because eISBNs appear on records for print editions. Several records may also exist for the electronic version, including records cataloged in a language other than English. You will probably want to limit the search to records cataloged in English.
- If you have a spreadsheet with the ISBNs, insert a column before the ISBN column. Fill in this column with ll: (that’s two lowercase Ls). Copy these two columns together, and paste them into Notepad.
- In Notepad, you may need to remove any space between the colon and the ISBN, using Find and Replace. You can copy the space between the two, paste the space into the “Find what” and leave the “Replace with” blank. Then click Replace All. This should delete all the spaces.
- Save the file. I usually name it [vendor][date], in case I need to find it later.
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