How to setup an 'Options Profile' in MARC Report

Option Profiles were added to MARC Report in version 233. If you want to learn the basics on Option Profiles, please click here

This article provides an example of option profiles, by illustrating how to setup the program options to report only those error messages pertaining to invalid characters.

The principle used in the example should be applicable to other situations, such as setting up separate profiles for different record sources (records from different vendors, records created using different cataloging rules, such as RDA), or setting up profiles for a specific data mining task (as in this example).

Overview


1. Create the profile

Start the program and click on the 'Options' menu. If the item named 'Enable Option profiles' is not checked, click on it. Open the 'Options' menu again and select the first entry, 'Batch Reports' 1). Under the 'File' menu, select 'Save As' and enter 'Invalid characters example', then press 'Save'. Close the options form.

2. Customize the profile

The profile created in step one is now the same as your default profile. For it to be useful we need to customize it for the specific task we want to perform.

Re-open the options form, and from the 'File' menu, click the 'Open' option; it will list the profiles that you have created (which will be 'default' and 'invalid characters example' if you haven't used this feature before). Select the profile created above: 'invalid characters example'.

Go to the 'Validation' page. De-select these two options (in this order):

Go to the 'Cataloging Checks' page. Under the 'Options' menu, select 'Reset current page to default'.

Still on this page, in the 'Cataloging Check Options' group (top left), de-select every checkbox except the first one, 'Check for Common problems'. Next, click the little down arrow to the left of the Edit button and select the option called 'INVALID CHARACTERS'.

Still on this page, de-select the top checkbox in each section on the right:

The cataloging Checks page should now look like this:

Finally, go to the 'Batch Reports' page. If you are familiar with these options, you may set them up according to your preference. Otherwise, on the left, select 'By Problem', 'Brief message', and 'Display MARC field being reported'.

Click the [x] (top right) to close the menu form.

3. Apply the profile

The profile is now ready to use. Under the 'Options' menu, select 'Change profile', then select the 'invalid characters example' entry. The program will notify you that the profile has been changed2).

Now, open the 'File' menu and use 'Select MARC' to find a good-sized MARC file; if you have an export of your database, by all means select it.

Using Batch Mode

Once that's done, go back to the 'File' menu and click 'Run Batch mode'. A progress bar will be displayed while program checks the selected file for invalid characters. When the job is done, a report will pop-up. ( Please use this link to see a sample report )

Using Record Mode

Perhaps you'd prefer to browse through your file record by record? If so, instead of starting Batch mode, select 'Run record-by-record' from the 'File' menu. Depending on the filesize, it may take a minute to index. But once the records are displayed, you will probably be greeted with the perfection image on the right. Go to the next record, etc. More perfection?

Don't get too giddy–remember that the profile we have applied will only find a single type of (hopefully not very common) error. Its for setups like this that the red arrow button comes in handy. This button simply rips through the records as fast as it can and will not stop until it finds an error. So, even if we have only 50 errors in our 20,000 record file, we can quickly hop from one to the other using the red arrow.

Summary

The main thing to note is that, regardless of the task, only one type of error message is being reported. This allows you to create a very specific set of options that is restricted to a single type of problem or issue. And once an option profile is created, you will be to flip it on and off without any further configuration.

There are not really any limits to the application of this technology. You do not have to rely on the cataloging checks or validation messages that we provide with the program. You can create your own (the former with MARC Review Cataloging Checks, and the latter with a Local validation table).

1)
it doesn't really matter what you select here, the objective is to open the options form
2)
if you are ever in doubt, check the 'Current profile' caption in the status bar at the bottom of the form