VALIDATION OPTIONS

This screen allows you to enable/disable various options that impact the validation of a MARC Record.

All of the options on this page can be changed while a record is being reviewed or edited. When an option is changed while the program is running, as soon as the Options form is closed, the program reloads the validation tables and revalidates the record.

ENABLE VALIDATION

This option is checked by default. If this option is turned off no validation will take place (regardless of any validation tables that are loaded–see below).

Disabling this option could be useful if you want to run the program in Batch Mode and find only those records with a certain cataloging problem. By disabling validation, and creating a the Cataloging Check Set to only find one problem (or a set of related problems), you can create a narrowly focused report.

NOTE: This option cannot be saved–it automatically becomes checked each time the program starts.

STANDARD VALIDATION TABLES

Select the validation tables that you would like MARC Report to load when the program first runs, or whenever the program options are changed.

The LC Tables are based on the information available from the Library of Congress MARC Home Page, on the web at http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc The OCLC table is a custom product offered by TMQ which contains every OCLC coding decision that differs from MARC 21. This table is based on the OCLC Bibliographic documentation available on the web at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/bib/about.htm

NOTE: If you save this screen without selecting an LC Table, you will receive a warning that 'No validation tables have been selected'. By default, LC Bibliographic, OCLC Bibliographic, and LC Authorities are selected.

LOCAL VALIDATION DATA

Select this option if you have created a Local Validation Table and want it to be loaded each time the program runs. To edit or create a Local Validation Table, click the Edit Local Data button. This option is selected by default, but it has no effect until a Local Table is created.

For more information, read the help on the Local Validation Data screen.

VALIDATION FILTERS

This section allows you to quickly enable/disable validation on certain groups of tags, instead of having to enable/disable each tag individually.

IGNORE LEADER MARKS

This filter blocks out errors caused by control characters in the leader. Some vendors like to put these characters into leader bytes that catalogers do not usually look at. This option is disabled by default.

IGNORE OBSOLETE CODING

This filter suppresses messages about Obsolete Coding. In this option, 'Obsolete' refers to coding which has been made obsolete by either LC or OCLC.

IGNORE OLD CODING

This filter suppresses messages about 'Old' Coding. In this option, 'Old' refers to coding which is still valid but should no longer be used (according to OCLC).

IGNORE 09X TAGS

This filters prevents validation on tags used for local classification (090-099). This option is disabled by default.

IGNORE 049/852 TAGS

This filters prevents validation on tags used for local holdings. This option is enabled by default.

IGNORE 59X TAGS

This filters prevents validation on tags used for local notes (590-599). This option is disabled by default.

IGNORE 69X TAGS

This filters prevents validation on tags used for local subjects (690-699). This option is disabled by default.

IGNORE SUBFIELD $9

This filter prevents validation of subfield $9 in any tag. This option is enabled by default.

IGNORE XX9 TAGS

This filters prevents validation on tags that end in the number '9'. This option is disabled by default.

IGNORE X9X TAGS

This filters prevents validation on tags with a middle number of '9'. This option is disabled by default.

IGNORE 9XX TAGS

This filters prevents validation on all local tags (900-999). This option is enabled by default.

NOTE: Some 'Ignore' options listed above will overlap other 'Ignore' options. For example, the options 'Ignore XX9' and 'Ignore 09X' will both filter out messages about 099 tags. Select the 'Ignore' options that will best meet your needs. If you need greater control over which tags are considered in validation, you can use a Local Validation Table to define tags which should be treated as valid and/or flag valid tags which should produce an alert message.

APPLY FILTERS TO CATCHECKS

If selected this option will attempt to apply any other selected filters to the Cataloging Checks.

For example, if the CatChecker finds an error in a 9XX tag, it will be reported, since the IGNORE 9XX TAGS option applies only to validation. But if the APPLY FILTERS TO CATCHECKS option is also selected, the error will be suppressed.

VALIDATE SUBJECTS

This is an experimental feature. If this option is selected, the program will attempt to validate the $a of subject headings in edit sessions.

The processing used for this validation is as follows: the program contacts the TMQ server (www.marcofquality.com) with a list of subject headings in the record currently being viewed or edited. The server queries its database for the presence of these headings, and returns the result of each lookup. When the program receives the results, it then sets a checkbox (in the main record view) for each subject that was found.

At present, the following subjects sources are supported:

650 I2 = 0 $a    Validates against LCSH (as downloaded from id.loc.gov)
650 I2 = 1 $a    Validates against the above and the LC Children's Subjects (from the same source)
650 I2 = 2       Validates against the MESH descriptor file (downloaded from NLM)
655 $2=gsafd     Validates against the gsafd.mrc (downloaded from Northwestern University)
655 $2=lcfgt     Validates against the LC Genre/Form terms (downloaded from id.loc.gov)
655 $2=rbgenr

NOTES

This feature is not active in Batch Mode.

This feature can be quickly turned on and off inside an Edit Session by clicking the large green checkbox on the bottom right of the navigation panel.

If you like to quickly scroll through a file of records you should toggle this option off. The program will not advance to the next record until it receives the search results from the server for the current record, or until the search is interrupted (by clicking on the spinning time icon).

Re: LCSH, we validate only $a. Validating this subject source is problematic because of its design. There is no way to know if a given heading has an authority record or not. It would be much better if all possible valid subject headings were backed by authorities, and hopefully that will be the case in the future. Failing that though, we do not wish to make validating LCSH a full-time occupation, so we are just going to stick with $a for now.

Re: LCSH alternate labels (aka 'See-From'). If a 650 I2=0 heading does not validate, the same heading is then searched a second time in a table of alternate headings. Thus, subject validation will take longer if your I2=0 subjects do not validate (since each heading will be searched twice).

Re: MESH, we are able to provide a more comprehensive result, validating the $a and all $x subfields, with the exception of the MESH 'publication types' (similar to the LCSH form subdivisions but coded as $x instead of $v). The latter are removed from the subject string before validation.