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How does one view MARC files in a human readable way?

What characteristics should I look for in a tool that would facilitate the interpretation of MARC records?

Having to look up every field in the MARC specification is rather awkward.

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This question closed this question as off topic before. In its current state, it is an off topic question. Deleting it and asking it again unfortunately doesn't make it a better fit. Please read this blog post for more information on how you could improve this question for possible re-opening. – Ashley Nunn♦ Dec 12 '12 at 7:00
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The rather clumsy closure of this question has caused a lot of consternation and in some cases abandonment of using Stack LIS at a time when we are trying to generate support for using it. Eg. this exchange.. I do not think this is a "shopping question". It's a user looking for help with a particular process issue, where the solution will by definition involve software. It is not a "which is best" or "what shall I buy" question. Answers to this question would be useful for the LIS community. In my view it is very much "on topic". – Paul Wheatley Dec 20 '12 at 12:20
I'm not sure how closing a question is "rude", it's a process designed to block a question from getting an answer before it's "ready" for one. It was closed for a reason. That being said, I've edited to a more acceptable form for SE, which will make it applicable to a wider audience and less locked into a particular time period. – jonsca♦ Dec 25 '12 at 7:30
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I have cleared the comments not to be spiteful, but because they wandered too far off of the topic of the question. If anyone has anything they'd like to air, I would invite them to start a Meta.Libraries topic about it. – jonsca♦ Dec 25 '12 at 7:35
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What part of the MARC record are you trying to make more human-readable? That might help with answering your question. – eclecticlibrarian Jan 3 at 22:11
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1 Answer

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I haven't personally seen an ILS-agnostic application that provides useful crossreferences to MARC specifications within the user interface. Some cataloging applications (e.g. those that are part of an ILS, or OCLC Connexion) do, but that presumes that you'll be using that system to do your cataloging. For example, see the Koha documentation on their cataloging module.

Honestly, your best option is to use something like MarcEdit and have the specs open in a browser if you're not doing cataloging.

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