Editing MARC Records

The MARC 21 views of the Bibliographic Record workform and the Authority Record workform display the MARC coding. The MARC 21 view includes the following features that help improve efficiency and accuracy when you enter MARC data:

Tip:
To see how the title will appear in Polaris PowerPAC, select View > PAC on the Bibliographic Record workform. The type of material icon that displays in Polaris PowerPAC is determined by the primary type of material. For more information, see Type of Material Codes (TOMs).

Shortcut key combinations - See Cataloging Shortcut Keys.
Copy and paste capability - You can copy and paste text from other Polaris records and third-party records, such as LC subject headings and Classification Plus. When you paste the text, it conforms to the default font, size, and color used in this view.
Dialog boxes for selecting the leader and fixed fields - The available values in the dialog boxes depend on the selections in other fields. For example, the dialog box that appears in the 008 field Fixed-length Data Elements - General Information This field contains 40 character positions (00-39) that provide coded information about the record as a whole and about special bibliographic aspects of the item being cataloged. These coded data elements are potentially useful for retrieval and data management purposes. The data elements are positionally defined. Character positions that are not defined contain a blank (#). All defined character positions must contain a defined code; for some field 008 positions, this may be the fill character (|). The fill character may be used (in certain character positions) when a cataloging organization makes no attempt to code the character position. The fill character is not allowed in field 008 positions 00-05 (Date entered on file). Its use is discouraged in positions 07-10 (Date 1), 15-17 (Place of publication, production, or execution), and the 008 position defined for Form of item (either position 23 or 29 depending upon the 008 configuration). Character positions 00-17 and 35-39 are defined the same across all types of material, with special consideration for position 06. The definition of character positions 18-34 was done independently for each type of material, although certain data elements are defined the same in the specifications for more than one type of material. When similar data elements are defined for inclusion in field 008 for different types of material, they occupy the same field 008 character positions. depends on the type of record specified in the leader.
Macros - Record and then “play back” frequently-used text and command sequences.
Automatic sorting of MARC data - Enter fields in any order, and automatically sort the order according to the MARC Validation Editor settings. See Administering MARC Validation and Display.
MARC field descriptions - The descriptions display automatically in the bottom of the MARC 21 view if your administrator has turned on the automatic display. If the description does not display automatically, you can press CTRL+L, or select Display Description from the context menu. Your Polaris administrator can customize the descriptions that appear. See Administering MARC Validation and Display.
Automatic checking when you save the record - The record is checked for MARC format and for duplicate records. For more information, see Checking Cataloging Records.

Tip:
If you enter MARC data using an international keyboard, the keyboard shortcuts may not work correctly. Change the keyboard back to English to use keyboard shortcuts.

Ability to enter diacritics or vernacular script -You can use a character picker dialog box to enter single characters or a diacritical mark Any of various marks, such as a macron or cedilla, added to a letter or symbol to indicate its pronunciation or to distinguish it in some way.. Or, if you frequently enter text in languages other than English, you can change your keyboard settings in Windows to add an international keyboard. See Enter diacritics/characters using an IME keyboard. The Polaris catalog supports full UTF-16 Unicode.