Z39.2 alphabetic tags, new Tools interface, and more

December 29, 2020 —

To cap off the year, BestMARC just got a big update that we’ve been working on for many months. We’re excited to get these changes into your hands! As always, we love hearing your feedback. Let us know what you’d like to see. Review the Change Log in BestMARC for the full details, but here is an overview:

We’ve updated BestMARC to support the latest Bibliographic update 31 from the Library of Congress. All the new fields and subfields are now supported in the BestMARC editor.

BestMARC has always supported MARC21, but now we also support the broader Z39.2 specification which allows alphabetic MARC tags. This is frequently used outside the United States. To ensure Unicode files are handled properly for Z39.2 records, you can now choose a file type at import. You can set the default for this in your Profile, but we allow you to override it for each file you import in case you get files from different sources.

The Tools pane, where you select and create Global Edits or Enhancements, has received a makeover. It now consists of a 2-pane view where the details view is organized into columns. These columns can be reordered to your own preferences, and sorted. This new view also lets you select multiple items at a time, so you can now delete a batch of items or share a batch of items with a single command.

BestMARC Tools pane

The Reading Program Updates enhancement just got an update to ensure your test information will remain even if your records don’t match the reading program sources. We will only remove Accelerated Reader or Reading Counts information when there isn’t a match if no test information ($z) exists in your record. Otherwise we will leave it alone.

Finally, we’ve updated the Award Notes enhancement to include many additional new awards:

  • APALA (Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature)
    • Adult Fiction
    • Adult Non-Fiction
  • ARAB American Book Award
    • Fiction
  • The Evelyn Sakir Non-Fiction Award
  • The George Ellenbogan Poetry Book Award
  • Children’s Africana Book Award
    • Honor Books
  • Christopher Award for Adults
  • Edgar Allen Poe
    • Best Novel
    • Best First Novel
    • Best Paperback Original
    • Best Fact Crime
    • Best Critical/Biographical
    • Best Paperback Original
  • Updated award winners for 2020