As we've noted before, staff members at many MULS libraries have received or want to make use of the new OCLC Local Holdings Offline Product (LHOP), which provides a file of an individual library's current Local Holdings Records in OCLC. One potential stumbling block has been the fact that the LHOP file OCLC generates is a tab delimited file, making it, on the one hand, flexible for a variety of purposes and, on the other hand, something which isn’t particularly easy to work with in its raw form.
OCLC provides instructions on how to convert the tab-delimited file to an Excel spreadsheet, but some libraries may find that the spreadsheet is awkward to read or work with. (For example, title information is in column B, while holdings data is in column H or O, or even R and beyond.) The MINITEX MULS staff is working with our IT staff to create a new tool that makes LHOP data easier to read and use. We have a first version currently available, and we are already working on a first set of minor improvements.
The OCLC Holdings Importer utility can produce a list of a library's holdings that simplifies the amount of data in each entry and presents it in format that we think is easier to read than a straight spreadsheet or table. Instead of using MS Excel, this process imports the data file into MS Access, and then allows you to choose from three different reports to create an output you can use.
1) Title list - this report includes just the most basic information: Title, Place of publication, Location and Holdings for each item.
2) Summary entry - this report has somewhat more information for each item, adding the OCLC record number and the ISBN/ISSN to the info in the titles list. The format also gives each entry a bit more space on the page, making it easier to read.
3) Detailed entry - this report includes all of the above information, and also shows coded fields for the Lending and Reproduction status of the item and a date field that indicates when the LHR was last updated. We expect that this report would be useful primarily to library staff.
While we certainly hope this utility will be helpful, we know it can be improved. As one example, all these reports are currently organized by title. We are working on an enhancement that will allow users to select alternative sorting schemes. We also expect that some library staff members may find these forms do not meet all their specific needs. We encourage staff from those libraries to work with MINITEX and their local IT staff to build on these examples and to create other forms of these reports, which we will share with the rest of our regional community.
And finally, we are aware of efforts in other parts of the US to develop other ways to work with the LHOP files, and we will keep you posted regarding those efforts on the MULS blog. One option is to work with MS Word, using tools for merging form letters to organize and label LHOP data. This method could even add html tags for online display.