Eclipse editor for MARC records

Abstract

Editing bibliographic data is an important part of library information systems. In this paper we discuss existing approaches in developing user interfaces for editing MARC records. There are two basic approaches: screen forms that support entering bibliographic data without knowledge of the MARC structure, and direct editing of MARC records shown on the screen. This paper presents the Eclipse editor, which fully supports editing of MARC records. It is written in Java as an Eclipse plug-in, so it is platform-independent. It can be extended for use with any data store. The paper also presents a Rich Client Platform (RCP) application made of a MARC editor plug-in, which can be used outside of Eclipse. The practical application of the results is integration of the RCP application into the BISIS library information system.