Koha System

Understanding Kai's MARC Repair Suggestions

Learn what Kai can suggest during MARCReady review and what cataloguing decisions remain with librarians.

May 12, 2026 3 min read

Kai is the MARCReady assistant. It helps review catalogue data and suggest repairs, but it does not replace librarian judgement.

MARC records contain both standardised structure and local cataloguing decisions. Kai can help with common technical issues, but your library remains responsible for reviewing the final records before import.

What Kai can suggest

Kai can assist with:

Field mappings from CSV, Excel, TSV, and JSON.
Invalid or unexpected indicators.
ISBN formatting suggestions.
Empty subfield detection.
Character encoding cleanup.
Incomplete Leader and 008 fixed-field checks.
Duplicate or unexpected field warnings.
Records that may need extra review before export.

Field mapping suggestions

For spreadsheet and JSON files, Kai suggests how source fields may map into MARC.

Source field	Possible MARC mapping
Title	245 $a
Author	100 $a
ISBN	020 $a
Publisher	264 $b or 260 $b
Publication year	264 $c or 260 $c
Subject	650 $a
Barcode	Item field, depending on Koha mapping

These suggestions should be reviewed. A column called “Name” may refer to an author, editor, donor, or something else depending on the source system.

Indicator suggestions

Many MARC fields use indicators to define how a field should be interpreted. Invalid or missing indicators can affect indexing, display, or record interpretation.

Kai may flag indicators that appear invalid or unexpected for a field. Indicator suggestions should be checked against the meaning of the field and your local cataloguing practice.

ISBN formatting suggestions

Kai can help identify ISBN-related issues such as ISBN-10 values that may need ISBN-13 equivalents, extra punctuation, qualifiers mixed into the identifier, multiple ISBNs in one field, and ISBN-like values in the wrong column or field.

Empty subfields

Empty subfields can appear when data has been exported from older systems or converted between formats. An empty subfield may not break every import, but it can create messy records and confusing displays.

Character encoding issues

Older catalogue exports sometimes contain encoding artefacts, especially when data has moved between MARC-8, UTF-8, Windows encodings, or spreadsheet tools. Kai may flag examples such as broken accented characters, replacement symbols, unexpected punctuation, or garbled text in titles, authors, or notes.

Leader and 008 fixed fields

The MARC Leader and 008 field contain fixed-position data. Kai can help flag missing, short, malformed, or inconsistent fixed fields.

Common issues include: missing Leader, Leader with incorrect length, missing 008, 008 shorter than expected, invalid date or language positions, inconsistent material type coding.

What Kai does not decide for you

Kai does not decide:

Which subject vocabulary your library should use.
Whether a local call number is correct.
Whether a subject heading is appropriate.
Whether a record should be merged with another record.
Whether a local 9XX field should be kept.
Whether an item should be suppressed, deleted, or retained.
Whether a note is meaningful for your local users.
Whether your catalogue follows AACR2, RDA, or another local standard.

Those decisions remain with the library.

Why human review matters

MARCReady is designed to support review, not skip it. Kai can speed up review and highlight likely problems, but librarians should approve the final export.