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Vendor MARC Records: What to Check Before Importing into Koha

A practical checklist for reviewing vendor-supplied MARC records before importing them into Koha, including ISBNs, indicators, local fields, and item data.

May 19, 2026 4 min read

Vendor MARC Records: What to Check Before Importing into Koha

Vendor-supplied MARC records can save cataloguing time, but they should not be imported into Koha without review. Vendor records vary widely in quality and may contain issues that affect search, display, duplicate detection, and item handling.

This checklist covers the most important checks before a vendor MARC import.

Why vendor records need review

Vendor records are not created for your specific Koha installation. They may:

use different indicator conventions;
include local fields from another system;
contain MARC-8 encoding when UTF-8 is expected;
have ISBNs in different formats;
lack item data entirely;
include notes or fields your library does not use;
conflict with existing records in your catalogue.

Review a sample before adding vendor records to your live system.

Check the file format

Confirm the format before staging. Koha’s import workflow expects MARC21 binary or MARCXML.

If the vendor sends CSV or Excel, the data must be mapped to MARC first. MARCReady can help with that conversion.

Check ISBNs

Review MARC field 020 for:

qualifiers mixed into the ISBN value in $a;
ISBN-10 values that could be converted to ISBN-13;
invalid check digits;
multiple ISBNs combined in one subfield;
ISBNs that do not match the item being catalogued.

Clean ISBNs are important for matching existing records and avoiding duplicates.

Check indicators

Vendor records may use different indicator conventions. Common problems include:

245 indicator 1 or 2 not matching the record content;
856 indicators not following the expected pattern;
650 indicator 2 not matching the subject source.

MARCReady checks indicators against MARC21 specifications and corrects common errors automatically.

Check character encoding

If the vendor record file contains broken accents or replacement characters, the encoding may be wrong. Test with a small sample before importing a large batch.

Check for local fields

Vendor records may include fields that were useful in the vendor’s system but are not intended for your Koha catalogue. Review any 9XX fields or other unusual tags before import.

Decide whether to:

remove vendor-specific fields;
preserve them for reference;
map them to Koha fields.

Check matching rules

Before importing vendor records into an existing catalogue, decide whether Koha should try to match incoming records to existing records.

If the goal is to update existing records, set up a matching rule based on ISBN, control number, or another reliable identifier.

If the goal is to add new titles only, test whether the matching rule correctly prevents duplicates.

Option for poor-quality vendor records: Advanced Repair

If vendor records contain ISBNs but are otherwise structurally poor — wrong indicators throughout, garbled fixed fields, truncated descriptions — MARCReady’s Advanced Repair feature can replace a vendor record with the authoritative Library of Congress version.

Advanced Repair queries the LoC catalogue (via SRU) using the record’s ISBN or LCCN. If a match is found, the vendor record’s bibliographic fields are replaced with the LoC version. Local fields (852, 942, 9XX) are preserved.

This is most useful when you have a valid ISBN but a poor-quality bibliographic record. It is not a substitute for full cataloguing review, but it can significantly improve records that would otherwise require manual re-cataloguing.