Alexander Street is providing free MARC records for books, pamphlets, and manuscripts in its online collections. We do not provide records for most materials based on journal articles. The records are grouped by product and release.

1. Where do I find Alexander Street's MARC records?
    1. By click on the Product link and download

2. How do I know which sets of MARC records to download?
 

The MARC records for each product are stored in product-specific subfolders on the ftp site. Within these folders, several sets of records may exist for any one product. These sets are generally called "release_1-n". This would contain all the relevant records for items in the range of database releases. For example,
 

Folder "Black Drama"
    1. release_1-4 is the cumulative set of MARC records for all plays currently released (i.e., plays released in Releases 1, 2, 3, and 4).
        It is the most complete set of records for Black Drama.
    2. release_1-3 is the set that was made available with all records in an earlier release (i.e., plays released in Releases 1, 2, and 3).
    3. release_4 is the set of records for plays that were release for the first time in Release 4.

If you have previously retrieved MARC records for this product, i.e. have "release_1-3," and want to update your holdings, you need to use only the "release_4" set. If you are a new customer or have never previously retrieved records for this product, you should retrieve the set labeled "release_1-4".

    3. I don't understand why certain fields present data the way they do. Can you explain why?
 

Field 001: The number in this field represents the record number of the volume, or, in the case of a multi-volume set, the record number of volume 1 of the set. Following the number is a slash and a code for the product. Some volumes appear in multiple products, and this code distinguishes the MARC record for a specific product, so that you don't copy over a record for a book in North American Women's Letters and Diaries with the record for the same book in Women and Social Movements.
 

Field 003: VaAlASP is the code assigned to us by the Library of Congress.
 

Field 100: For non-drama records, the MARC record may indicate a different author from the one indicated in the Alexander Street Press database. Because our databases point to primary materials, we choose the names of the authors of the primary materials as our preferred entry point for sources in our databases. On occasion, primary materials are lifted from secondary works, such as a series of letters in a biography. In these cases, the MARC record will often reflect the author of the secondary work as the author of the book, while we use the author of the letters as the primary author. We attempt to add primary authors to the MARC record as other authors (field 700), but we do not alter the main author assigned by the library that originally cataloged the work.
 

Fields 100/600/700: Personal names are checked against the Library of Congress forms.  We attempt to standardize by this form.  If we vary from an approved term, please let us know so we can correct our records.
 

Fields 650: For all non-drama databases, we attempt to secure existing MARC records. We check subject headings against the Library of Congress official terms, through Classification Web, in order to standardize headings.  If we vary from an approved term, please let us know so we can correct our records.
 

Field 655: For drama databases, i.e., Black Drama, North American Women's Drama, Asian American Drama, Latino Literature, North American Drama, and American Film Scripts Online, we generally create our own records. We do not analyze creative works for subject, and provide only form headings. The 655 field is used for these records based on the feedback from a majority of our customers.
 

Field 730: We use this field for the series statement for the Alexander Street Press product name, e.g. North American Women's Drama.
 

Field 856: Points to a MARC resolver, so that you will not need to edit Alexander Street records if, in the future, we choose to load our databases onto different servers. The resolver should point to a specific product, such as Latino Literature. If an 856 does not work, please check to see that it is pointing to the correct product. (For instance, if you retrieved a set of records for Latino Literature and one of the urls points to "AADR", it is not pointing to the correct product.) If you find a record pointing incorrectly, please contact Pat Carlson at pcarlson@astreetpress.com.
 

Field 856: For multi-volume sets, each volume receives a separate 856 field, each pointing to a specific volume. All volumes in the set are released at one time with the record, even if not all the volumes are currently loaded into the database. This is intended to minimize the need for updating the MARC records. Therefore, in some cases, a MARC record may have both working and non-working 856 fields at some point in time. As long as the 856 fields point to the correct database, this should be resolved with the subsequent release.

    4. These records don't look anything like the last set of records I retrieved from Alexander Street Press.  Do I have the correct records?
 

So many customers asked for changes to our records that we decided to start the entire process over.  The old records that you may have retrieved previously have all been discarded and are being replaced by entirely new records.  Over the past year we consulted with a team of volunteer customers about record features, fields, and formatting, to provide the best records we can.  These are still relatively plain "vanilla" MARC records, but they should meet the basic standards as described to us by our committee.  

    5. We have some specific style issues that these records don't address.  Can you re-edit them for me?
 

We regret that we cannot make customized records.  We invite you to take our records and reformat or edit them for your own special needs.  However, if there are general changes that are required (e.g., we've mis-used a field or used the incorrect form of a name or subject), please let us know and we'll correct that.

Some customers have created MARC records through OCLC for some of our products.  If you prefer to use these OCLC-standard records, please contact OCLC directly for them.  You will pay your normal rate to OCLC if you take these records, however.