DOBIS/LIBIS DMARC to Unimarc

What is Dobis/Libis ?

Dobis/Libis was an automated library system written in PL/1 and running in CICS on IBM mainframe. Although very powerful, it was not very user friendly and was reserved to big libraries which can afford a mainframe. Unfortunately, the vendor, Elias, went to bankrupt about five years ago.

What is DMARC ?

DMARC is Dobis/Libis's library standard for exchange of bibliographic data. Although, it's name can make think that it is a member of the MARC standard family, it's not the case.

What is Unimarc ?

Unimarc is a library standard to facilitate the international exchange of bibliographic data in machine-readable form between national bibliographic agencies. It may also be used as a model for the development of new machine-readable bibliographic formats. It's maintained by the Permanent UNIMARC Committee of IFLA organization. Unimarc is an import format widely accepted by most of automated library system running in Europe. For America, the most common standard seems to be USMARC.

License

The following programs are released under the GPL.

Warnings

Converting DMARC records from Dobis/Libis to Unimarc needs a lot of patience and precision.
You need to have a high security level in Dobis/Libis to export catalographics notices.
Not all of the Dobis/Libis data can be exported with this process : borrowers, related notices, empty categories, serials, ... must be handled separately.
This step-by-step guide is only a recipe. Depending on your automated library system, you will have to change the label and/or the subfields of the Unimarc records. Don't panic ! It's easy if you know COBOL.
Accentued characters are not supported for the moment.

Prerequisites

On the mainframe

If not already done :

Allocate a dataset with the following characteristics :

RECFM	VB
LRECL	4092
BLKSIZE	4096
DSORG	PS
SPACE PRIMARY	200 CYL
SPACE SECONDARY	100 CYL

Create and entry into the CICS DCT for a TDQ (Transient Data Queue) pointing to this dataset.

On a PC

Download and install Regina Rexx.

Steps of the conversion process

Export your Dobis/Libis catalographic notices with a DMARCOUT :
1. Logon to Dobis/Libis.
2. On the main screen of Dobis/Libis, type 9 and press Enter,
3. On the export (DMARCOUT) screen of Dobis/Libis, type 1 and press Enter,
4. Select the library according to your needs and press Enter,
5. Select the DMARCOUT format. For example, type 76 and press Enter,
6. Press Enter when Dobis/Libis ask for a document number,
7. On the final screen, type e and press Enter.
You may check the progress of the DMARCOUT process by typing 4 and pressing Enter on the export (DMARCOUT) screen of Dobis/Libis. Type e to exit this screen.
If you have others libraries defined in Dobis/Libis, repeat steps b to g.
If not already done, allocate the output dataset :

RECFM	VB
LRECL	4092
BLKSIZE	4096
DSORG	PS
SPACE PRIMARY	200 CYL
SPACE SECONDARY	100 CYL

Edit the following job :
1. Add a valid job card.
2. Replace XXX with the TDQ dataset DSName.
3. Replace YYY with the output dataset DSName
4. Submit the job. It should end with RC = 0
5. Transfer using FTP the output dataset to a PC.
6. Execute the following Rexx and give the name of the just transfered file when prompted.
7. That's it ! You can now import your Unimarc records in your new automated library system.
If all of the above seems to be Chinese for you, ask help to your IBM MVS System engineer. Like said before, you will need probably to adapt the COBOL program to change some Unimarc labels or subfields.

Converted Unimarc records where successfully tested with PMB and Adlib. If you succeed in this kind of conversion, please send me a E-mail.