MARC Validation

Updated 04/2020

MARC Validation documentation covers the following topics:

• General guidelines
• Authority validation
• MARC validation errors

General guidelines

• When you save records to the database in Voyager, the system has the ability to validate MARC coding and name, title, and subject headings.
• The different items which Voyager can validate can be turned on, off, or partially on or off.
• Depending on the kind of work you do, your preferences will be set to validate certain elements. Your validation settings should not be changed without supervisor approval.
• When Voyager performs MARC validation, it is checking the MARC coding in the record against a tag table--a set of files which define what fields, indicators and subfields are valid and what they mean. When you use F2 to show valid values in a record Voyager is reading the information from the tag table. The tag table "Princeton" which we will all be using has been modified to include some Princeton-specific information, for instance, pressing F2 in the first indicator of the 852 field the value 8 is defined as "Other scheme (Richardson, accession no., etc.)"
• When Voyager performs authority validation, it is checking headings in the bib record against authority records present in Voyager.
• The note "nonexistent heading" in the authority validation box does not necessarily mean that the heading is wrong, but it does mean that we have no authority record for that heading in our database.
• Catalogers may wish to search the heading in OCLC Connexion or id.loc.gov to confirm whether or not the heading is valid.
• If the heading you are attempting to validate is a common name, check OCLC to ensure that you are using the correct name and that you are not using an undifferentiated heading.