I've been active for a while in creating PfW and CatME macros for use at the Niles Public Library District, as well as grabbing some off of the Web. Now it's time to give back to the net what I've gotten out of it, and share some of what I've created. I sincerely hope some of these are as useful to others as they have been for us.

Macros for use with Passport for Windows connections to OCLC

There do not seem to be as many people sharing CatME macros as there are sharing PfW macros, so I thought I'd put up some of my own to get the ball rolling.

Macros for use with CatME

Useful functions and code fragments for CatME macros

AutoCat This link is not a macro, but rather a full-fledged Visual Basic program I wrote. Designed to be used with CatME 2.10, it automatically creates basic MARC records in CatME for most formats, based on data input by the user. (AutoCat is not the only program on that page, but it is the only one related to CatME.)

Now that OCLC's Connexion client is available, I've started adapting some of my existing Passport & CatME macros for that program, and have created a few new macros, as well.

Macros for use with Connexion

While trawling the Web for new macros, I've noticed many that are tailored for use with Innovative systems, but few--if any--are for Geac's Libs+ system. Since this was the system used by the Niles Public Library District when I started using OML, this mildly distressed me. So I created some.

Macros for use with Libs+
Update: My library has since migrated to SIRSI's Unicorn system, which isn't as macro-friendly as Libs+ was; on the other hand, it already does many of the things I wrote macros to do. I'm leaving the Libs+ macro information up for now, and may add Unicorn macros if/when I write any.

For those who are just starting to learn about OCLC macros, and feel intimidated by the "strange" language used to create and edit them, I've started writing a series of "lectures" on how to program with the OCLC Macro Language, entitled OML for the Complete Beginner! Even (and especially) if you've never had any past programming experience, or if it's been so long you've forgotten the ins and outs of programming, you may find these lessons very helpful in editing existing OML macros and in creating your own from scratch.