README
1MARC-Charset
2================
3
4INTRODUCTION
5
6MARC::Charset is a package to assist you in converting converting data encoded
7using MARC-8 character sets to Unicode (UTF-8).
8
9The MARC format (MAchine Readable Cataloging) has been used since the early
101970s to encode bibliographic data. Since catalogers have used non-Latin
11character sets for a long time, MARC had to grapple with the issue of encoding
12non-ASCII data in an 8-bit environment from very early on; this became known
13as the "MARC-8 Environment".
14
15In 1992 the Unicode standard provided a a uniform encoding for all major
16modern written languages. The MARC21 standard now supports encoding character
17data in Unicode, specifically the UCS Transformation Formats-8 (UTF-8). UTF-8
18has the advantage that it allows normal ASCII (8-bit) data to exist side by
19side with the full repertoire of Unicode characters (16-bit).
20
21Unicode notwithstanding, libraries still have a wealth of data encoded using
22MARC-8. Yet, some new data formats such as XML require that characters are
23encoded using Unicode. In order to fascilitate conversion the Library of
24Congress graciously published character mappings to fascilitate the conversion
25of MARC-8 data to Unicode.
26
27MARC::Charset is basically an implementation of the character mappings that
28the Library of Congress has published. For an overview of the MARC-8
29environment and to see the MARC8/Unicode translation tables please visit:
30
31http://www.loc.gov/marc/specifications/speccharintro.html
32
33INSTALLATION
34
35To install this module type the following:
36
37 perl Makefile.PL
38 make
39 make test
40 make install
41
42DEPENDENCIES
43
44- Perl 5.8.0
45- Test::More
46- XML::SAX
47- Class::Accessor
48- Unicode::Normalize
49
50
51You may also want to install MARC::Record to process MARC data, but you can
52use MARC::Charset by itself if you like.
53
54COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE
55
56This software is free software and may be distributed under the same
57terms as Perl itself.
58
59Copyright (C) 2002 Ed Summers <ehs@pobox.com>
60
61