Refactor to use pymarc instead of custom MARC parser #7969
Labels
Lead: @hornc
Issues overseen by Charles (Staff: Data Engineering Lead) [managed]
Priority: 3
Issues that we can consider at our leisure. [managed]
Theme: MARC records
Type: Feature Request
Issue describes a feature or enhancement we'd like to implement. [managed]
It might make sense for OpenLibrary to stop maintaining a custom MARC parser when there is a well supported robust open source MARC parser available in pymarc. I made the suggestion to switch in 2018 and (twice) again in 2020, but perhaps creating a separate issue will drive some discussion and a decision.
Proposal & Constraints
Replace
marc_base.py
,marc_binary.py
,mnemonics.py
, andmarc_xml.py
withpymarc
. Review other modules in openlibrary.catalog.marc for other code which can be eliminated.Additional context
While it would have been better to do it 5 years ago and avoided all the maintenance effort in the intervening years, it's probably still at net win (and, arguably, "the right thing to do" for the ecosystem).
Stakeholders
@hornc @mekarpeles @cclauss
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