Q: How much does Copycat cost per year?

A: There are no annual database costs for Copycat because it searches free z39.50 libraries.  Just buy the product and it's yours to use forever!  You may wish to subscribe to Surpass Support in order to receive support and program updates for Copycat, but this is optional.  For individual library users support is just $65 per year.  Centralized catalogers using Copycat for a group of libraries or a district should contact us for support pricing.

Q: Is Copycat a service?

A: No.  Copycat is a product, not a service.  Buy it and you own it -- no service subscription is needed (although you may choose to subscribe to support for $65 per year).  Think of Copycat like a web browser.  It's a program that gives you access to information that others publish to the Internet.  Only instead of browsing web pages on web servers, Copycat browses library collections from libraries with z39.50 servers.

Q: Do you have records for audio/visual materials for Copycat?

A: We at Surpass don't provide any of the actual records that Copycat finds.  Copycat is a search tool that connects to any of the hundreds of libraries running z39.50 servers whose records are available for searching.  To find audio/visual materials (or any other specific material type), the key is to select libraries from the list of z39.50 servers that are likely to have already cataloged in their collections the same types of materials that you are seeking.  Remember, these are real libraries with real collections that you're tapping into with Copycat.  We do provide a list of several library databases that are known to have a fair collection of audio/visual materials, including Access PA, a state-wide union catalog in Pennsylvania.

Q: Will Copycat work with my automation system?

A: Copycat exports standard MARC files.  You should be able to import these files into any MARC-based automation system using the standard import function as if you were importing a MARC file obtained from a book jobber with your book order.

Q: If I load or enter a list of items into multi-search for Copycat to search for, is there a way to find which records it was able to find matches for and which ones it could not?

A: Yes.  You can print a report after the search that lists all items and the result of the search for each item.

Q: Can I add my own library databases to Copycat?

A: Yes.  You can add any library with a public z39.50 server to Copycat's list of databases.  You'll need a few key pieces of information (such as the address and port) of the database that you would like to  add.  Note that the library must have a z39.50 server in order for Copycat to attach.  This is not the same as a web server.

Q: Can I load an Excel spreadsheet with ISBNs into Copycat?

A: Copycat allows you load in a text file or a MARC file into the multi-search area.  You can load the information from an Excel spreadsheet into Copycat by first exporting from Excel to ASCII text.  To do this, simply choose "save as" from the File menu in Excel and change the file type to "Tab Delimited."  Then load the resulting file in to Copycat's multi-search

Q: If I load an Excel file (as described above) or text file into Copycat's multi-search area, will my file get converted to MARC?

A: For all records that Copycat finds matching records for in the libraries you search, the resulting records will be in MARC format.  If Copycat cannot find a matching record to download you'll need to catalog the item by hand.  An alternative is to send us the Excel spreadsheet with the records Copycat could not find and we can perform an Excel-to-MARC conversion.  See the data services page for pricing information.