diff --git a/C4/ImportBatch.pm b/C4/ImportBatch.pm
index 145e5d90a4..b6db4067c6 100644
--- a/C4/ImportBatch.pm
+++ b/C4/ImportBatch.pm
@@ -210,7 +210,7 @@ sub ModBiblioInBatch {
 =head2 BatchStageMarcRecords
 
   ($batch_id, $num_records, $num_items, @invalid_records) = 
-    BatchStageMarcRecords($marc_flavor, $marc_records, $file_name, 
+    BatchStageMarcRecords($encoding, $marc_records, $file_name, 
                           $comments, $branch_code, $parse_items,
                           $leave_as_staging, 
                           $progress_interval, $progress_callback);
@@ -218,7 +218,7 @@ sub ModBiblioInBatch {
 =cut
 
 sub  BatchStageMarcRecords {
-    my $marc_flavor = shift;
+    my $encoding = shift;
     my $marc_records = shift;
     my $file_name = shift;
     my $comments = shift;
@@ -258,13 +258,16 @@ sub  BatchStageMarcRecords {
             &$progress_callback($rec_num);
         }
         my ($marc_record, $charset_guessed, $char_errors) =
-            MarcToUTF8Record($marc_blob, C4::Context->preference("marcflavour"));
+            MarcToUTF8Record($marc_blob, C4::Context->preference("marcflavour"), $encoding);
+
+        $encoding = $charset_guessed unless $encoding;
+
         my $import_record_id;
         if (scalar($marc_record->fields()) == 0) {
             push @invalid_records, $marc_blob;
         } else {
             $num_valid++;
-            $import_record_id = AddBiblioToBatch($batch_id, $rec_num, $marc_record, $marc_flavor, int(rand(99999)), 0);
+            $import_record_id = AddBiblioToBatch($batch_id, $rec_num, $marc_record, $encoding, int(rand(99999)), 0);
             if ($parse_items) {
                 my @import_items_ids = AddItemsToImportBiblio($batch_id, $import_record_id, $marc_record, 0);
                 $num_items += scalar(@import_items_ids);
diff --git a/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/tools/stage-marc-import.tt b/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/tools/stage-marc-import.tt
index f44181ee9f..fc6db51f20 100644
--- a/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/tools/stage-marc-import.tt
+++ b/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/tools/stage-marc-import.tt
@@ -93,13 +93,8 @@ function CheckForm(f) {
 		
 	</li>
 	<li>
-		<label for="syntax">Character encoding: </label>
-        [% IF ( UNIMARC ) %]
-            <select name="syntax" id="syntax"><option value="MARC21">MARC21</option><option value="UNIMARC" selected="selected">UNIMARC</option></select>
-        [% ELSE %]
-            <select name="syntax" id="syntax"><option value="MARC21" selected="selected">MARC21</option><option value="UNIMARC">UNIMARC</option></select>
-        [% END %]
-		
+		<label for="encoding">Character encoding: </label>
+            <select name="encoding" id="encoding"><option value="" selected="selected">Default</option><option value="utf8">UTF-8</option><option value="MARC-8">MARC 8</option><option value="ISO_5426">ISO 5426</option><option value="ISO_6937">ISO 6937</option><option value=ISO_8859-1">ISO 8859-1</option><option value="EUC-KR">EUC-KR</option></select>
 	</li>
 </ol></fieldset>
   <fieldset class="rows">
diff --git a/tools/stage-marc-import.pl b/tools/stage-marc-import.pl
index b113332375..745a36adb8 100755
--- a/tools/stage-marc-import.pl
+++ b/tools/stage-marc-import.pl
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ my $nomatch_action = $input->param('nomatch_action');
 my $parse_items = $input->param('parse_items');
 my $item_action = $input->param('item_action');
 my $comments = $input->param('comments');
-my $syntax = $input->param('syntax');
+my $encoding = $input->param('encoding');
 my ($template, $loggedinuser, $cookie)
 	= get_template_and_user({template_name => "tools/stage-marc-import.tmpl",
 					query => $input,
@@ -130,10 +130,10 @@ if ($completedJobID) {
     }
 
     # FIXME branch code
-    my ($batch_id, $num_valid, $num_items, @import_errors) = BatchStageMarcRecords($syntax, $marcrecord, $filename, 
-                                                                                   $comments, '', $parse_items, 0,
-                                                                                   50, staging_progress_callback($job, $dbh));
+    my ($batch_id, $num_valid, $num_items, @import_errors) = BatchStageMarcRecords($encoding, $marcrecord, $filename, $comments, '', $parse_items, 0, 50, staging_progress_callback($job, $dbh));
+
     $dbh->commit();
+
     my $num_with_matches = 0;
     my $checked_matches = 0;
     my $matcher_failed = 0;