Lauren, When dealing with a file of MARC records there are some tools to find what fields have been used. MarcEdit will let you know which fields are used and how many times. You can also select a field and see what subfields are used in your file. http://ucs.orst.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/index.html It is free. MARC RTP is also free and gives a more detailed report. It shows which fields and subfields in those fields are used in your file. It also shows the largest number of characters in each field. http://marc.ise.canberra.edu.au/ It is a good idea to run these on your database every so often, even if not moving it. It does show errors. For example, if 1 field 244 shows up and the number of records with field 245 is less than the total then that 244 most likely should be 245. Obsolete fields can be identified and either deleted or moved to another field. Sincerely, David Bigwood bigwood@lpi.usra.edu Lunar & Planetary Institute Cataloging news: http://www.catalogablog.blogspot.com -----Original Message----- From: Lauren Miller [mailto:lmiller@athenscounty.lib.oh.us] Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 10:41 AM To: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: [Koha] File definitions and Process - Checked by Vexira DEMO version - Hi Everyone, Several weeks ago my co-worker Owen Leonard posted a message to the list asking for methodologies pertaining to the transition from one database to the KOHA database. In other words did you sit down and go through file printouts of each database and fit the puzzle together? Did you actually electronically dump the original database into KOHA and looked @ the results of what was missing? Or did you use another process. (Keep in mind I am not a techie--thanks!) Also, if you look at the index of all the KOHA files, for example -- branchtransfers--what is branchtransfers--what does that mean? There are many file names that we don't know what they mean--therefore we don't know if that file is important to us. Any help you can give us is appreciated greatly! Thank you and take care. Lauren Miller Librarian Athens County Library Services _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha