Quoting baljkas@mb.sympatico.ca:

Monday, July 21, 2003 17:59 CDT

Hey, Derek,

From the output script you supplied, you are definitely dealing with USMARC (learn to start calling it MARC21, though since you will be seeing more "harmonized" records in the years to come).

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The issue I am still having is that it is creating biblios and biblioitems in the database, but no "items"

Wasn't this question addressed about a week ago?

It was brought up, but I haven't found a solution yet. Did I miss something?

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This seems to be a problem of correctly mapping the fields in the MARC record to koha's database. specifically, the item information seems to be in MARC field 852.

MARC field 852 is holdings information, so yes, the call number for a book, what library or branch thereof it is at, its call number/s, its barcode/s, etc may be in the 852's appropriate subfields.

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I haven't yet been able to map things correctly though. I have a few questions. When installing, I am selecting MARC21 parameters instead of UNIMARC. Is this correct? What's the difference?

You don't really want to know what the difference is. ;-) Seriously though, if you have a 245 field in MARC, you are dealing with USMARC, UKMARC, CANMARC or MARC21. 245 is the tag for Title and Statement of Responsibility, and is a required core field. In UNIMARC, you'd be looking at a 200 for just the Title. So you have chosen the correct MARC flavour, but your mapping may still be off.

Hopefully, someone in the technical know-how branch will get back to you on mapping and getting the MARC data to come through at the Item level.

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Is there an already defined option to extract the "item" data from the MARC 852 field (I believe from some responses that I have received >that this is a fairly standard location for the "item" data). Any help or additional information would be appreciated. Perhaps there is a way for me to rewrite my MARC data so that that information will be read properly?

Be careful in re-writing MARC data, because it is a data compression formula and you don't want to do anything that will compromise the structure of a record. There may be a way to do what you want, but I would check out the info on MARC records structure at

URL <http://www.log.gov/marc/umb/um11to12.html> first.

For info on the 852 field (best to understand it completely before trying to remap it) see

URL <http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdhold.html#mrcb852>

and for other mappings that might provide useful examples see

URL <http://www.loc.gov/marc/marcdocz.html>

If you have any questions about library terminology re the MARC stuff, I'd be glad to try and help. Just give me a shout.

Post this to the Koha listserv if you find it helpful. Good luck with your presentation!

Steven, Thanks much. This is very helpful for me. I'm going to copy it to the list in case there are other budding library scientists out there. -Derek

Cheers, Steven F. Baljkas library tech at large Koha neophyte Winnipeg, MB CANADA

-- Derek Dresser http://network.gouldacademy.org/ Gould Academy Bethel, ME 04217 (207)824-7700 "Nothing endures but change" --Heraclitus ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/