[Koha] Displaying MARC record data

Tonnesen Steve tonnesen at cmsd.bc.ca
Fri Nov 9 09:42:00 NZDT 2001


On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, Colin Campbell wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 11:46:15AM -0800, Tonnesen Steve wrote:
> > 
> > Is there some kind of standard way that MARC records are displayed to
> > users?
> 
> Not really it was meant to be an exchange format and display would be
> a different format entirely. No two systems have done it identically,
> although most use a variation on the
> 
> 100   $aAuthor, Joe
> 245   $aTitle etc
> 
> approach. Even the character used for the subfield separator is not
> standardized.


I was thinking more along the lines of how are records formatted for
display to users.  I suspect that generally more information is shown to
librarians than OPAC users.

As an example, let's say that there is a record with the following 245
field:

245	$aCrazy Sexy Cool
	$h[sound recording] /
	$cTLC.


I assume that this title would be displayed as:

Title: Crazy Sexy Cool [sound recording] / TLC.

Does order matter?  What if the $h subfield appeared after the $c
subfield?  Would the Title then be printed as:

Title: Crazy Sexy Cool TLC. [sound recording] /

My example obviously makes no sense, but the schema I'm currently using
makes no distinction regarding order of fields and subfields, and I'm
starting to think this is wrong and I need to add in support for ordering. 
I've just been displaying the records in alphabetical/numerical order (a-z
then 1-9 for subfields).  Developing a good MARC record editor in HTML
forms is going to be difficult, I think.  Anybody have any pointers on
things they absolutely need in a MARC record editor?

If a 245 tag contains a $c subfield (Statement of Responsibility), would
you then _not_ print out any data in the 100 tag (Main Entry -- Personal
Name)? 

Which tags are typically displayed for OPAC users?  Which for librarians?
Or do librarians like to see full MARC records in all their glory?  :)


My first attempt at a MARC editor is at:

  http://142.28.224.14/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.simple/viewmarc.pl

feel free to try it out and make comments.  It's pretty klunky... and
probably badly broken in some places.  It's all demo data, so make changes
however you like.  Click on the "With Tag Names" link to show descriptions
of all the fields and subfields. 


Steve.





More information about the Koha mailing list