[Koha] Tag 880

[Steven F.Baljkas]

Tuesday, February 14, 2006    23:08 CST

Hi, Carol,

Just in quick response to your inquiry, which I noted before and was hoping somebody more knowledgeable on MARC coding history would respond to ...

Now, Dave Bigwood or other cognoscenti can correct this if I have it wrong, but I was given to understand some years ago by an authority I trust that fields like 880 are basically the vestigal remains of the inadequacy of earlier computer systems. When they were conceived, computers were just beginning to be able to handle more than Latin letters with the occasional accent (whereas now we are almost at the point where alternate scripts could be encoded within the same field, as was originally desired/intended -- see AACR).

I don't know what Koha's coding of the various scripts used by various languages allows for, but I understood it could handle both roman and non-roman scripts at the same time.

***If that is correct, I don't see why you would need to use the 880 at all.

Moreover, even if you still want to do so, Carol, Koha doesn't -- that is, at present, it CAN'T -- make use of the required $6 linking subfield.*** I can't see how you would overcome that barrier without a heavy investment in programming.

While you cannot repeat the 100 and 245 in a valid MARC21 record, you can work your way around these limitations (rules) easily enough.

For example, one could opt to display a 900 field that could give an alternate graphic representation of the 100. Many ILS make use of 900 to allow for alternate forms of the 100 (an embedded authority). I should think you could add a 900 to your Koha MARC records and display.

For the 245, assuming that one is using the 245 for the title coded in the actual non-roman script of the language, one could make use of the 242, Translation of the Title by Cataloguing Agency, to record the romanized transcription and translation. Alternatively, one could make use of a 246.

If neither of these solutions is satisfactory/to your liking, as my cataloguing instructor would say, there are always Notes.

Whatever you decide to do, just be sure to save your original records first in case you need to revert back to them at a later stage.

Hope this helps a bit.

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

P.S. If you still get no response from people with actual experience with the 880, I would suggest writing to one of the language areas at LC that would have recourse to it to see what they would suggest.

============================================================
From: Carol Ku <carolcool01 at yahoo.com>
Date: 2006/02/14 Tue PM 02:12:07 CST
To: Koha Mailing List <koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>, 
	Koha Windows <koha-win32 at nongnu.org>
Subject: [Koha] Tag 880

Have anyone successfully imported MARC record with tag 880?  In Library of Congress, this field contains information of book stored in its native language.
   
  In MARC records, there seem to be some fields to match the information in tag 880 to 245(title), 100 (author name) etc... But I know Koha only has the subfield structure.
   
  If anyone has used the tag 880, I would like to seek your advice in this area.  Thank you.
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