[Koha] 008 Fixed length data elements: problems with imported records in 3.12

[Galen Charlton]

Hi Elaine,

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Elaine Bradtke <eb at efdss.org> wrote:

> Here's an example of the imported 008:
> 130515s2006####stka###gr#####000#0#eng#d
>

Just to confirm, for the migrated records, "#" in the 008 represents a
literal hash character, not a space?


> How important is the 008 field  in the long term? I know it does
> influence a few display and search functions in Koha.
>

In my view, in general it's worth going to some effort to maintain the
008s, as the information encoded in them is either not to be found anywhere
else in the record, or if it is, is in the form of free text that can cause
indexing indigestion.  For example, I'd rather grab the primary language
from the 008/35-37 than have to parse language names.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Manager of Implementation
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
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