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

[Doug Kingston]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Galen Charlton <gmc at esilibrary.com> wrote:

> 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?
>
We are using a literal '#' (hash).  Your question prompted me to check the
MARC21 standard, specifically
  http://www.loc.gov/marc/specifications/specrecstruc.html
where we find the following notacion on the documenation:
*blank (SP).* ASCII character 20(hex) (represented graphically in MARC 21
documentation as [image: ASCII character 20 (hex)] or #), which is used in *
indicators* and data elements containing coded values (and occurs in data
content). Generally, blank stands for "undefined," but in some instances it
has been assigned a meaning. ASCII name is space.
So our MARC is has # where it should have ' '.  We'll fix this and
re-evaluate this problem.  This interpretation is not obvious from the
specification.

-Doug-


>
>
>> 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
> email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
> direct: +1 770-709-5581
> cell:   +1 404-984-4366
> skype:  gmcharlt
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> Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
> http://evergreen-ils.org
>