[Koha] Field 003 of Marc21

[King, Fred]

Real catalogers are going to turn pale and have to sit down when they read this, but if you're in a small library, a lot of this doesn't matter as much as one might think. The library where I work has maybe 5000 books--I have more books at home.* If your library users can find the books on the shelves, it doesn't matter that the 060b field (NLM classification system, Cutter number) isn't perfect, or the 082 (Dewey) number doesn't go to all thirty five decimals.

My general rule of thumb: if you're part of the cataloging department, you need to be fairly careful. If you ARE the cataloging department (and the systems department, and half the reference department, and...), you can let a few things slide.

*And yes, someday I'm going to move the catalog from the MS Access 97 database to Koha.

Fred King
Medical Librarian, MedStar Washington Hospital Center
fred.king at medstar.net
202-877-6670
ORCID 0000-0001-5266-0279
MedStar Authors Catalog: http://medstarauthors.org

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
--Terry Pratchett