[Koha] 090 Fields

[baljkas at mb.sympatico.ca]

Wednesday, September 10, 2003	22:34 CDT

Just following up on the 090 problem ...

"Albert P. Calame" <albert.p.calame at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>Hi All!
>I can't resist this one! I agree with Stephen that we should have a
>MARC tag that Koha will use for "non-MARC linking" information.

Actually, that's just a bit of a misnomer, Albert, as we're talking about a
MARC field tag to be used within Koha! ;-) What we all mean, I think, is a
tag for non-AACR2-prescribed data, like the format info Koha was storing in
090.

>The philosophical underpinnings of MARC contain the convention that any
>tag that contains a 9 in any position may be locally defined.

Definitely.

>As has been mentioned in earlier messages, the 090 field (actually most
>of the 090's) have often been used to store local call number
>information, by such august groups as the Library of Congress, OCLC,

Hence the accidental overlap problem.

>Additionally the 900 field was originally defined to hold local call
>numbers in a diskette transfer format called MicroLIF prior to 1991.
>(Post 1991 it changed to use 852, using subfield 9 to hold price).
>Other ILS vendors used 999, 949, and 959 at various times to store the
>same information - following the philosophy stated above. Other 900
>fields have been used for other functions but these are the only ones
>I know of that have had any major significance.

I remember downloading records from at least one of the University of
California libraries that had detailed holdings and other (I guess they
were) system/library specific coding and notations. Seen a lot of the 949
ones. One might experience minor problems when downloading copy if such
systems became more widespread.

>I'd like to suggest using the 930 or the 970 fields for any Koha
>special needs. Neither, to my knowledge, has had any major use.
>We could define the field or fields and subfields we need and publish
>this as part of our system specifications. This would be appropriate
>use of the MARC structure and would work in both MARC 21 and UNIMARC.

I like your field suggestions, Albert, although David Bigwood pointed out
that one could use the 655 for format in the way that Koha is using it and
stay within the prescribed fields/tags.

Albert's suggestions are clear for MARC21 and for UNIMARC (at least as far
as the online conversion guidelines UNIMARC-->MARC21, and the historical
field use list I have from LC, show).

Do any European Koha folk know if there would be conversion problems with
930 or 970 based on experience with other ILS?

If Koha goes forward with a 930 or 970, someone might want to submit the
info to the MARC Development people at LC and see what they think
(especially to see if they know about other systematic uses of those tags).
It never hurts to know.

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

>    Hope that helps.
>
>Regards,
>Al Calame
>
>Librarian-at-Large,
>Albert P. Calame Consulting
>Montreal, Québec, Canada
>
>514-745-3424
>albert.p.calame at sympatico.ca
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Stephen Hedges" <shedges at skemotah.com>
>To: "Bigwood, David" <Bigwood at lpi.usra.edu>
>Cc: <koha at lists.katipo.co.nz>
>Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 10:39 AM
>Subject: RE: [Koha] 090 Fields
>
>>
>> Bigwood, David said:
>> > The call number in 050 and 090 are for the manifestation of the
>> > work not the individual copy. 852, is for copy information, so
>> > that would not be a good choice to map the info to.
>> > Greg's records should have a field with copy info including a call
>> > number, location within his institution, cost, fund info and
>> > whatever his institution needs to attach to that copy. That is
>> > good for 852.
>> >
>> > 050 and 090 classification information is not copy related.
>>
>> Would anybody out there like to suggest a MARC tag other than 090 or
>> the 8xx or 9xx tags (too commonly used for holdings information) that
>> would be "safe" for holding the non-MARC linking information to the
>> Koha database? (Please remember that Koha should be international, so
>> we need to consider unimarc format, too.)
>>
>> -- 
>> Stephen Hedges
>> Skemotah Solutions, USA
>> www.skemotah.com  --  shedges at skemotah.com