[Koha] MARC Leader and fixed data fields

[baljkas at mts.net]

Tuesday, February 17, 2004   11:03 CST

Hi, Tim,

Regarding your question --

> I was wondering how (or if) Koha handles the leader (LDR)
> and fixed data (008) marc fields.  Is there a way to map
> information from other fields into parts of these fields?

--  answer is: for all practical purposes: NO. (It *might* be possible if you had *extremely* detailed records with extensive notes. Although, if that were the case, you'd probably already have valid leaders and 008's)

Miscoded transfers would be a disaster, corrupting potentially valid MARC records.

Moreover, most of the data in the Leader and 008 fields need to be entered from inspection of the item in hand, something that computers aren't quite up to yet.

Some elements in the Leader and 008 are replicated with word-data in other fields, but most are NOT. Even when they are, one often has to choose between different single character codes to describe even relatively simple items, or enter codes for aspects readily evident to us but not to machines (e.g. types of illustration present, content type of work).

If you are worried about your records not having a leader or 008, you could create dummy ones that would fill the NARC function of these fields and yet be clearly incomplete so that staff/volunteers could go back into the records and edit them to completion. Write back to me if you are interested in making provisional dummy record fields.

Otherwise, as far as I can recall from my faithful following of the listserv, Koha doesn't really make use of any of the Leader or 008 data (possible exception - media?).

Hope this helped.

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