[Koha] Koha for beginners

[Eric Phetteplace]

Hi Mehvish,

MARC is, unfortunately, a really difficult data format to understand
without any library science background. The numbers are fields like author
name, title statement, and subject while the letters prefixed with some
symbol (often $, but ‡ is used too) is a subfield. So a 245 title field has
title subfield $a, subtitle subfield $b, author statement $c, etc.

The cataloging editor does link to some documentation but you can use the
OCLC or Library of Congress sites to read more about field meanings:

https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/

https://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/about.html

To answer your specific question about language codes, here's a quote from
OCLC:

   - A single language code may be insufficient to describe the language of
   an item. If the item is multilingual or a translation, use multiple
   language codes. Enter the first code in Lang. Enter the multiple codes
   (including the first code) in field 041 (Language Code).
   - Use the predominant language code for a multilingual item that has two
   to six languages. If predominance cannot be determined, use the code that
   is first alphabetically. If the multilingual item has more than six
   languages, use the code for the language of the first title in field 245.
   If the item is multilingual with no predominant language and the cataloging
   institution has chosen not to specify a language, use code *mul*.

https://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/fixedfield/lang.html is the page where I
found that.

Hope that's helpful, good luck with your cataloging!

Best,
Eric Phetteplace
Systems Librarian
California College of the Arts
libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu
510.594.3660
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