On 5/21/12 1:30 PM, J. McRee Elrod wrote:
subarrange a set of identical primary data elements (e.g., name, $b
birth year...
That's $d birth and/or death year; 100$b is seldom used numeration.
A greater problem with MARC than variable fields and subfields, we
find, are fixed fields, particularly the the varying meanings of
positions depending on the LDR/06 code.
I suspect that this was one of the space-saving aspects of the MARC
format (and by that I mean Z39.2) that traded off record size for
processing complexity. Were we to develop a new data format today (what
an idea!) I think we wouldn't have to have this functionality where
positions change meaning based on a code located elsewhere in the
record. I also think this is a carry-over from the fact that the first
versions of MARC handled only books, then serials and other formats were
added over time. It was a solution that became more awkward as the
number of formats grew.
kc
The UTLAS solution which worked very well was to have the fixed fields
in the 1000 range, with no variation in meaning.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([email protected])
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
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Karen Coyle
[email protected] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
