On Mon, 21 Feb 2011, Peter J. Halliday wrote: > I'm trying to find out the significance of the field_number field in > bibrec_bib97x. I looked other bibrec_bibxxx tables. However, I can > not deduce a significance besides for ordering
Indeed, it exists precisely for field ordering purposes. Note that it is also necessary to group together subfields that belong to the same field instance. For example, consider the following co-authors in MARC tag 700: 700 $a Doe, John $e editor 700 $a Mustermann, Erika $e spokesperson The 700__a and 700__e values are stored independently in the bib70x table and it is the field_number in the bibrec_bib70x table that determines which $a is coupled with which $e in the same field instance for this record. Best regards -- Tibor Simko
