Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-26 Thread Tim Prettyman
You get the invalid indicator message with the FMT tag because ALEPH uses
it as a control field, with no subfields or indicators and  MARC::Record is
treating it as a variable field (it's making the assumption that unless a
tag is a control tag, ie  010, a field should have indicators and
subfields).  

You can avoid the issue of alpha tags by setting an option in the program
that exports MARC records from ALEPH (p_print_03), telling it to exclude
alpha tags.

Tim Prettyman
LIT/University of Michigan Library


On 6/25/08 4:55 PM, Eric Lease Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Jun 25, 2008, at 4:37 PM, Steve Oberg wrote:
 
 Ok. What's allowable/possible vs. what is actually defined as part of
 variable MARC data fields in say MARC21.  I'm amused by the
 hairsplitting. The bottom line is these particular fields are ALEPH
 specific and are not part of MARC21.  I agree with others that
 accounting for these in whatever parsing program you use should not be
 a big deal.
 
 
 Yep, I'm getting ALEPH output, and the issue is not so much whether or
 not alpha-named fields exist but whether or not my parsing tools
 (MARC::Batch and friends or Marc4J) handle them correctly. For
 example, MARC::Batch warns of invalid indicators with values such as
   BE. Who ever heard of an indicator being longer than two
 characters long?


Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-26 Thread Klein, Michael
Harvey Hahn wrote:

 Unfortunately, the most limiting aspect of the 24-character leader is
 that fact that only 5 digits (the first 5 characters of the leader) were
 specified as the maximum length of a MARC record.  Manipulating the
 various possible values of specific positions in the leader could lead
 to record/field/subfield sizes far larger than this, but the 5-digit
 (99,999 maximum) limitation is really *quite* limiting these days.

The truly evil solution to the record length issue: If byte 0 is in the
range '0'-'9', proceed as usual. If byte 0 is 'A'-'F', treat bytes 0-4 as a
hexadecimal number, subtract 0x87960, and convert to decimal. That way,
A becomes 10, and F becomes 493215. You've just quadrupled your
maximum record length while retaining some semblance of backward
compatibility.

(NOTE: Like most of my evil format-hijacking suggestions involving a meat
grinder and a shoehorn, I don't actually recommend putting this into
practice. The pain and anguish would far outweigh the temporary benefit.)

Michael

-- 
Michael B. Klein
Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian
Boston Public Library
(617) 859-2391
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


[CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-25 Thread Eric Lease Morgan

Are alpha characters used for field names valid in MARC records?

When we do dumps of MARC records our ILS often dumps them with FMT and  
CAT field names. So not only do I have glorious 246 fields and 100  
fields but I also have CAT fields and FMT fields. Are these features  
of my ILS -- extensions of the standard -- or really a part of MARC?  
Moreover, does something like Marc4J or MARC::Batch and friends deal  
with these alpha field names correctly?


--
Eric Lease Morgan


Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-25 Thread Steve Oberg
Eric,

This is definitely not a feature of MARC but rather a feature of your local
ILS (Aleph 500).  Those are local fields for which you'd need to make a
translation to a standard MARC field if you wanted to move that information
to another system that is based on MARC.

Steve

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Eric Lease Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Are alpha characters used for field names valid in MARC records?

 When we do dumps of MARC records our ILS often dumps them with FMT and CAT
 field names. So not only do I have glorious 246 fields and 100 fields but I
 also have CAT fields and FMT fields. Are these features of my ILS --
 extensions of the standard -- or really a part of MARC? Moreover, does
 something like Marc4J or MARC::Batch and friends deal with these alpha field
 names correctly?

 --
 Eric Lease Morgan



Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-25 Thread Bryan Baldus
On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Eric Lease Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Moreover, does something like Marc4J or MARC::Batch and friends deal
 with these alpha field names correctly?

I believe the Perl modules MARC::Batch/MARC::Record accept records with 
alphabetic characters as tags. Searching alpha tags (without quotes) at The 
Mail Archive for Perl4Lib [1] retrieves 6 messages in what appear to be two 
threads.

[1] http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]q=alpha+tags

I hope this helps,

Bryan Baldus
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.inwave.com/eija


Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-25 Thread Casey Durfee
Why don't systems use the 900 fields for local stuff like this?  That's what
they're there for, right?

--Casey

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 12:23 PM, Steve Oberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Eric,

 This is definitely not a feature of MARC but rather a feature of your local
 ILS (Aleph 500).  Those are local fields for which you'd need to make a
 translation to a standard MARC field if you wanted to move that information
 to another system that is based on MARC.

 Steve

 On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Eric Lease Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  Are alpha characters used for field names valid in MARC records?
 
  When we do dumps of MARC records our ILS often dumps them with FMT and
 CAT
  field names. So not only do I have glorious 246 fields and 100 fields but
 I
  also have CAT fields and FMT fields. Are these features of my ILS --
  extensions of the standard -- or really a part of MARC? Moreover, does
  something like Marc4J or MARC::Batch and friends deal with these alpha
 field
  names correctly?
 
  --
  Eric Lease Morgan
 



Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-25 Thread Steve Oberg
Ok. What's allowable/possible vs. what is actually defined as part of
variable MARC data fields in say MARC21.  I'm amused by the
hairsplitting. The bottom line is these particular fields are ALEPH
specific and are not part of MARC21.  I agree with others that
accounting for these in whatever parsing program you use should not be
a big deal.

Steve



On 6/25/08, Jonathan Rochkind [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I believe that alpha characters for field names ARE legal according to
 (most of the various) MARC standard(s). But they are not generally used
 in library MARC data.

 Jonathan

 Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
 Are alpha characters used for field names valid in MARC records?

 When we do dumps of MARC records our ILS often dumps them with FMT and
 CAT field names. So not only do I have glorious 246 fields and 100
 fields but I also have CAT fields and FMT fields. Are these features
 of my ILS -- extensions of the standard -- or really a part of MARC?
 Moreover, does something like Marc4J or MARC::Batch and friends deal
 with these alpha field names correctly?

 --Eric Lease Morgan


 --
 Jonathan Rochkind
 Digital Services Software Engineer
 The Sheridan Libraries
 Johns Hopkins University
 410.516.8886
 rochkind (at) jhu.edu



Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-25 Thread Eric Lease Morgan

On Jun 25, 2008, at 4:37 PM, Steve Oberg wrote:


Ok. What's allowable/possible vs. what is actually defined as part of
variable MARC data fields in say MARC21.  I'm amused by the
hairsplitting. The bottom line is these particular fields are ALEPH
specific and are not part of MARC21.  I agree with others that
accounting for these in whatever parsing program you use should not be
a big deal.



Yep, I'm getting ALEPH output, and the issue is not so much whether or  
not alpha-named fields exist but whether or not my parsing tools  
(MARC::Batch and friends or Marc4J) handle them correctly. For  
example, MARC::Batch warns of invalid indicators with values such as  
  BE. Who ever heard of an indicator being longer than two  
characters long?


--
Eric


Re: [CODE4LIB] alpha characters used for field names

2008-06-25 Thread Hahn, Harvey
Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
|Who ever heard of an indicator being longer than two characters long?

Byte 10 (zero origin) of the MARC leader specifies the number of
indicator characters.  MARC21 and its predecessors have always specified
2, but the possible range is 0 to 9.  The 24-character leader is the
wizard of MARC records, specifying what a particular version of MARC
looks like.  Libraries have always been very conservative in this
regard, using only a single set of specifications from 1968 to the
present.  However, the standard actually permits a very wide range of
possible implementations.

Unfortunately, the most limiting aspect of the 24-character leader is
that fact that only 5 digits (the first 5 characters of the leader) were
specified as the maximum length of a MARC record.  Manipulating the
various possible values of specific positions in the leader could lead
to record/field/subfield sizes far larger than this, but the 5-digit
(99,999 maximum) limitation is really *quite* limiting these days.  The
5-digit base address in positions 12-16 might pose a similar problem.
But people were thinking in catalog card terms back at the beginning of
MARC.  It's sort of like, are we putting unconscious limitations on
anything today in our specifications that future generations might wish
*we* had done differently?

Harvey
 
--
===
Harvey E. Hahn, Manager, Technical Services Department
Arlington Heights (Illinois) Memorial Library
847/506-2644 - FX: 847/506-2650 - Email: hhahn(at)ahml(dot)info
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