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Overview |
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Overview
It sounds kind of obvious when I say it, but here goes.
We try to use our Integrated Library System (Voyager) to store as much information about the materials in our collection as possible.
OK, unfortunately, our previous Library System had many limitations and we created many databases, lists, and word processing documents to help us do our work. We are still identifying those "outside the system" places where our data lives and working to incorporate that data into Voyager.
One of the "outside the system" databases that we created to help us manage our serials collection tracked the routing of new issues to our faculty and staff, and printed a variety of reports. One of the reports - the Periodicals Holdings List - is used in our Reference department.
The first step in integrating the functions of the "outside the system" database into Voyager was to update our MARC records to include complete and accurate holdings information.
We chose to code our periodicals holdings using the MARC Format for Holdings Data and used two different fields or field sets, depending on the nature of the holdings information.
Standard retention periods, such as "Current 10 years" or "Current 2 months," were entered in MFHD field 866 (Textual Holdings).
Actual holdings, for titles that we keep in entirety or for titles of which we have a closed run, were entered in MFHD fields 853 (Captions and Pattern) and 863 (Enumeration and Chronology).
The 866 fields are fairly easy to include in a Microsoft Access query. (Thanks to people like Alan Manifold, extracting data from the Blob isn't quite as scary as it used to be. A search the of the Voyager-L archives can provide lots of information about Blob queries, or better yet attend one of Alan's entertaining presentations on the topic.)
Unfortunately, displaying information from the 853 and 863 fields isn't quite so easy as getting readable text from the 866 fields. The difficulty is caused by the way information is stored in the 853 and 863 fields. Here are the 853 and 863 tags for our holdings of American Atheist Newsletter:
853 a v. b no. i mo. j (year)
863 a 32 - 39 b 1 - 1 i Jan. - Jan. j 1993 - 2000
As you can see, the information in the 853 and 863 tags is stored in a format that is familiar to catalogers, but not to those of us who are users of catalogs.
Fortunately, the Voyager OPAC has an internal algorithm that interprets and displays the holdings fields in a readable fashion. Something like:
v. 32, no. 1 - v. 39, no. 1 (Jan. 1993 - Jan. 2000)
In order for our Periodicals Holdings List to be usable for our patrons, we needed a way to mimic Voyager's algorithm while creating a meaningful display of the holdings information from within Microsoft Access.
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Overview |
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