Library

MARC fields usage

This table lists the MARC fields which have been used in catalogue records by the Computer Laboratory library. It lists both the total number of occurences of each field, together with the number of records over which they are found. The same figures are given for both 2010 and 2016, the years for which I have available MARC data.

The figures enable one to spot possible errors, such as duplicated 100 and 440 fields. The program which produced this report can also list the control numbers of the records with the incorrectly duplicated fields which will enable these records to be corrected manually. In many cases they are short records for archival material, so it makes sense to upgrade the records at the same time.

Note that some counts are not accurate, as my program currently relies on fields being in the correct order to determine whether a field is duplicated. This is not always the case. For example, the table suggests that one record has two 245 fields, while another record lacks even a title! Further investigation shows that all records do indeed have exactly one 245 field.

Comparing the statistics for the two years shows the number of records which have been newly created, as well as the number of RDA records in the system (either newly created, or old records which have been upgraded). A record lacking a 650 sibject headings field is likely to be in need of upgrading. Thus, the increase in the number of such fields is an indication of my progress in updating records.