[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] 008 field and leader

[Paul Hoffman]

Mieke,

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 08:41:56AM -0400, Mieke Stroo wrote:
> The positions 0-4 and 12-16 in the leader are unclear to us. According
> to the MARC 21 standard this information should be computer generated.
> Is it alright to use a set number (00620) for the positions 0-4 and
> leave the positions 12-16 open?

A MARC record consists of three parts: leader, directory, and field
contents.  Leader/0-4 encode the length (in bytes) of the whole record,
and leader/12-16 encodes the offset (in bytes) from the beginning of the
record to the beginning of the field contents -- in other words, the
length of the leader plus the length of the directory.  So they have to
be exactly right, which is why they're computer generated.  I don't know
enough about EG to know if it will tolerate incorrect values, but I
doubt it.

Paul.

-- 
Paul Hoffman <paul at flo.org>
Systems Librarian
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