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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 <[log in to unmask]> 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 >