Quoting from "MARC 21 Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, and Exchange Media
RECORD STRUCTURE", http://www.loc.gov/marc/specifications/specrecstruc.html#varifields "Indicators may be any ASCII lowercase alphabetic, numeric, or blank" Period. As mentioned by others, the '#' or '_' is simply a typographic convention for representing a blank. So yes, blank spaces are valid indicator values. Anne L. Highsmith Consortia Systems Coordinator 5000 TAMU Evans Library Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-5000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 979-862-4234 979-845-6238 (fax) >>> Chuck Bearden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/18/03 10:50PM >>> On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 07:50:39PM -0600, Ed Summers wrote: > On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 08:11:39PM -0500, Morbus Iff wrote: > > MARC::Field->new('100','1','', a=>'Logan, Robert K.', d=>'1939-'), > > MARC::Field->new('100','1','#', a=>'Logan, Robert K.', d=>'1939-'), > > I don't like this. The # is used simply as a typographical convention in LC's > online docs. It has nothing to do with the actual content found in MARC > records. I think Ed is right. As I recall, OCLC used to use an underscore for blank indicator positions, but now they seem to be using the doodad represented in this image: http://www.oclc.org/bibformats/images/specchar/blank.gif The OCLC conventions are probably much more widely known than the LC ones simply because most libraries doing copy cataloging use OCLC as their utility. The point about the hash sign as a typographic convention is also worth noting. That raises the (for me largely idle) question of whether a blank space ought to be acceptable as the value for an indicator position. Chuck
