On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 08:57:52AM -0600, Anne Highsmith wrote:
> Yup, looks like it. This is a new one on me, who haven't really studied
> MARC since I escaped from MARBI in 1992. Maybe this is a USMARC->MARC 21
> change, i.e. something that came in with MARC 21? Or was it a change in
> the ANSI or ISO standards? I don't think lowercase alphabetics were
> valid indicators in USMARC, which is why I'm positing a change
> somewhere, although my memory may be deficient. In any case, the LOC
> statement as to current standard seems quite clear.
ANSI Z39.2-1994 defines "Indicator" thus:
Indicator-A one-character data element that is associated with a
data field and that supplies additional information about the
field. When indicators are present, they are the first data
elements in the field. (p. 3)
The standard doesn't say what kind of character is permissible in an
indicator. They do explicitly say that tags are alpha-numeric: "A
tag shall contain three alphabetic or numeric ASCII graphic
characters" (p. 4).
I haven't forked over the Swiss francs to buy ISO 2709, so I can't say
if they explicitly allow alphabetic characters as indicators.
Doesn't it seem strange how much I still seem to care about MARC, given
that I haven't cataloged (or supported catalogers) in at least five
years? Should I be concerned?
Chuck
