[Koha-devel] Clarification of jargon & tidying up

[Stephen Hedges]

lars at rovaniemelainen.com said:
> Could I ask for a little clarification or confirmation/denial of
> my initial guesses?  Specifically,
>
>  * what are "tags"?  MARC/UNIMARC/MARC21 fields? e.g.:
> 	 mandatory "tags" empty

"fields" or "field identifiers" will work, depending on whether you are
talking about the tag itself or the data identified by the tag.  Here's
the Library of Congress' description (from
http://www.loc.gov/marc/96principl.html):

6. Variable Fields and Tags
6.1. The data in a MARC record is organized into fields, each identified
by a three-character tag.
6.2. According to ANSI Z39.2, the tag must consist of alphabetic or
numeric ASCII graphic characters, i.e., decimal integers 0-9 or letters
A-Z (uppercase or lowercase, but not both). The MARC 21 formats have used
only numeric tags.
6.3. The tag is stored in the directory entry for the field, not in the
field itself.

-- 
Stephen Hedges
Skemotah Solutions, USA
www.skemotah.com  --  shedges at skemotah.com