[Koha-devel] Correct size of UNIMARC Leader field (000 - Record Label): 24 or 25 characters?

[Ricardo Dias Marques]

Hi all,

As I mentioned in previous posts, I'm running  the Koha 3 developer
snapshot that was available on 28-May-2008 in a Xen Virtual Machine
running Linux (openSUSE 10.3). The Koha database version is
3.00.00.086.

I'm using UNIMARC with Zebra disabled.

I have inserted bibliographic records were in Koha by running the
bulkmarcimport.pl script "through" an ISO file (that contained about
9000 bibliographic records of articles):

# /root/Koha/misc/migration_tools/bulkmarcimport.pl -c UNIMARC -file
/root/myfile.iso

... and, after doing that, I have run the rebuild_nozebra.pl script
located in the /usr/share/koha/bin/migration_tools directory. This
also worked well.


The problem that I mention in the subject appeared when I tried to
*edit* one of these imported records: if I go to the tab 0, click on
the the "000 - Record Label" field and press TAB to take the focus OUT
of that field, I get the following JavaScript alert:

"leader has an incorrect size: 24 instead of 25 chars"


I have searched git - http://git.koha.org - and I found this commit by
tipaul (Paul Poulain):

leader length checking bugfix : 25 and not 24
http://git.koha.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=Koha;a=commit;h=967542e32598bcfe6d35e82a0311b1d54aa60405

Changed file: cataloguing/value_builder/unimarc_leader.pl

Diff:
____________________

 function Blur$function_name(subfield_managed) {
-    if (document.forms['f'].field_value[subfield_managed].value.length != 24) {
-        alert('leader has an incorrect size: ' +
document.forms['f'].field_value[subfield_managed].value.length + '
instead of 24 chars');
+    if (document.forms['f'].field_value[subfield_managed].value.length != 25) {
+        alert(_('leader has an incorrect size: ' +
document.forms['f'].field_value[subfield_managed].value.length + '
instead of 25 chars'));
     }
     return 1;
 }
____________________


I'm confused. By reading the following page from the UNIMARC
specification in the IFLA (International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions) web site, it seems that the original
size (24 characters) was the correct one for the Leader / Record Label
field:

Record Label
http://www.ifla.org/VI/3/p1996-1/uni.htm


Quoting from that web page:
____________________

Fixed Length Data Elements

These data elements are identified by character position within the
label. The label as a whole is always 24 characters in length.
Conventionally the character positions are numbered 0 to 23.
____________________


Am I misinterpreting the UNIMARC spec?

Thanks in advance!

Best wishes,
Ricardo Dias Marques
lists AT ricmarques DOT net
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