MARC 21 Concise Holdings: Caption and Pattern Fields (853-855)

Information for Translators and Other Users
Items highlighted in red indicate changes made after the 2003 edition of the MARC 21 Concise Formats was published and are included in the 2004 printed edition of the MARC 21 Concise Formats.


CAPTION AND PATTERN FIELDS--GENERAL INFORMATION

Fields 853-855 contain captions that identify the enumeration and chronology levels, and codes that define the publication pattern of the holdings described in fields 863-865 (Enumeration and Chronology). Related occurrences of fields 853-855 and 863-865 are linked by a number in subfield $8 (Field link and sequence number).

A general description of the four types of holdings data fields and their relationship to each other is given in the Holdings Data--General Information section.

Indicators

Subfield Codes

Compression and expansion requirements

The following conditions must be present in a holdings statement for machine compression or expansion (itemization) to be possible.

Ordinal Numbers

To indicate that ordinal numbers should be displayed, a plus sign (+) may be used preceding the caption. If no caption is entered, a plus sign may be recorded alone to indicate display of the corresponding 863 subfield as an ordinal number.

853

03$81$a(year)$b+qtr.

863

40$81.1$a1982$b1

853

03$81$a+

863

40$81.1$a1

Note that there is no requirement that this technique of distinguishing between ordinal and cardinal numbers be used, nor is there any requirement that any differentiation need be made. A system would require internal language tables to display the correct ordinal numbers. There is no provision in the holdings format for communicating these tables.

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