MARC 21 Concise Holdings: Holdings Data--General Information

This is an ARCHIVED VERSION of the 2001 electronic edition of the MARC 21 Concise Formats. Please see
www.loc.gov/marc/concise/ for the most up-to-date version of the electronic MARC 21 Concise Formats.

In the MARC 21 Holdings format, a variety of holdings data fields are defined for recording information about the items actually held by a reporting organization. These data elements are divided into the follow four groups where descriptions of specific fields can be found:

• Captions and Pattern (853-855)
• Enumeration and Chronology (863-865)
• Textual Holdings (866-868)
• Item Information (876-878)

The holdings data fields accommodate three basic types of items: single-part items (Leader/06, Type of record, code x), multipart items (Leader/06, code v), and serial items (Leader/06, code y).

Within each set of fields, separate fields are defined for three categories:

• Basic Bibliographic Unit
• Supplementary Material
• Indexes

A basic bibliographic unit is an entity for which a bibliographic description exists, for example, a serial, a one-volume book, a multivolume encyclopedia. This category includes an index or supplementary material for which a separate bibliographic record exists. The supplementary material and indexes categories are used for supplementary materials and indexes for which the cataloging is included in the catalog record for the basic bibliographic unit, that is, no separate cataloging record exists.

Subfield $8 (Field link and sequence number) is defined to link related 853-878 holdings data fields. Subfield $8 is structured as follows:

<linking number>.<sequence number>

Only the linking number portion is used in the Caption and Pattern (853-855) and Textual Holdings (866-868) fields. In Enumeration and Chronology (863-865) and Item Information (876-878) fields, subfield $8 contains both a linking number and a sequence number. The description for subfield $8 is given in the Control Subfields section of this publication, or in Appendix A of the MARC 21 Format for Holdings Data.

Caption and Pattern Fields (853-855)

Specify the caption appropriate for each level of enumeration and chronology present in the 863-865 Enumeration and Chronology field that is linked to it by subfield $8 (Field link and sequence number). A caption is a word, phrase, or abbreviation that describes the type of parts into which a multipart or serial item has been divided, for example, volume, number, part, side. These fields may also contain codes that define the publication pattern of the bibliographic item, for example, frequency, regularity pattern. These codes allow information in the Enumeration and Chronology fields (863-865) to be compressed or expanded by computer algorithm.

When no captions and/or compression or expansion capability for an 863-865 field is desired, the captions and pattern fields are not required in a holdings statement.

Enumeration and Chronology Fields (863-865)

Contain the numeric, alphabetic, and/or date designation used on the bibliographic item that identifies its parts and shows the relationship of the parts to the whole.

The 853-855 Captions and Pattern and 863-865 Enumeration and Chronology fields, linked by subfield $8 (Field link and sequence number), are generally used for multipart and serials items when a caption is needed for an intelligible display of the enumeration and chronology data or when publication pattern data is needed to allow the compression or expansion of an 863-865 field by computer algorithm.

Textual Holdings Fields (866-868)

Contain free-text enumeration and chronology data. They are not generally used for recording holdings for single-part items. They may be used instead of the coded captions and pattern (853-855) and enumeration and chronology (863-865) fields for multipart and serial items when those fields cannot be used adequately to describe the holdings. The 866-868 fields may also be used in addition to an Enumeration and Chronology field and any associated Captions and Pattern field to record and generate an alternative display for all or part of the data contained in those fields.

Subfield $8 (Field link and sequence number) is defined for the Textual Holdings fields to link the field with the caption and pattern (853-855) and enumeration and chronology (863-865) fields that it replaces or supplements.

The guidelines for applying the content designators and the input conventions for the holdings data fields are given in the following General Information sections: 853-855, 863-865, and 866-868.

Item Information Fields (876-878)

Contain item level information about the copy described in field 852. They contain various data elements that need to be recorded for specific items for use, for example in acquisitions or circulation applications, among others.

Either subfield $3 or subfield $8 is used to link an Item Information field with another holdings field, depending upon which other field is used to record the holdings data. Subfield $3 is used to link to field 852 or 866-868; subfield $8 is used to link to fields 863-866, in which case the enumeration and chronology field must not be compressed beyond the individual physical piece.

Compressibility and Expandability

A computer algorithm may be used to compress or expand (itemize) the enumeration and chronology data contained in field 863 (Enumeration/Chronology - Basic Bibliographic Unit) or in field 864 (for the Enumeration/Chronology - Supplementary Material). Compression or expansion capability is indicated by the value assigned to the first indicator position (Compressibility and expandability) in field 853 or 854. Fields 853/863 and 854/864 are linked by the number in subfield $8 (Field link and sequence number) in each field.

The contents of an 856 enumeration and chronology field for an index may not be compressed or expanded by computer algorithm because an ambiguous holdings string could result. For example, compressed holdings for the first twenty-four volumes of an index that cumulates every fifth volume could be either v. 1-24 or v. 1/5-24. In the second holdings string, the first cumulation is shown but nothing is known about subsequent cumulations. The second indicator position of field 855 (Captions and Pattern--Indexes) is undefined.

Compression means that the content of the enumeration and chronology subfields ($a-$m) in one or more occurrences of field 863 or 864 can be converted from an itemized report of a range of holdings to one that expresses the same holdings in terms of the enumeration or chronology of only the first and last part held.

Expanded (itemized) holdings:

Compressed holdings:

Expansion means that the content of the enumeration and chronology subfields ($a-$m) in one or more 863 or 864 fields can be converted from a compressed first-and-last-part-held listing of a range of holdings to an explicit itemization of each part held.

Compressed holdings:

Expanded (itemized) holdings:

The specific data element requirements for compression and expansion by computer algorithm are given in the 853-855 Captions and Pattern--General Information section.

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