Creating lists - empty variable fields

[innopac@xxxxxxxxxx (Matt Polcyn)]

Barb,

Try searching for item records where VOLUME is not equal to blank (press
enter) and VOLUME is less than "                                          "
(i.e. a whole string of spaces.

We've found quite a few of them (records with apparently blank fields) in
our database as well.

Good luck!!

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: West, Barbara - HPL [mailto:Barbara.West@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 3:21 PM
To: IUG Listserve (E-mail)
Subject: Creating lists - empty variable fields


I've been reading the suggestions about how to create lists of records with
blank fixed fields.  At HALAN we have a different problem.

We are doing a massive cleanup of the Volume field to prepare for two of our
member sites initiating Automated Request Processing (aka Patron-Placed
Holds.)  Lots of messy data came across when we migrated from our old
system, so I've been creating multitudes of lists and using MilCat to delete
invalid volume data.  Any data in the volume field will prompt the patron to
select a specific item for hold rather than placing a title-level hold,
which is all that is needed in the majority of cases.

We have recently discovered, however, that even the presence of an -empty-
volume field will trigger a prompt to select a specific item.  Although the
final step in my processing is to delete the volume field from records in
each list, there are an unknown number of empty volume fields remaining in
the database.  We think they were created because one of our members
included volume in some of their item templates.

So -- has anyone successfully searched for empty variable fields?  What
syntax did you use?  Everything I've tried either pulls up records with
volume fields that aren't really empty, or records with no volume fields at
all.  There are so many variables involved that looking for records that "do
not have [value]" is impractical.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barbara F. West, Assistant Database Administrator
Houston Area Automated Library Network (HALAN)
500 McKinney Ave.
Houston, TX 77002-2534
Phone:   832-393-1410
Fax: 	   713-247-1182
E-Mail:  Barbara.West@xxxxxxxxxx

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