Globally editing out |a

["Davey ,Mr Paul" <p.davey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

Any experience or advice please?

I have a file of records where field 001 exists and contains only numerical text.
I have used Milcat global edit to change the field group from l (other indexed fields) to o (external system number).

The indexing is still working and the Webpac is still finding the records okay.
However, it has now starting displaying the text with |a at the beginning, which it certainly didn't before, and of course we don't want this. When I say |a, I mean the actual symbols "|a", not just the content of the subfield.
In the case of other records where the 001 was originally entered as field group o, the |a doesn't display.

If I look at the MARC records involved, either in telnet version or in Milcat quick edit, the |a doesn't appear, but then by default |a never does.

I can get around the problem by going into global edit and saying replace "|a" by "".
After doing this, the records display as I want them to, without |a, and the indexing still works. Also the MARC records look just the same.
But I feel nervous about this. If the text is not in |a, where is it?

Paul Davey
Cataloguing Services Manager
Collection Management
Wellcome Library
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
(+44) 020-7611-8493
p.davey@xxxxxxxxxx
The Wellcome Trust is a registered charity, no.210183.
Its sole Trustee is the Wellcome Trust Limited, a company
registered in England, no. 2711000, whose registered office is 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE.