Re: Number of Characters in 505 field

[Kyle Banerjee <kyle.banerjee@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> We are trying to determine how many characters we can store in a single 
> 505 content field.
> Is there a limitation on the number of characters in this field or it is 
> unlimited?


This depends on how you populate the 505 field. The MARC format 
inherently limits variable length fields to 10,000 characters. However, 
if you work with OCLC using passport or catme records of over 600 
characters get segmented. Also, you are limited to 1879 characters 
between the beginning and end of field markers.

The MARC record itself is limited to 99,999 characters so you repeat the 
505 quite a few times if you are entering information directly into III, 
but capacity is not unlimited. Again, if you are working through 
passport in OCLC, the maximum record size is 4096 characters.

See 
http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/worldcat/cataloging/refcard/default.htm 
for details on OCLC limitations

Technical limitations aside, though, long fields can be difficult to 
read and may cause searches to give false hits if they are indexed.


kyle


--
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Kyle Banerjee
Oregon State Library
250 Winter ST
Salem, OR 97301-3950
(503)378-4243 ext. 260
kyle.banerjee@xxxxxxxxxx