RE: Initial articles.

["Wynn, Stephen" <swynn at truman dot edu>]

> 
> Just saw the most recent post on this.  First of all, 246s should never
> start with an initial article since there is no skip character indicator
> in
> the field.  Also any |t should never start with an initial article, per
> AACR2/LCRI.
>

It's so nice to hear someone else say this.

Catalogers know that 246, 7XX|t and 8XX|t don't have a skip character indicator because they don't need one: cataloging rules forbid entering initial articles in these fields. If there were such an indicator, it would always be "0", so what's the point.

III sees things a little differently: they see the absence of the superfluous skip character as a defect to be remedied.  See the manual on page #101141, which refers to the MARC format as "incomplete" and gives 7XX|t as an example of incompleteness.  The manual goes on to assure the user that, even though the MARC format is incomplete, III will still index the 7XX|t "correctly."  The manual doesn't bother to say what it means by "correctly."

In fact it does not index the 7XX|t correctly.  In our database, we have 35 records containing one or more 700 fields with a subfield t beginning with "A", "An", or "The."  III indexes none of these fields correctly.  Not one.

What III means by "correctly" is that it strips initial A's, An's and The's.  It does not strip initial articles, because 7XX|t does not contain initial articles.  So instead it strips foreign words and prepositions, and the infamous "A" from "A to Z."

Which means that "A la recherche du temps perdu" indexes under "A" when it occurs in a correctly-coded 245, but under "La" in a correctly-coded 700.  Whether you strip articles from OPAC searches or not, you have to do two separate OPAC searches to retrieve all copies of "A la recherché ... "

Curiously, the lack of a skip character indicator in 600|t causes III no problems: in a 600|t, "A la recherché ... " indexes under "A"

 
Stephen Wynn
swynn at truman dot edu
Cataloger
Truman State University
Kirksville, MO

> -----Original Message-----
> From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org [mailto:innopac-
> bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Gene Fieg
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 1:21 PM
> To: innopacusers
> Subject: Re: Initial articles.
> 
> Also, as I understand it, the "skip" field in the III record is generated
> by
> the skip indicator preceding the 245 field.
> 
> 
> Gene Fieg
> Cataloger
> Claremont School of Theology
> gfieg at cst dot edu
> 
> 
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