Re: MARC 856 question

I recently analyzed how many times this subfield occurs in our 856 tags to determine whether I should spend any time in configuring our discovery system to display it properly (it does not). We have about 1.2 million instances of the 856 tag, and about 50 of those have subfield y. Many of those were improperly coded and should be subfield 3. We display the contents of subfield u as the link text, except in the result screen where we use a clickable icon that says "online." 


Corinna Baksik
Harvard University Library
Office for Information Systems
90 Mt. Auburn St. 
Cambridge, MA 02472
617.495.3724


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
> Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 10:30 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] MARC 856 question
> 
> It's completly unpredictable. Actually existing data has a varied motley
> of inconsistent notes and text spread accross $y, $z, and $3, and actual
> systems do all manner of things with them.  Makes it very difficult to
> display 856's in any reasonable way at all.
> 
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] on
> behalf of David Jones [djones_at_SCU.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 8:23 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] MARC 856 question
> 
> >>> On 5/10/2011 at 04:58 PM, Karen Coyle <lists_at_KCOYLE.NET> wrote:
> > I know that this is a "maybe, sortta" kind of question, but in
> > creating an 856 field that needs a particular display ("Click here
> for
> > x"), can I assume that most systems will take that from a 856 $y?
> Does
> > anyone use the $i for display?
> 
> Actually, I don't think either the $y or $i are prominent. Not even LOC
> thinks that $y is:
> 
> http://www.loc.gov/marc/856guide.html#data_elements
> Subfield $y (Link Text). Subfield $y contains link text which is used
> for display in place of the URL in subfield $u. Often URLs are difficult
> to read and most systems do not display them to the user. Since subfield
> $y was not approved until June 2000 (see Proposal 2000-07), there have
> been various practices in terms of systems using data in the field as
> link text. Some systems have used subfields $3 or $z in the past for
> this purpose. It is not clear how widespread the use of subfield $y is
> since its approval.
> 
> AFAIK, $i is not meant for public consumption and is probably obsolete.
> OCLC seems to agree given their one example:
> 
> http://www.oclc.org/bibformats/es/8xx/856.shtm
> ‡i Instruction  The instruction or command needed for the remote
> host to process a request.
> 856     0               uccvma.bitnet ‡ f IR-L ‡ h Listserv ‡ i
> subscribe
> 
> AFAIK, most systems still use $z and/or $3 for the public link text.
> 
> HTH,
> David
> 
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________
> David Jones                                     mailto:djones_at_scu.edu
> Library Systems Manager                  http://www.scu.edu/library/
> University Library                               fax:   408-551-1805
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> _____________________________________________________________________
> Logic must take care of itself.
> -- Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-196, 22.8.14