MANDATORY FIELD TABLE

This table contains all the fields defined as 'Mandatory' at the National Level in MARC 21. (A Mandatory data element is one which must be present in every bibliographic record.) The purpose of this table is to allow the cataloger to customize the list of Mandatory fields.

HOW IT WORKS

During validation, whenever a record lacks any Mandatory field/subfield with the ENABLED column set to 'Y', an alert message will be displayed. (The color code for Mandatory alerts is Black).

If you consistently and knowingly do not enter a field that the official MARC standards say is 'Mandatory', then you can disable the message regarding the missing field. Find the tag or subfield that you want to change and enter either 'Y' or 'N' as appropriate.

NOTE: Remember that the standards say that these fields MUST be present, so do not turn these messages off lightly.

The Mandatory table contains four fields.

1) ENABLED

This field is either set to 'Y' (Yes) or 'N' (No). By default, all rows are set to 'Y'. If you do not wish to be alerted whenever a record lacks a certain Mandatory field, set that field's ENABLED column to 'N'.

2) TAG

This field contains any USMARC tag from 001 to 999.

3) FORMAT

This field allows a tag to be specified as Mandatory for one format, but not mandatory for another. The formats currently supported by this field are:

USMARC Bibliographic (MARC 21)
Books (Print monographs)
Computer Files
Maps
Music
Serials
Visual Materials
Mixed Materials
USMARC Authority 
USMARC Community Information

If you click twice in a FORMAT cell with your mouse, an arrow will appear, which when clicked, will display a pop-up list containing all of the format values listed above.

4) SUBFIELD

This field contains the MARC subfield code within the tag that is defined as Mandatory.

If a subfield code is entered, then only that subfield is Mandatory, not the tag itself. In this case, if the tag is not present, there is no alert. There will only be an alert if the tag is present, and the subfield is not.

On the other hand, enter a '0' (zero) if no subfield is to be defined, and the whole tag will be considered Mandatory.

WHAT IS A SET?

We use the term 'Set' to refer to groups of decisions that you have saved about how MARC Report should operate. These sets are useful if you frequently work on files from different vendors or files of different types of records, and would like to configure the messages that are available accordingly.

HOW TO MAKE CHANGES

The default Mandatory Fields set is called 'DEFAULT'. You may not make changes to the default set.

To make changes to the Mandatory Fields, you will first need to create a new set. Select 'Create new set' from the 'File' menu, then enter a descriptive name for the set, and click 'Save'.

From this point on, this new set will be the one that the program uses (until you activate a different set).

Once you have created a new set, you can begin to customize it.

To disable or turn off a Mandatory field check, click the ENABLED column of the tag you wish to disable and type 'N'. To enable a Mandatory field check that you have previously disabled, click the ENABLED column of the tag and type 'Y'.

HOW TO ADD A MANDATORY CHECK

You may wish to add your own tags to his table so that you can be alerted whenever an important local tag is not present in a record.

Click on the row below where you would like to add a tag and then press the <Insert> key. Or, if you want to add something to the very end of the table, go to the last row and press the Down Arrow key.

Then enter the appropriate values as defined above.

NOTE: If you add or enable a Mandatory check for a local tag that is not included in one of the LC validation tables, you will have to add this tag to your Local validation table. For example, 092 is not defined as a valid tag in MARC 21, and will therefore always come up as invalid. The workaround is to add 092 to your local validation table as a valid tag.

HOW TO DELETE A MANDATORY CHECK

We recommend that you disable checks (by setting the ENABLED column to 'Y') rather than deleting them.

SAVING CHANGES

When you are finished making changes, click the 'Save' button to save your changes; if you press the 'Cancel' button, the Mandatory table will be restored to the state it was when you last opened it.

If you enter any incorrect data, or leave one of the four columns blank, the program will alert you when you click the Save button. Note also that any duplicate rows will be discarded when the window is closed.

SORTING

You can sort this table simply by clicking on any of the column titles. Clicking on the column title a second time, reverses the sort order.

phelp/helpmandatory.txt · Last modified: 2021/12/29 16:21 (external edit)
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