Bib Data Basics for Query Writers

Abstract

Techies are often surprised by the complexity of bibliographic and holding data when they first encounter them, and librarians are often surprised by how tricky it can be to get these data out of Voyager. This session is for query writers of either background. We’ll see that bibs and holdings can be related in various ways, and how this is useful knowledge for query writers. We’ll look at a variety of ways to get at MARC data, including the BIB_TEXT, BIB_INDEX, ELINK_INDEX, and MARC*_VW tables. And we’ll wrap it up with the not-so-dreaded blob functions.