ATTN: Lex users and librarians
SUBJECT: Finding records without barcodes; Field specific searches

Barcodes in Lexifile and Lexwin go in the MARC 901$a subfield. Many of you
are unaware of the tag numbers for fields and that is not generally a
problem or limitation.

However after you have barcoded your collection you may still have records
without barcodes recorded for them. This means they are "floating," you can
search for these items, but not check them out, and not inventory them.

This problem should be solved, and here is how.

To get a list of all records without barcodes, search for

901!=$a

This really means to the system "Find all records for which the 901
(holdings field) does not (!) have a "$a" (barcode) subfield filled in, in
other words, records that do not have barcodes recorded.

This works for both Lexifile and LexWin. Note that this process will only
find records for which no barcodes are present at all. It will not find an
item that has TWO copies but only ONE has no
barcode.

Regarding the field specific "=" type of search:

It is slower, the search it just scans all fields of a certain number and
searches for a "text string" that follows the "=" sign. If you searched for

245=ABC

you would find all records having a standard 245 (title) field with the
letters ABC present. If you search for

245!=The

you would find all records NOT containing the string "The" in the title.


Jim Bruce
Lex Systems
Product Support