Vine Volume 2 Issue 3 1972

LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY In order to fulfil the original aims of MINICS to provide a record structure hospitable to data describing all types of media — monographs, series, serials, etc. — the data fields are being redefined and a new feature incorporated to encode the significance of the contents of fields. The three levels of record — serial/series, monograph or individual item, and analytical are being retained and tags are still two digits. The MINICS record, based on MARC, is made up of a fixed length leader, a variable length directory and variable length data fields. The data fields fall into four categories: control elements, such as accession number, ISSN, ISBN, physical medium code; cataloguing data; linking elements, such as former and later title; and stock maintenance elements, such as frequency of publication, supplier, binding details. A range of field indicators has been defined which, when applied after a tag, show the significance of the data, e.g. whether a main or added heading is required, or distinguish data of a subsidiary nature. These indicators also act as dividers between repeated uses of a field.