Item sorting by chronology

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 17.01

Description:
A serial title has no enumeration designation, only chronology (year, month, day); the sort requested in tab_z30_sort is 00 (chronological enumeration...then item-sequence).
Why does it not display in order?

Resolution:
In version 14.2, there were only four ISSUE sorts (specified in the tab_z30_sort header): 00, 01, 02, and 03.
None of these included the z30_chronological_j, _k, _l, or _m. These original item enumeration/chronology fields were based on MARC21 853 field standards.
The MARC standard says this: "When only chronology captions are used on an item (that is, the item carries no enumeration), the chronology captions are contained in the relevant enumeration caption subfields ($a-$h)."
Here is an example from the MARC21 website:
854 03 $81 $a(year) $b(month) $c(day)....

If you hadn't followed this convention, the only way to get a correct sort was to change to it and move the data from the i/j/k to the a/b/c.

Starting in version 15.2 and continuing in 16.02 and 17 other sorts have been added, so that we now have these ISSUE sorts:

! 00 - by numbering, ignores location, reverses enum b/c
! 01 - by numbering, ignores location
! 02 - by location (using HOL records), then numbering
! 03 - by location (using sublibrary), then sequence
! 04 - by location (using sublibrary), then numbering
! 06 - by sublibrary (preferred sublibrary by IP)
! 07 - by 85x
! 08 - by 85x [like 07, with addition of Z30-COPY-ID]
! 09 - by vendor code

Note: The description for "COL. 3" in the tab_z30_sort header is incorrect and incomplete in versions 15.2-17.01.
You should instead refer to the "sort identifiers for ISS.. issue items" and "sort identifiers for non issue items" sections preceding the column descriptions for correct and complete information.

ISSUE sorts 06, 07, and 08 use the z30_chronological fields -- so you should be able to get a decent sort even if you are following a non-MARC convention (using the chron instead of the enum).

For example, ISSUE sort 06 looks like this:

! 06 - by sublibrary (preferred sublibrary by IP)
! ------------------------------------------------------
! sublibrary name+
! collection code+
! chronological-i+
! chronological-j+
! chronological-k+
! description+
! copy-id
! * tab_attr_sub_library type 7 defines which sublibrary will
! be first in the list.