If this goes astray forgive me, I'm new at this.

     We are coding th $7 subfield in the 780 and 785 fields only.  When we came
 up on NOTIS and I found the instructions for the subfield at the end of the
NOTIS Terminal Operator's Manual, I started asking why we had to this field and
what would happen if we didn't.  The best we could figure was that it had to
do with indexing.  In a system where you indicate an author or a title search,
there needs to be some kind of indication which file it goes into.  We very,
very seldom tag the $7 subfield in any of the other 7xx field that could use
it.  It was felt that those entries would just clutter up the index that much
more.

    I find the $7 subfield to be an absolute nuisance, since any time I over
lay a serial record with an updated record from OCLC I have to recode the
subfield.  Anyone know a way to get around that?

Yvonne Stroup
Serials Cataloger
Marriott Library
University of Utah
(ystroup@utahlib)