Graham,
I don't believe this is specified (I thought computers knew that B came
after C!)  The sequencing of enumeration is ordinarily done through the
subfield $8, whose contents are entirely numeric; but I can see some cases
(such as if your sequence got wholly garbled) that it would be useful to
have the computer to sort it all out for you again by content of the
enumeration field. That's probably a luxury.  Ordinarily I'd expect a
computer to be able to reorder by position: if I were inserting new
volumes in a sequence, I'd expect the computer to resequence my subfield
8's by their position on the screen:  the second $8 1.1 becomes 1.2, the
third 1.3, etc.  Does this help?

Yes it is good to recognize that there are alphanumeric holdings or wholly
alphabetic enumerations, and the program does need to deal with them
(mostly simply accepting them as enumerations).

  As always, I'm glad to answer further questions on holdings.

----------
Frieda Rosenberg
Serials Cataloging
Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
friedat@email.unc.edu

On Wed, 15 Oct 1997, Graham Barr wrote:

> The examples given in the MARC manual for Holdings 853 $a-f seem to
> assume that the type of enumeration is numeric i.e., vol. 1 no. 4.  But
> some serials have other types of enumeration: alphanumeric, ordinal,
> roman, etc.  Where in the Holdings record do I specify type of
> enumeration?  If I don't specify, then how does the system recognize
> that after pt. B comes pt. C?
>
> Thank you
>
> Graham Barr <graham@DRA.COM>
>