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The myriad levels of confusion for a programmer who is not trained as a cataloguer are not to be understimated in terms of time required to understand the marc MARC data and to write code to extract the correct data elements.  Those who plan to use MARC data in their queries should work closely with colleagues who have extensive experience with MARC.

This documentation briefly describes a few of the main fields that query writers will need to use in order to count materials by format. For queries Queries that need to include details of materials, it is necessary to consult with an experienced cataloger or query writer who has in-depth knowledge of the MARC system. 

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In the screenshot below (table 5), the first character in the 00 position is ‘c’, indicating it is an electronic resource. Clicking on details for 'electronic resource', we see that the second character (in the 01 position) is ‘r’,  which indicates it is a remote resource. The fourth charater (in the 03 position) refers to 'color', and the value 'n' indicates 'non-applicable'. 

Table 5.

For a brief description of all fields including fields with indicators, please see the MARC documentation 'Understanding MARC'.