*****************************************
              *                                       *
              *  ATTRIBUTE SET BIB-1 (Z39.50-1995):   *
              *             SEMANTICS                 *
              *                                       *
              *****************************************

                           September 1995
2.6  COMPLETENESS ATTRIBUTES  (TYPE = 6)

The Completeness attribute specifies that the contents of the search
term represent a complete or incomplete subfield or a complete field.
Completeness indicates whether additional words should appear in a field
or subfield with the search term.  Note the difference from Truncation
(Section 2.5 above), which handles characters added to words, phrases,
or strings.

For the purpose of describing the Completeness attributes, when the
expressions "field" or "subfield" do not have another understood meaning
(as prescribed, for example, by the schema in use) these two expressions
are used as follows:

       - "subfield" has no meaning, and the Completeness attribute
           incomplete subfield is used to mean "incomplete field".
       - "field" refers to the portion of the record to which the access
           point refers.


The Completeness attributes are the following:

        Completeness             Value   Definition
        ----------------------   -----   ---------------------------------
        Incomplete subfield        1     Words other than those in the search
                                         term may appear in the subfield
                                         or field in which the term appears.

        Complete subfield          2     No words other than those in the
                                         search term should appear in the
                                         entire subfield in which the term
                                         appears, but additional words may
                                         appear in other subfields in the
                                         field.

        Complete field             3     No words other than those in the
                                         search term should appear in the
                                         entire field in which the term
                                         appears.


3.  RULES AND GUIDELINES

3.1  DERIVED KEY SEARCHES (STRUCTURE ATTRIBUTE = KEY)

If supplied, the following attribute values would be used for a derived key
search.

       -  Position should always be 'first in field', even for
            author/title or name/title use attributes.
       -  Completeness should always be 'incomplete'.
       -  Truncation should always be 'right truncation'.
       -  Relation is always 'equal'.


3.2  NUMBER SEARCHES (e.g., LCCN, ISBN, ISSN, Control Numbers)

       -  Structure is 'word' or 'phrase' depending on whether the
            number contains internal blanks.
       -  Position and Completeness attributes are determined for number
            arguments as they are for textual arguments.
       -  all naturally occurring blanks, hyphens, slashes, etc., should be in
            the number search term if possible because different systems
            handle numbers in different ways in their indexes.  The target
            system should apply normalization to the number according to its
            requirements, or return appropriate messages to allow the user to
            reformat the number.


3.3  MISCELLANEOUS

       -  search arguments generally should not be normalized by the origin
            system.  They should be normalized by the target system.
       -  Position attribute 'any position in field' is compatible
            only with the 'incomplete subfield' Completeness attribute.


4.  NEW ATTRIBUTES

The Z39.50 Maintenance Agency manages the addition of attributes to the
bib-1 attribute set.  Generally, suggestions for new attributes are
posted to the Z39.50 Implementors Group list and discussed at a
subsequent ZIG meeting before being included in the attribute set.