BCC2002/SMF/3 2002 MARBI, ALA Annual Report

BCC2002/SMF/3

MARBI/MARC Advisory Committee
Report from the ALA Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, June 2002

Submitted by Paul Cauthen, Chair, MARC Formats Subcommittee

MARBI and the MARC Advisory Committee met concurrently in three sessions during the ALA Annual Meeting in Atlanta; the third session was a joint meeting with CC:DA. Chair William Jones (NYU) led the first two sessions.

Summary:
This year’s meeting was occupied primarily with two tasks: final discussion and approval of a number of previously-presented proposals and the initial discussion of what will become in the next year a major topic of discussion for MARBI and especially for CC:DA: the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR).

Highlights:
There were two proposals of particular interest to the music community:

Proposals:

2001-10R: Definition of Additional Codes in Field 007/10 (Type of material) for Sound Recordings (approved as amended)
This proposal revises existing categories and defines new categories of materials used in the manufacture of sound recordings, primarily to be used in the identification of items with preservation needs. When first presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting, the proposal was tabled for broader consultation with the archival sound recordings community; specific comment from MLA was solicited. After presentation and discussion at the 2002 MLA meeting in Las Vegas, five recommendations were forwarded to the authors of the proposal. Four of the MLA recommendations were incorporated into the revised proposal; the fifth, concerning treatment of the material cellulose, was not addressed. The MLA representative allowed that, as cellulose materials could be treated as “other,” the revised proposal was acceptable as presented.

2002-06R: Changes in Field 008 in the MARC 21 Holdings Format (approved as amended)
The proposal defines additional codes in field 008/07 to identify additional methods of acquisition and renames field 008/08 to “expected end date.” Originally presented at Midwinter, 2001.

2002-10: Defining URI subfields in field 506 (Restrictions on Access Note) and field 540 (Terms Governing Use and Reproduction Note) (approved)
The proposal adds $u to field 506 (Restrictions on access note) and field 540 (Terms governing use and reproduction note) in the Bibliographic Format in order to provide a direct link between bibliographic records and addressable electronic files containing current information concerning restrictions imposed on access, use and/or reproduction of materials described in the records.

2002-11: Repertoire Expansion in the Universal Character Set for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (approved)
The proposal expands, for records in UCS/Unicode only, the repertoire permitted in MARC 21 to include all characters from the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics set. First presented as a discussion paper at Midwinter 2002: 2002-DP06.

2002-12: Coding for Publication Pattern at the First Level of Enumeration in MARC 21 Holdings Records (tabled)
The proposal considers the need to code publication pattern subfields $v (Numbering continuity), $u (Bibliographic units per next higher level) and $x (Calendar change) in fields 853-855 when only one level of enumeration is present. Referred to serials committees for further analysis of the issue.

2002-13: Changes for Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) Subject Headings (approved as emended)
OCLC is developing a subject vocabulary, Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST), for application to web resources. It is based on LCSH, but intended to be easier to apply. First presented as a discussion paper: 2002-DP03.

2001-14: Changes for UKMARC Format Alignment (approved by subtopic; see below)
Changes to MARC21 suggested by UKMARC users to facilitate the alignment of the formats:
  • 2002-14/01 - Revision of 008/22 (Target audience) (approved as amended). Adds values for more narrowly-defined age groups
  • 2002-14/02 - Definition of value in 008/20 (ISSN Center) for United Kingdom (approved).
  • 2002-14/03 - Definition of 008/21 (Music parts) (approved).
    • Although current MARC21 users expressed no interest in coding for parts again (a parts field was dropped from MARC years ago), there was no objection to this new parts field being added to accommodate existing UKMARC data.
  • 2002-14/04 - Definition of 008/33 (Transposition and arrangement) (approved as amended.
    • Although some members cited the difficulty of determining whether a work had been transposed and questioned the overall utility of coding such information, and, although there was no interest expressed by current MARC21 users in using the field, there was no objection to this field being added to accommodate existing UKMARC data.
  • 2002-14/05 - Definition of value in 008/24-27 (Nature of Contents/Nature of Entire Work) (approved). For contributors to SICKLE (System for the Identification of Grey Literature in Europe).
  • 2002-14/06 - Definition of field 038 (Record Content Owner) (approved as amended). For intellectual property rights.
  • 2002-14/07 - Definition of field 026 (Fingerprint Identifier) (approved). For rare books.
  • 2002-14/08 - Definition of field 563 (Binding Information) (approved as amended). For rare books.
  • 2002-14/09 - Define fields 363 (Trade Price) and 364 (Trade Information) (deferred). Referred back to the UK book vendors for clarification of the terms, “foreign” and “domestic” and for clarification of the use of subfield $d (unit of pricing)
  • 2002-14/10 - Add Euro sign and Eszett to MARC character set (approved as amended).

2002-15: Defining field 065 (Other Classification Number) in the MARC 21 Authority Format (approved)
The Russian State Library requested this field so that they and other libraries can record the numbers from the Bibliotechno-bibliograficheskaíà klassifikatsiíà that are associated with name headings in authority records.

Discussion Papers

2002-DP08: Dealing with FRBR Expressions in MARC 21

This paper describes the work of the Joint Steering Committee's Format Variation Working Group to facilitate expression-level collocation in online systems, and discusses possible approaches to achieving this collocation using FRBR with the MARC21 Holdings, Bibliographic and Authority Formats. At the core of the FRBR model is the relationship Work --> Manifestation --> Expression --> Item. Participants agreed that FRBR is a conceptual model of the relationships between bibliographic items in library catalogs that could be useful to both librarians and library users. Although many participants expressed enthusiasm over the perceived improvements that FRBR displays may have on library catalogs, it was also acknowledged that most MARC 21 records are for single works with single manifestations. It is important that there be no adverse impact on them. Whether any refinements to any of the formats will be necessary to accommodate FRBR displays or even whether MARC will be able to support the full implementation of FRBR is not yet clear.

Reports

Library of Congress:

2003 Annual Meeting: there will be a joint CC:DA/MARBI program on FRBR

Words of appreciation expressed for the work of Sally McCullough

A certificate of appreciation presented to William Jones (outgoing MARBI Chair)

Joint Meeting with CC:DA on FRBR

The session opened with three presentations:

The presentations and ensuing discussion raised a number of significant observations and questions:

Only about two-thirds of the elements of MARC can be mapped to elements of FRBR.

Work, expression and manifestation are mingled in current cataloging practice, with the first step being description of manifestation; FRBR may lead to a return to the AACR1 practice of beginning with analysis of work and authorship

Much of the data necessary to bring out relationships between records and to indicate the role and function of persons and corporate bodies are not present (or present in usable form) in existing cataloging

In implementing FRBR, do we concentrate on retrieval and display, on changing catalog and record structure, or both?

FRBR may lead to a much greater role for the authority record, particularly in the concept of an “expression- level” authority record

MARC has never been limited to supporting AACR; this should also remain true for FRBR

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Last updated September 25, 2002