BCC2005/SMF/3

REPORT OF THE MARBI/MARC ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

Chicago, IL
June 25-26, 2005

MARBI and the MARC Advisory Committee met concurrently in two sessions during the ALA Annual Meeting in Chicago. Chair Adam Schiff (University of Washington) led the sessions.

Summary:

This year’s meeting was occupied primarily with reviewing resubmitted proposals and the issues remaining in the move to complete Unicode compliance.

Highlights:

The MLA representative presented a proposal (co-sponsored by IAML) that would allow IAML-developed codes for form and genre and for medium of performance headings to be used in MARC21: Proposal 2005-08.

2005-08: Changes to accommodate IAML coded data in bibliographic fields 008/18-19, 047 and 048

The music cataloging community has been divided for many years over the value and utility of using coded data to represent form and genre and medium of performance headings in catalog records: some find them useful and think the code lists should be expanded; others think they are a waste of time. As a result, there have been few changes to these fields since the early 1990s. With the development of a greatly-expanded repertoire of codes sponsored by IAML and recently adopted for use in Unimarc, there was an opportunity to satisfy both groups: users of the codes would have more codes; non-users and the MARC Standards Office could maintain the status quo, because the codes are maintained by an outside body. After reviewing the proposal, MARBI approved the section on medium of performance codes (field 048), but recommended the section on form and genre codes (field 047) be resubmitted: as the existing MARC21 2-character codes form the basis for the expanded 3-character IAML codes, MARBI felt it would be more efficient to simply validate the 3-character codes for use in MARC, rather then maintain two separate but overlapping lists of codes. The revised proposal will be resubmitted at the 2006 midwinter meeting in San Antonio.

Proposals:

2005-07: Revision of subfield $b in field 041 in the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data (Approved)

Revises the documentation language to allow the encoding of the language of subtitles when it is the same as the spoken or sung language. Brings the documentation in line with current practice.

2005-04R: Hierarchical Geographic Names in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format (approved as amended)

Remaining issues is providing hierarchical geographic subject access (including extraterrestrial locations) were resolved.

2005-06: Addition of Subfields for Relator Terms/Codes for Subject Access to Images (approved as amended)

Final resolution of issues remaining from the midwinter 2005 discussion of “ofness” and “aboutness” access to image information.

Reports

Library of Congress (Sally McCullogh):

Assessment of Options for Handling Full Unicode in Character Encodings in MARC 21. Part 2

Discussions

Using MARC 21 with FRBR: Record Configurations.

Respectfully submitted,

Paul Cauthen
Chair, Subcommittee on MARC Formats
Music Library Association Liaison to MARC Advisory Committee

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Last updated September 10, 2005