BCC2006/SMF/3

MARBI/MARC ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETINGS

New Orleans, La.
June 25-26, 2006

MARBI met in two sessions during the ALA meeting in New Orleans, with Martha Yee as chair.

Summary:

The meetings were occupied mainly with new proposals and discussion papers. At the second meeting, Jennifer Bowen shared a brief update on RDA and Dr. William Moen spoke about a MARC Records usage study that will be presented at ALA Annual in Seattle. The MLA did not bring any proposals forward this year, although there were several proposals or discussion papers that might impact the music community.

Highlights:

Proposals:

2006-06: Definition of field 034 for geographic coordinates in the MARC 21 authority format (approved)

This proposal was approved. MARBI recommended that the relevant fields of the 034 added to the authority format also be added to the bibliographic formats.

2006-07: Definition of subfield $u (URI) in field 852 (Location) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Holdings formats (passed)

This proposal allows the addition of $u to the 852 field to allow direct access to a repository in which an item is held. The proposal was approved, with stronger language added indicating that this does not take the place of the 856 field, which gives access directly to the resource.

2006-08: Addition of subfield $r in field 856 to accommodate date of issuance for indexes (approved with conditions)

In order to harmonize more closely with ONIX for serials, this proposal was brought forward to separate the date of issuance from the date of coverage in the MARC 21 holdings format. It was approved, with the change of $r to $v for the date of issuance. This is primarily of interest to the serials community.

2006-09: Lossless technique for conversion of UNICODE to MARC-8 (approved)

This proposal suggested the use of a lossless UNICODE/MARC-8 conversion technique in which hexadecimal notation is used to substitute for unmappable MARC-8 characters. This was adopted, with minor editorial changes suggested by the OCLC MARBI representative.

Discussion Papers:

2006-DP04: Data elements needed to ascertain copyright facts (revise and return as second discussion paper)

While many MARBI members agreed to the general usefulness of this type of data, MARBI representatives of international communities were very concerned about the usability of copy that included copyright facts that were primarily useful in the country of original publication. MARBI members were also concerned about accuracy problems stemming from recording data not found in the record (such as the creator’s death date, if not in the record already) and legal problems that could result from misuse or misinterpretation of copyright data. The representatives of the California Digital Library argued that any provision of data is better than none, as a user service, and that the copyright facts recorded in the country of issuance are salient regardless of where the item is used. Also, they noted that such data would be recorded as it was on the date of cataloging (so there would be no upkeep of copyright data) and that the data would be purely factual, with no legal interpretations.

MARBI suggested that this be brought back as a second discussion paper, including a discussion of all the possible pro- and con- arguments for including copyright information.

2006-DP06: Defining subfields for languages of summaries, abstracts, subtitles and captions in field 041 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic format (to be revised and returned as a proposal)

J. Attig brought this paper forward on behalf of OLAC. He noted that subfield $b of field 041 is used for both language of abstracts/summaries and language of captions. This causes clear problems in audiovisual cataloging, in which it would be better to separate out such data. However, the bulk of materials in OCLC that use 041 $b are print, not audiovisual (or recorded sound), so the most radical solution (doing away with subfield $b entirely) was not approved.

MARBI recommended that this proposal be returned as a proposal with a separate subfield for captions, retaining the subfield $b for abstracts/summaries.

2006-DP07: Recording set information for multipart cartographic materials (revise and return as second discussion paper)

This proposal was brought forward as a fairly limited method for recording set information for multipart cartographic sets within the MARC 21 holdings formats. This type of control has generally not been provided for cartographic sets, because of the number of items involved. It became clear during the discussion that many community representatives, including archives/special collections and music, were interested in how this type of control might be used for multipart sets outside the cartographic world. It was recommended that some of the suggestions move forward in the next discussion paper (mainly the extension of the 034 field for coordinates to the MARC 21 holdings record), and that the proposal be brought back as a second discussion paper, including a broader discussion of the implications for mulitpart-item control of several media within the MARC holdings format.

2006-DP08: Techniques for incorporation of former headings into MARC 21 authority records (to be brought forward as a proposal)

This proposal covers access methods for former headings that would not normally be retained as cross references in the authority record, but may have some value for either automated or human authority processing. The proposal contains two possibilities: the use of field 886 for eye-readable notes, or the use of 4xx fields with an appropriate subfield $w to indicate suppression and to prevent automated flipping on that heading.

The second option, using $w nnj, will be used in the proposal. The proposal may contain prescriptive explanatory texts (subfield $i), including dates in which the old heading was valid.

Presentations:

J. Bowen on the current progress and plans for RDA

Sally McCallum on current issues at the Library of Congress (brief)

William Moen on MARC record research: Moen and his collaborators are planning a program for ALA Annual with the tentative title “The Future of MARC: An Empirical Approach.” Moen and graduate students at University of North Texas have been building a database of historical MARC information and performing usage studies of MARC data in the catalog. LITA and RUSA are co-sponsoring the program, which will report on the MARC Content Designation Project and discuss “future directions for machine-readable catalog records in the context of FRBR, RDA, and XML.”

Respectfully submitted,
Jim Alberts
Chair, Subcommittee on MARC Formats
MLA liaison to MARBI

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Last updated September 11, 2006