Subcommittee on MARC Formats
Annual Report, 1994

1. NAME OF COMMITTEE/SUBCOMMITTEE:

Subcommittee on MARC Formats

2. MEMBERS OF COMMITTEE/SUBCOMMITTEE:

Karen R. Little, chair (appointed 3/94); Ann Caldwell (appointed 4/94); Greta de Groat (appointed 4/94; ex officio); Jeffrey Earnest (resigned 3/94); Ian Fairclough (appointed 4/94); Elizabeth Gamble (resigned 10/93); Ed Glazier (ex officio); Kathryn P. Glennan (appointed 4/94); Jerry L. McBride (resigned 3/94); David Thomas; Jay Weitz (ex officio); Stephen Yusko

3. CHARGE OF COMMITTEE/SUBCOMMITTEE:

To formulate MLA policy on all matters related to the MARC Formats for Bibliographic Data and all other official USMARC formats. The chair serves as MLA liaison to MARBI, the ALA RTSD/RITA/RASD Representation in Machine Readable Form of Bibliographic Information Committee.

4. SUMMARY OF YEAR'S ACTIVITIES:

Two MLA discussion papers were presented to MARBI at the January 1994 ALA meeting. This meeting was attended by Jerry McBride as the MLA representative to the USMARC Advisory Group. The discussion paper on the use of subfield $t in fields 1XX rather than the field 240 to record the uniform title was rejected by MARBI. The discussion paper on the use of linking subfields to improve precision in retrieval of bibliographic records in online systems was received favorably and was presented as a proposal at the June 1994 MARBI meeting.

At the June 1994 MARBI meeting, attended by Karen Little as the MLA representative to the USMARC Advisory Group, the linking fields proposal was approved in concept. No mandatory field link type codes were approved as it was decided that each should be discussed and approved separately. Plans are for a discussion of the field link code for music (the component parts field link code) at the February MARBI meeting.

The Subcommittee is also discussing a request that qualifiers be coded separately in headings for names of popular music groups.

SUBMITTED BY:

Karen Little, Chair, Subcommittee on MARC Formats

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Last updated February 10, 2000