Online Bibliographic Services Special Interest Section

MARBI approves changes to MARC 21, although the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have final authority. During the January and June meetings, a total of seventeen proposals and eight discussion papers were presented. The papers are available online at http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marbi/.

A number of the proposals dealt with changes to the Format for Holdings Data. This format allows libraries to share specific information about complex publications, such as serials, and to transport their holdings from one system to another. Local system vendors were slow to implement this format, but have made progress recently. As more libraries implement it, they request enhancements to address the realities of library holdings.

The Committee is moving cautiously to add online links (URIs) to various fields. A proposal to provide a link in authority records to indicate the source of data was approved, but a request for a link to credit notes in bibliographic records was not.

A number of the proposals dealt with international issues. The Committee considered a group of proposals presented by the British Library and approved almost all of them. These changes support the UK library community=s intention to adopt MARC 21 in place of UKMARC. The Committee approved the addition of Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics to the Universal Character Set and approved the addition of a classification number field at the request of the Russian State Library.

One of the British Library proposals added the Euro sign and Eszett character to the MARC 21 character set. This is of particular interest to law librarians, who have been trying to get the Section symbol approved for more than a decade. The difficulty is that neither OCLC nor RLIN is willing/able to implement new characters in their current systems. There is hope for us soon, however. Both utilities will move to new systems in the next few years and should then be able to accommodate expanded character sets.

MARC 21 is not strictly tied to particular cataloging rules. Some of the proposals were for enhancements that benefit the museum and archival communities. Another made changes to accommodate Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST), an OCLC project intended to assist non-catalogers as they add subject headings to metadata.

A hot topic was Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), published by IFLA in 1998. It was the subject of two discussion papers and of a joint meeting with CC:DA. FRBR provides a framework for looking at the MARC format and our catalogs from a more theoretical perspective. It stresses the needs of the users and their need for relationships between things. It may provide a framework for solving the problems we have with multiple versions. We can expect continued discussions about FRBR which may evenutually result in reforms to MARC 21.

Full Report
Activities of the U.S. MARC Advisory Committee
2002 MARBI Representative Report
July 15, 2002

During the January and June meetings of MARBI, a total of seventeen proposals and eight discussion papers were presented. At the end of this report there is a list of all of the papers with links to their full text. Once approved by the Committee, a proposal does not automatically take effect because final authority rests with the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada, who publish revisions to the MARC 21 formats. Finally, the Library of Congress, the utilities, and local system vendors must implement the changes before you can apply them in your local library.

Of current interest is the pending implementation of proposals approved at last year's meetings. These include the Changes in MARC to Accommodate Seriality (http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2001/2001-05.html) and Making Field 260 Repeatable in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format (http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2001/2001-04.html). Although these were both included in the MARC 21 revisions published in October, 2001, they have not yet been implemented. The related cataloging rule revisions will be published later this summer. The associated Library of Congress Rule Interpretations will be available early in the fall. Then the Library of Congress will implement the changes on December 1, 2002. However, neither OCLC nor RLIN will fully implement these major changes until they release their new systems, probably not until Summer 2003, or later. But, OCLC and RLIN will allow serial fields in the books format in time for the Library of Congress implementation this December.

A number of this year's proposals dealt with changes to the MARC 21 Format for Holdings Data. The holdings format allows libraries to share specific information about complex publications such as serials, and to transport their library=s holdings from one library system to another. Local system vendors have been slow to implement this format, but have made progress recently. As more libraries implement it, they request enhancements to address the realities of library holdings. The proposals approved at this meeting dealt with fields to describe methods of acquisition, regularity of publication, and number of pieces per issuance.

The Committee is moving cautiously to add online links (URIs) to various fields. A proposal to provide a link in authority records to indicate the source of data was approved, but a request to add a link to credit notes in bibliographic records was not.

Some of the proposals dealt with international issues. The Committee considered a group of proposals presented by the British Library and approved almost all of them. These changes support the UK library community's intention to adopt MARC 21 in place of UKMARC. The Committee approved the addition of Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics to the Universal Character Set and approved the addition of a classification number, defined as Other Classification Number, at the request of the Russian State Library.

One of the British Library proposals added the Euro sign and Eszett character to the MARC 21 character set. This is of particular interest to law librarians, who have been trying to get the Section symbol approved for more than a decade. The difficulty is that neither OCLC nor RLIN is willing/able to implement new characters in their current systems. There is hope for us soon, however. Both utilities will move to new systems in the next few years and should then be able to accommodate expanded character sets.

MARC 21 is not strictly tied to particular descriptive cataloging rules. Some of the proposals were for enhancements that benefit the museum and archival communities. Another made changes to accommodate Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST), a project by OCLC intended to assist non-catalogers as they add subject headings to metadata.

A hot topic was Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), published by IFLA in 1998. This was the subject of two discussion papers and of a joint meeting with CC:DA. FRBR provides a framework for looking at the MARC format and our current cataloging rules from a more theoretical perspective. It stresses the needs of the users and their need for relationships between things. It may provide a framework for solving the problems our users have with multiple versions. We can expect continuted discussions about FRBR which may eventually result in reforms to MARC 21.

PROPOSALS APPROVED

Proposal No. 2001-10R: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2001/2001-10R.html
Definition of Additional Codes in Field 007/10 (Type of material) for Sound Recordings in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Holdings Formats.
Adds codes so that every type of material used in sound recordings in the Twentieth Century is included.

Proposal No. 2002-01: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-01.html
Definition of Subfield $u (URI) in Field 670 (Source Data Found) in the MARC 21 Authority Format.

Proposal No. 2002-03: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-03.html
Expanding Field 046 for Other Dates in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.
Adds subfield $k (Beginning or single date created) and subfield $l (Ending date created) and changes definition of subfield $j to "Date resource modified."

Proposal No.: 2002-04: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-04.html
Definition of Subfield $p (Number of pieces per issuance) in Fields 853-855 of the MARC 21 Holdings Format.

Proposal No. 2002-05: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-05.html
Expansion of Regularity Pattern Coding in Fields 853-855 Subfield $y in the MARC 21 Holdings Format.

Proposal No. 2002-06R: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-06R.html
Changes in Field 008 in the MARC 21 Holdings Format.
(Earlier Proposal 2002-06 http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-06.html)

Proposal No. 2002-07: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-07.html
Definition of Additional Second Indicator Values for Specific Subject Systems in Field 655 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.

Proposal No. 2002-08: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-08.html
Making the First Indicator Value 0 (U. S. Dept. of Defense Classification) Obsolete in Field 052 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats.
This fixes the problem for the U. S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency which had incorrectly coded over a million records!

Proposal No. 2002-09: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-09.html
Encoding Variable Length Coordinate Formats in Field 034 (Coded Cartographic Mathematical Data) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.

Proposal No. 2002-10: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-10.html
Defining URI subfields in field 506 (Restrictions on Access Note) and field 540 (Terms Governing Use and Reproduction Note) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.

Proposal No. 2002-11: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-11.html
Repertoire Expansion in the Universal Character Set for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics.
(Earlier Discussion Paper 2002-06 http://ww.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp06.html)

Proposal No. 2002-13: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-13.html
Changes for Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) Subject Headings.
(Earlier Discussion Paper 2002-03 http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp03.html)

Proposal No. 2002-14: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-14.html
Changes for UKMARC Format Alignment.
(Earlier Discussion Paper 2002-07 http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp07.html)

• 2002-14/1: Revision of 008/22 (Target audience) Values.
• 2002-14/2: Definition of Value in 008/20 (ISSN Center) for United Kingdom.
• 2002-14/3: Definition of 008/21 (Music parts).
• 2002-14/4: Definition of 008/33 (Transposition and Arrangement).
• 2002-14/5: Definition of Value in 008/24-27 (Nature of Contents/Nature of Entire Work).
• 2002-14/6: Definition of Field 038 (Record Content Owner).
• 2002-14/7: Definition of Field 026 (Fingerprint Identifier).
• 2002-14/8: Definition of Field 563 (Binding Information).
• 2002-14/10: Add Euro and Eszett to MARC Character Set.

Proposal No. 2002-15: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-15.html
Defining field 065 (Other Classification Number) in the MARC 21 Authority Format.

PROPOSALS NOT APPROVED

Proposal No. 2002-02: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-02.html
Definition of Subfields $u, $y and $3 in Fields 508 and 511 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.

Proposal No. 2002-12: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-12.html
Coding for Publication Pattern at the First Level of Enumeration in MARC 21 Holdings Records.

Proposal No. 2002-14/9: Define Fields 363 (Trade Price) and 364 (Trade Information).

DISCUSSION PAPERS

Discussion Paper 2002-DP01: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp01.html
Coding Electronic Formats for Different Media in Field 007 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Holdings Formats.

Discussion Paper 2002-DP02: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp02.html
Renaming the 008 Positions to Reflect their Content in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.

Discussion Paper 2002-DP04 http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp04.html
Addition of Imprint and Physical Description fields to the MARC 21 Holdings Format.

Discussion Paper 2002-DP05: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp05.html
Guidelines for the Nonfiling Control Character Technique in the MARC 21 Formats.

Discussion Paper No. 2002-DP08: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-dp08.html
Dealing with FRBR Expressions in MARC 21.

Submitted by
Susan Goldner
University of Arkansas at Little Rock /
Pulaski County Law Library

Last updated July 17, 2002