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DATE: December 20, 2012
REVISED:
NAME: Defining New Field 385 for Audience Characteristics in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats
SOURCE: ALCTS CaMMS Subject Analysis Committee Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation
SUMMARY: This paper proposes the establishment of a new 385 field in both the Bibliographic and Authority formats to record audience characteristics of works and expressions. Providing a place to record this attribute is particularly important for the full implementation of the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT).
KEYWORDS: Field 385 (BD, AD); Audience Characteristics (BD, AD); Genre/Form; Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials; LCGFT
RELATED: 2012-DP04
STATUS/COMMENTS:
12/20/12 - Made available to the MARC community for discussion.
01/27/13 – Results of MARC Advisory Committee discussion: Approved with the following amendments: 1) Rename subfield $m "Demographic group designator term"; 2) Add subfield $n "Demographic group designator code "; 3) Drop $u from the list of subfields. Maintenance agency for the list of demographic group designator terms and codes for $m and $n to be determined at a later date.
03/06/13 - Results of LC/LAC/BL review - Agreed with the MARBI decision. LC's Policy and Standards Division has agreed to take on the maintenance of the demographic group designators that are required by the proposal.
MARC Discussion Paper No. 2012-DP04 described the implementation of Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT) and the implications of current projects to establish LCGFT terms for music and literature. Some aspects of works and expressions that are now expressed in combination with form headings in LCSH will be out of scope for LCGFT, and will need to be recorded elsewhere in bibliographic and authority records.
One of these aspects is the audience for a resource. Within LCSH, audience is brought out in a variety of ways:
Audience with form or genre in phrase headings:
Almanacs, Children's
Blind, Periodicals for the
Children's encyclopedias and dictionaries
Men's magazines
Web sites for older people - Heading was established for works about web sites for older people, but could also represent a form heading used for such websites
Young adult fictionSometimes the audience or the form is implied in the heading:
Braille periodicals - For sight impaired people
Nursery rhymes - For children
Audience in a main heading with a form subdivision:
Divorced women $v Life skills guides
Audience in a form subdivision:
Bible $v Children’s sermons
English language $v Conversation and phrase books (for gardeners)
Astronomy $v Dictionaries, Juvenile
Halloween $v Juvenile poetry
United States $x Armed Forces $v Non-commissioned officers' handbooks
Hebrew language $v Readers for new literates
Christian education $v Textbooks for adults
Unlike in LCSH, audience is out of scope for inclusion in LCGFT. LC’s policy with LCGFT, although there are currently some exceptions (e.g., Children’s atlases; Video recordings for the hearing impaired), is to establish terms that represent just genre or form and not other aspects that may be combined with genre or form in LC subject headings. Topical, chronological, or geographic subdivision of LCGFT terms is not authorized. Aspects like intended audience for a resource will have to be recorded elsewhere in bibliographic or authority records when LCGFT is fully implemented. LCSH form headings like the ones shown above will remain valid, but they will be assigned only to works about forms and genres and the audiences for which they are intended, and not to the works themselves. The LCSH form subdivisions will also remain authorized for use at present, but one can envision a future in which form subdivisions will be redundant with genre/form terms and be cancelled. For example, instead of the string Halloween--Juvenile poetry a cataloger could assign the subject heading Halloween, along with the genre/form term Poetry and the audience characteristic Children.
Members of the SAC Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation have determined that recording the audience for resources will continue to be necessary after LCGFT is fully implemented, and that the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority formats do not currently provide a suitable place to record this aspect in a way that will facilitate resource discovery. What is needed is a facet for audience that can be linked with other aspects such as genre/form and which can be controlled by authority records representing specific types of audiences.
Members of the subcommittee favor using plural nouns to indicate the type of audience. The use of plural nouns for intended audience would follow ANSI/NISO standard Z39.19-2005, which states in section 6.5 that nouns used as terms are divided into two categories: count nouns and noncount (mass) nouns. Count nouns are names of objects or concepts that are subject to the question “How many?” but not “How much?”, and these should normally be expressed as plurals (Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies. Bethesda, Maryland: NISO Press, 2005).
The terms should come either from an existing controlled vocabulary, or from a new vocabulary that is created specifically for this purpose. Examples from LCSH, MeSH, Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, and theMARC Target Audience Term List have been used in this proposal.
2.1. MARC Discussion Paper No. 2012-DP04 discussed a number of ways in which audience characteristics might be recorded in MARC 21 and suggested that a new 3XX field in both the Bibliographic and Authority formats was needed.
The MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) agreed that audience characteristics can be considered an attribute of works and expressions, and preferred the 3XX block for recording this attribute. Although there will be some overlap in the information recorded in bibliographic records in a new 3XX field and the existing 008/22 field (Target Audience), the MAC supported leaving 008/22 as is but including a subfield in the 3XX field for coded values, so the existing 008/22 values could be recorded there if desired. MAC also supported expanding the definition of the 3XX field so that it covered both the audience for a resource as well as categories of persons representing the intellectual level for which the content of a resource is considered appropriate.
MAC also expressed a desire to allow the recording of a URI in lieu of or in addition to the actual term or coded value, in order to support linked library data and the Semantic Web. Subfield $u could be used for this, and has already been defined in some 3XX fields in both the Authority and Bibliographic formats.
Based on the MAC discussion of MARC Discussion Paper No. 2012-DP05, there was support for indicating in some way the type of group being recorded in the 3XX. For example, teenagers are a type of age group, Baptists a type of religious group. Recording the type of group in addition to a more specific term was felt to be particularly important for nationality and cultural groups (for example, Italians and Italian Americans, respectively). The SAC Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation had already identified the following possible categories of demographic groups:
2.2. To accommodate the MAC’s desire to be able to record the type of group as well as the specific audience, the following subfield could be added to the proposed new 3XX field:
$m - Demographic group designator (NR)
A designator for a demographic group category (e.g., an age group; a religious group) into which a particular term ($a) or code ($b) for audience characteristics falls. This may be an uncontrolled textual phrase or a controlled value from a list of designators for types of demographic groups.
If $m is not recorded, then the type of demographic group is considered to be unspecified.
Consideration was also given to proposing a subfield (perhaps $4) that would contain a coded value intended to represent the demographic group. Since coded values would be independent of language, OPACs could display whatever label was appropriate for the user group. As a practical matter, though, controlled values from a list of designators can consist of either codes or phrases, so the two options serve the same purpose for OPAC labels. Controlled phrases also have a benefit that codes do not: they can be more readily searched by keyword, thereby providing another level of access.
3.1. Define a new field in the Bibliographic and Authority formats:
385 - Audience Characteristics
Field Definition and Scope
A category of persons for which a resource is intended or a category of persons representing the intellectual level for which the content of a resource is considered appropriate. Terms are generally recorded in the form of a plural noun (e.g., Asian Americans; Children; College freshmen; Clergy; Dutch; Lawyers; People with disabilities; Sixth graders).If the demographic group designator ($m) is not used, multiple audience characteristics from the same source vocabulary may be recorded in the same field in separate occurrences of subfield $a (Audience term) or $b (Audience code). Terms and codes from different source vocabularies may be recorded in separate occurrences of the field.
If the demographic group designator ($m) is used, multiple audience characteristics representing the same demographic group, assigned from the same source vocabulary, may be recorded in the same field in separate occurrences of subfield $a (Audience term) or $b (Audience code). Terms and codes from different source vocabularies, and/or representing different demographic groups, may be recorded in separate occurrences of the field.
First Indicator - Undefined
# - UndefinedSecond Indicator - Undefined
# - UndefinedSubfield Codes
$a - Audience term (R)
$b - Audience code (R)
$u - Uniform Resource Identifier (R)
$m - Demographic group designator (NR)
$0 - Authority record control number or standard number (R)
$2 - Source of term (NR)
$3 - Materials specified (NR)
$6 - Linkage (NR)
$8 - Field link and sequence number (R)
3.2. Suggested list of demographic group designators for use in subfield $m:
Age group
Disability group
Educational level group
Ethnic/cultural group
Gender group
Language group
Nationality/regional group
Occupational/field of activity group
Religious group
Sexual orientation group
Social group
Other group
3.3. Reuse the following audience codes from 008/22 in subfield $b:
a - Preschool
b - Primary
c - Pre-adolescent
d - Adolescent
e - Adult
f - Specialized
g - General
j - Juvenile
N.B. In these examples, LCSH literature, music, religion, and general form headings are used provisionally in fields 655 and 380 in the absence of comparable LCGFT terms, which are still under development.
Title: My first book of limericks
Bibliographic format
385 ## $a Children $2 lcsh
655 #0 $a Limericks.Authority format
130 #0 $a My first book of limericks
380 ## $a Limericks $2 lcsh
385 ## $a Children $2 lcsh
Title: How beautiful the ordinary : twelve stories of identity
Bibliographic format
385 ## $m Age group $a Young adults $2 lcsh
655 #0 $a Short stories.
655 #0 $a Love stories.Authority format
130 #0 $a How beautiful the ordinary
380 ## $a Short stories $a Love stories $2 lcsh
385 ## $m Age group $a Young adults $2 lcsh
Title: Janet Suzman on acting in Shakespearean comedy [videorecording]
Title on cassette label: Acting in Shakespearean comedy, the 60 minute BBC master class
Bibliographic format
385 ## $a Actors $2 lcsh $0 (DLC)sh 85000744
655 #7 $aInstructional television programs. $2 lcgft $0 (DLC)gf2011026335Authority format
130 #0 $a Janet Suzman on acting in Shakespearean comedy
380 ## $a Instructional television programs $2 lcgft $0 (DLC)gf2011026335
385 ## $a Actors $2 lcsh $0 (DLC)sh 85000744
Title: Essential math, science, and computer terms for college freshmen
Bibliographic format
385 ## $m Educational level group $a College Freshmen $2 ericd
655 #0 $a Dictionaries.Authority format
100 1# $a Shanahan, William F. $t Essential math, science, and computer terms for college freshmen
380 ## $a Dictionaries $2 lcsh
385 ## $m Educational level group $a College Freshmen $2 ericd
Title: The children's friend [braille] : a fun magazine for blind preteens
Bibliographic format
385 ## $a Blind $a Preteens $2 lcsh
655 #0 $a Braille periodicals.or if using designators for demographic group categories:
385 ## $m Disability group $a Blind $2 lcsh
385 ## $m Age group $a Preteens $2 lcsh
655 #0 $a Braille periodicals.
Title: Health care and HIV : nutritional guide for providers and clients
Bibliographic format
385 ## $a HIV Long-Term Survivors $a Caregivers $2 mesh
385 ## $a HIV-positive persons $a Caregivers $2 lcsh
655 #0 $a Handbooks, vade-mecums, etc. $0 (DLC)sh 85058659
Title: Inglés para niños
Bibliographic format
385 ## $m Age group $a Children $2 ericd
385 ## $m Language group $a Spanish Speaking $2 ericd
655 #0 $a Textbooks.Authority format
100 1# $a Bruzzone, Catherine. $t Inglés para niños
380 ## $a Textbooks $2 lcsh
385 ## $m Age group $a Children $2 ericd
385 ## $m Language group $a Spanish Speaking $2 ericd
Title: Buddhist reader for young Buddhists
Bibliographic format
385 ## $m Religious group $a Buddhists $2 lcsh
385 ## $m Age group $a Youth $2 lcsh
655 #0 $a Catechisms.
Title: Songs for a Mormon child [sound recording]
Bibliographic format
385 ## $a Mormon children $2 lcsh $0 (DLC)sh 95007075
385 ## $a juvenile $b j $2 marctarget
655 #0 $a Children's songs. $0 (DLC)sh 85023779Authority format
100 1# $a Brady, Janeen. $t Songs for a Mormon child
380 ## $a Children’s songs $2 lcsh $0 (DLC)sh 85023779
385 ## $a Mormon children $2 lcsh $0 (DLC)sh 95007075
385 ## $a juvenile $b j $2 marctarget
Title: Talks to teeners : chapel talks delivered during morning devotions at the Christian High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Bibliographic format
385 ## $m Age group $a adolescent $b d $2 marctarget
655 #0 $a Sermons.
Title: Essential Spanish for policemen, lawyers, and judges
Bibliographic format
385 ## $m Occupational/field of activity group $a Police $a Lawyers $a Judges $2 lcsh
655 #7 $a Phrase books. $2 rbgenrAuthority format
100 1# $a Alcorta, Joe H. $q (Joe Hermenegildo), $d 1939- $t Essential Spanish for policemen, lawyers, and judges
380 ## $a Phrase books. $2 rbgenr
385 ## $m Occupational/field of activity group $a Police $a Lawyers $a Judges $2 lcsh
In the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority formats, define new field 385 (Audience Characteristics) as described above.
385 Audience Characteristics
First and Second Indicator - Undefined
# - Undefined
Subfield Codes
$a - Audience term (R)
$b - Audience code (R)
$u - Uniform Resource Identifier (R)
$m - Demographic group designator (NR)
$0 - Authority record control number or standard number (R)
$2 - Source of term (NR)
$3 - Materials specified (NR)
$6 - Linkage (NR)
$8 - Field link and sequence number (R)
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