The Library of Congress >> Librarians, Archivists >> Standards
Eric P. Delozier, Chair LITA Penn State, Harrisburg
Denise Beaubien Bennett RUSA University of Florida
Regina B. Koury RUSA Idaho State University
Edward Kownslar RUSA Texas A&M University -
Corpus Christi
Gary L. Strawn ALCTS Northwestern University
Sarah Beth Weeks LITA St. Olaf College
Matthew W. Wise ALCTS New York University
Jia Xu ALCTS University of Iowa
Corine Deliot BL British Library Sally H. McCallum LC Library of Congress Bill Leonard LAC Library and Archives Canada
Sherman Clarke VRA Freelance cataloger Kevin Ford LC Library of Congress Catherine Gerhart OLAC University of Washington Richard O. Greene OCLC OCLC Stephen Hearn SAC University of Minnesota Reinhold Heuvelmann DNB Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Susan M. Moore MAGIRT University of Northern Iowa John Myers CC:DA Union College Elizabeth O'Keefe ARLIS/NA Morgan Library and Museum Elizabeth Plantz NLM National Library of Medicine Sandy Rodriguez MLA University of Missouri-Kansas City Patricia Sayre McCoy AALL University of Chicago, Law School Thurstan Young BL British Library
Susan M. Moore MAGIRT University of Northern Iowa
Everett Allgood New York University Jean Altschuler Arnold & Porter Law Firm Karen Anderson Backstage Library Works John Attig Penn State University Kathy Glennan University of Maryland Rosemary Greenwald Mt. Prospect Public Library Les Hawkins Library of Congress/CONSER Mar Hernández National Library of Spain Ed Jones National University William W. Jones New York University Cory Nimer Brigham Young University Adrian Nolte Public Library, Essen, Germany Regina Romano Reynolds Library of Congress Adam Schiff University of Washington Ken Wade UCLA Jay Weitz OCLC Janis L. Young Library of Congress [Note: anyone who attended and is not listed, please inform LC/Network Development and MARC Standards Office.]
Eric Delozier (LITA, Chair) opened the meeting by asking Committee members, representatives, and liaisons to introduce themselves. A Committee roster was passed around the table and all were asked to “check in” and to annotate their entries with any corrections. He also thanked Susan Moore for volunteering to take the minutes of the meetings. A quorum of the voting members was present. The audience was also asked to introduce themselves.
Eric Delozier (LITA, Chair) asked if there were any corrections to the minutes of the ALA 2013 Midwinter meeting. Matthew Wise (ALCTS) moved to accept the minutes; Gary Strawn (ALCTS) seconded the motion. The minutes were approved unanimously.
The discussion paper was introduced by Everett Allgood (NYU). The main thing with field 588 (Source of Description note) is that there are standard phrases used at the beginning of the note field (such as “Description based on”) but there have been problems with typographical errors in these standard phrases as well as slight differences in the way the phrases have been recorded. An indicator value that would provide a display constant would provide more consistency and remove the language specificity from the note. Catalogs could be programmed to display the language of the catalog using the indicator instead of having to display what is typed into the record. There would also be a provision for an indicator 8 (no display constant) to allow for other uses of the 588.
Elizabeth Plantz (NLM) said that her institution was in favor of using indicators and that this is a bigger issue than just serials. Using the indicator would assist in training and using macros does not necessarily assist with consistency since the individual cataloger still needs to remember which macro to use in a given situation. Indicators would be easier to use.
Sally McCallum (LC) asked why the communities couldn’t use the same phrases. Richard Greene (OCLC) responded that the phrases differ based on what format is being cataloged and need to convey different things. The phrases used to indicate what issue formed the basis of the description in the record vary slightly from AACR2 and RDA cataloging and those could be interchangeable, but other phrases commonly used in the 588 field are not interchangeable. There was some discussion as to what formats currently use the 588 field. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) said that if indicators were to be assigned based on the similarity of the phrase (i.e. “Last issue consulted” for serials and “Last viewed on” for electronic resources), then the display constant would be generated by the “electronicness” of the data. It would be better to have separate indicators.
Richard Greene (OCLC) stated that one of the problems he has with the discussion paper is when we call something a display constant controller, that brings a lot of language with it when really what the indicator is telling us is something about the content of the field; it’s really data about the data. Calling it a display constant restricts the use in ways that may not be appropriate. “Display constant” constricts the view of what it is. He didn’t have a phrase to use instead. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) asked if the phrase is used elsewhere in MARC documentation. Richard Greene (OCLC) replied that yes, it is pervasive in the documentation. It would be a separate issue to tackle if we chose to address it.
John Myers (CC:DA) stated that in essence this seems to be a great solution to a problem and his only hesitation is that since this is dealing with administrative metadata and there is no indication that administrative metadata will be shrinking (and in the course of our discussion, we’ve already suggested a third indicator value), a concern is that we will run out of possible indicator values since there is a finite number of values that can be used. However, he stated that a solution that works for the immediate time is better than waiting for a more permanent solution in some unknown future.
Patricia Sayre-McCoy (AALL) asked how one indicator code can cover two phrases. Since most of us are working in OCLC, does that mean that OCLC would determine what phrase would display? And would there be the possibility that in another system it would display as something else? John Myers (CC:DA) was also wondering about that and this is an issue trying to deal with both AACR2 and RDA. It would be possible to use the indicator to flip the phrase to either the AACR2 or the RDA phrase. He feels we are doing a disservice to our users by having two texts that mean essentially the same thing. Having an indicator value will allow the local system to determine what data it wants to display. This avoids the whole linguistic issues as well. As we work to become a more international standard, it would help if we used encoding more than textually-based information. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) made the point that the phrase ‘Identification of the resource based on’,as specified in RDA, is illustrative not prescriptive. Therefore, the inconsistency between this and the equivalent phrase in AACR is not actually a problematic one.
John Attig (Penn State) felt that the main purpose of the paper was to distinguish two distinct types of data that go into this field, the “Description based on” and the “Latest issue consulted”. The secondary purpose was to allow people to not have to type the display constant. He keeps going back to what Richard Greene said: that trying to control display text in this way is one of the things you can do with this but that shouldn’t be the primary purpose. There are different types of data, you distinguish those, and then you use that to determine what an appropriate label would be. That is a local display decision and it does not have to be part of the communication standard. Sally McCallum (LC) stated that in the MARC documentation, usually they give a phrase to help define what the indicator is but in the input conventions they say “Use a phrase such as …”
Gary Strawn (ALCTS) thought that option 1 with the addition of an indicator value for “Web site last viewed on” would be a good idea. Eric Delozier (LITA) asked if this should be brought back as a proposal. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) pointed out that this is our last MARBI meeting; to where would the proposal be brought back? The answer to this question would be covered later in the meeting. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) spoke in favor of option 1 because he doesn’t like the idea of undefining indicator value “blank” since “blank” could easily mean “No display constant generated” as it does now. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) pointed out that for web sites, we’re talking about latest iteration and the display constant should reflect that. Perhaps the constant should be “Latest iteration consulted”. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) also raised the issue of defining subfield $i to separate the text and then have subfield $a for the data. This could be used when you had a blank indicator but wanted to separate the phrase from the data. John Myers (CC:DA) disagreed, saying that doing this would not answer the problems this discussion paper wants to solve and that the primary purpose is to distinguish the data as John Attig stated. He prefers option 2 since we are moving toward distinguishing data and away from just text. If people continue to use indicator value “blank” that tells us nothing about the data. Option 2 forces people to tell us something about the data.
Patricia Sayre McCoy (AALL) asked if we followed option 2, would there then be two 588 fields in the record, one that says “Description based on” for the original issue used in cataloging and then another one for “Latest issue consulted” for any updates to the record. The answer is that we do this now and that this practice will most likely continue. Les Hawkins (LC CONSER) agreed.
Adam Schiff (University of Washington) pointed out if we are talking about identifying discrete bits of data then in example 4.1 “Title from cover” is not part of the description based on note. Either this needs a separate subfield or it needs to go in a different field because it’s not part of that data. John Myers (CC:DA) argued that it is part of the data in that it is part of the source of the data used for the primary description. It’s identifying two aspects. Elizabeth Plantz (NLM) pointed out monographic catalogers put this data in a 500 field. Other communities use different fields for this same data. RDA also puts this phrase in a different note.
Kevin Ford (LC) commented that he also was not enthusiastic about obsoleting “blank” since that raises the issue of invalidating a lot of existing records. A question he has on both option 1 and option 2 is does defining an indicator as “No display constant generated” make it significantly distinctive from the current coding? “No information provided”, “No display constant generated”, and “Obsolete” result in the same constant displaying, which is none.
Regina Reynolds (LC) wondered about the addition of an indicator for “Web site viewed on” and whether it isn’t really comparable to “Latest issue consulted” because both are relating to what the most recently viewed example (issue or iteration) of this resource was and it could be confusing or unnecessary to have both. You’re either going to be dealing with a serial or an integrating resource, not both simultaneously. Patricia Sayre McCoy (AALL) pointed out that integrating resources include loose-leafs and when you think about what a loose-leaf is, and the fact you can’t get an issue out once it’s filed in, the wording doesn’t really pertain. Regina Reynolds (LC) responded that it wouldn’t have to be that wording. It wasn’t really the wording she was looking at but that the concept is the same. Jean Altschuler (Arnold & Porter Law Firm) stated that for loose-leafs, much of the cataloging is based on the one that you’ve viewed lately. In law cataloging, there are still a large number of print loose-leaf materials.
Sally McCallum (LC) said that based on the discussion thus far concerning the values for indicator 1, they would have the definition for value blank as undefined or no display constant generated, value 0 to reflect the concept of “description based on”, and value 1 for the concept of “latest issue/iteration consulted”. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) asked if the definition for indicator 1 would include the concept of “last viewed on”. Sally McCallum (LC) indicated that would be described in the proposal. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) wondered how you would program what you would want to display for a serial versus a loose-leaf versus a web site. How could you get your system to display the correct phrase? Gary Strawn (ALCTS) said that the system would have to look at multiple data elements to figure that out. You either have to look at multiple data elements or have multiple indicators. The easiest would be to have an indicator saying this is based on the latest “thing”. If a different display constant is needed for web sites, it would be easier to have a separate indicator rather than to have to program to figure out whether the resource is a web site or not. Everett Allgood (NYU) suggested just removing the noun from the display constant, making it “Latest consulted”. Regina Reynolds (LC) stated that if we’re really coding the data and not the wording and if there is way to communicate that with the two options, that would be good. Sarah Beth Weeks (LITA) spoke against having an indicator for each format since we would rapidly run out of indicators. Other criteria will have to determine what words to display. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) stated that we can’t take one indicator and tell it to always display this text. Sarah Beth Weeks (LITA) thinks systems should be able to figure out what text to display based on coding in the record. Sally McCallum (LC) said that “Latest consulted” requires that a human will be interpreting what was consulted. Everett Allgood (NYU) agreed and stated that this is administrative data and is meant for other catalogers.
The answers to the questions were:
Question 1. Do you agree with the recommended practice of coding an indicator in place of use of spelled-out captions in $a? Yes.
Question 2. Do you agree with the use of a single indicator value to represent both Description based on and Identification of the resource based on? Yes.
Question 3. Do you prefer Option 1 redefining blank or Option 2 making blank obsolete? There was a strong preference for Option 1.
The committee would like this to come back as a proposal with vaguer wording for the display constants so that they are not so format specific.
This discussion paper was introduced by Adam Schiff (University of Washington) and Janis Young (LC). This discussion paper comes out from the ALCTS Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation and should be the last one stemming from their work dealing with aspects of form/genre that cannot be carried over into the LC form/genre terms thesaurus. This discussion paper stems from Proposal 2013-07: Defining Encoding Elements to Record Chronological Categories and Dates of Works and Expressions in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats which was approved at the 2013 Midwinter meeting. At that time, the SAC Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation realized that one additional aspect had been left out of the proposal. With the addition of field 648, there was a place in the Bibliographic format to record controlled vocabulary for chronological terms related to genre/form but there was no corresponding field in the Authority format. Rather than add a field ad hoc at the Midwinter meeting, MARBI requested that a separate paper be prepared. The discussion paper suggests the creation of a new field (388 – Chronological Term Representing Date or Time Period of Creation or Origin of Work/Expression) with three values for the first indicator: Blank – no information provided ; 1 – Date or time period of creation or origin ; 2 – Date or time period of creation or origin of components in an aggregation. Indicator value 2 could be used when you have an anthology of materials where the individual titles in the anthology were created at different time periods from the creation of the anthology as a whole.
Elizabeth O’Keefe (ARLIS/NA) found it confusing to use a different indicator value for creation or origin date depending on whether the record was for a single work or for works within an aggregation. If you had one Restoration comedy, the indicator would be “1” and the term “Restoration” would be used but if you had an anthology of Restoration comedies, the indicator would be “2” for the components but you’d have an indicator of “1” for the date of creation for the anthology itself. She also raised the issue of what the label display would be. She does like the idea of using these terms a lot and having a field for them. John Myers (CC:DA) also saw the conceptual need for this field but found it confusing as well. He wasn’t sure what difference existed between the definition of indicator value 1 and indicator value 2 until he looked at the examples. With some of the examples, he felt there was a merger of descriptive cataloging with subject analysis. He found this particularly apparent in the example for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) stated that best practices will need to be developed to assist in the selection of terms. John Myers (CC:DA) opined that it would be good for best practices to be self-evident from the standard being developed. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) reminded the committee that since this field is in the authority record, it will be recording attributes of the work. So you could record this in the authority record for the work or in the bibliographic record for the manifestation, where it would go in the 648 field.
Patricia Sayre McCoy (AALL) agreed with John Myers. She was confused by the first example in the paper for Anne of Green Gables where the date of creation appears in the 046 field as a number and in the 388 field in spelled-out form. She thought with the spelled-out form, cross-references would be needed since people could read the phrase differently. Since the date already appears in the 046 field, is the 388 field needed? Others agreed it seems redundant. Janis Young (LC) agrees that the Anne of Green Gables example is confusing. The examples are using Library of Congress subject heading (LCSH) forms for the terminology for years and there is no claim in the paper that LCSH is the proper vocabulary to use for this. This example was added to show how the field could be used for individual works. Speaking to the redundancy, one field is coded and the other is controlled. Perhaps an example where the controlled term was “Renaissance” would have been clearer. Returning to John Myers’ (CC:DA) point about merging subject and description, these terms used in LCSH were never really subjects. What they are doing is pulling these non-subject concepts out of the subject vocabulary. These elements are more descriptive data than they are subject data. Given that the examples are confusing to several committee members, perhaps focusing on what the discussion paper is trying to accomplish would be a better use of time. LCSH was the source of the terms used since that is the controlled vocabulary most are familiar with but the use of LCSH terms for this purpose is problematic.
Elizabeth O’Keefe (ARLIS/NA) thought another issue is that there is too much merging of publication and creation data. This has to come since the paper discusses both aggregations in general and if you treat an aggregation as a work then the date the work was created was the date it was published, more or less. Her interest in the field is to get at the date of origin for a single work rather than the date of an aggregate so she tends to focus on that more. It is puzzling and will be puzzling for users who have relied on subject access, since there was nothing better, to find works from specific time periods. There may be confusion if all that is coded is the date something was published. This is a great way of getting to that but it is also pushing in publication data which is when the compilation or aggregation was published. In general, it would be much more useful to pull out the creation dates regardless of when something was published. Recognizing that there is a need to pull out when something was published, this may not be the best way. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) responded that best practices could state that when dealing with a compilation of the creation dates of the component parts since the creation date of the aggregate is not something people care about very much. Elizabeth O’Keefe (ARLIS/NA) wondered if it would help to have three indicators. Janis Young (LC) asked whether the suggestion was to add one to the ones already specified in the discussion paper. Elizabeth O’Keefe (ARLIS/NA) responded one could be for chronological period of a single resource, one for chronological period of component parts of an aggregation, and one for chronological period of compilation or aggregation. So you could still use the creation date of an aggregation but it would be possible to separate out the creation date of the aggregation from the creation dates of the component parts. The other option would be to always use the value “2” for creation date of the components or the single thing and always use value “1” as the origin or creation date of the compilation.
Stephen Hearn (SAC) asked if it would be clearer if the examples focused on the cataloging of art objects or manuscripts where you may not know the precise date of creation or origin but you would use a time period that has a name. He could see not recording a verbal expression of a specific date. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) thought the drafters of the paper did themselves a disservice by not having more examples with phrases. He also felt strongly against inputting words that were redundant for already coded data elements but using terms like “Renaissance” or “Restoration” make it clear what is being defined. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) asked if the example for Nineteenth century English drama would be more in line with what people think would be helpful. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) stated that “Nineteenth century” is still redundant with the coded dates. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) replied that whether it is redundant is dependent on how your system handles the data. In LCSH you would bring out the time period in the heading “Drama $y Nineteenth century”. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) repeated that he thought this was redundant and you could generate one from the other. But if it was a more general term like “Renaissance”, it makes it clearer what you want to do. Janis Young (LC) says the last point brings out the need for this field where you know something was written in the Middle Ages or ancient Greece but don’t know what the dates are. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) added that in the case of a compilation, it wouldn’t necessarily make sense to record the date of creation for each component part. Elizabeth O’Keefe (ARLIS/NA) stated that you could know the exact date of creation for an art object but the name for the time period will depend on where it was created. For example, different chronological terms for the same year are used to cover time periods in China and in France. There is a value in having this period term when you have a single known date. Kevin Ford (LC) stated that the paper is technically fine but that the policy guiding the usage is underdeveloped. We do look at it and see the redundancy and ask ourselves what is the merit of that. That being said, it is easy to see how a scholar would search on a period and not exact dates. On the technical side, the need for this field is completely rational. On the policy side, it is underdeveloped.
Thurstan Young (BL) made a comment to the effect that there is an ongoing need to code single dates expressed as natural terms in order to handle legacy data. Sally McCallum (LC) replied that, as Gary Strawn said, it could be converted. John Myers (CC:DA) stated that there is agreement conceptually on the need for this data in our records. The issue is that the execution has fallen somewhat short of what we can understand. The question was posed as to why LCSH has these date ranges in it. In descriptive cataloging we want to be specific, something was created at some point in the temporal continuum and so we identify that date. When we think about the use of these temporal divisions in LCSH, it kind of serves the function of a uniform title in order to bring things together and keep them apart. Then we can cluster when we have the whole scope of English literature or English poetry; a researcher may want to focus in on one particular time period so these temporal gathering terms allowed that to happen. The drive for theoretical purity in form/genre headings may have reached the end point of what can be faceted out. The subcommittee was urged to bring back this with a better explanation of how this would work, specifically how specific or general the terms used would be. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) replied that the cataloging communities will decide on what the best practice will be. Janis Young (LC) stated that temporal information doesn’t really belong in LCSH because the time period something was created in isn’t really a subject. There were and are a lot of things in LCSH that aren’t really subjects at all for historic reasons.
Sally McCallum (LC) inquired how the vocabulary will be developed for this field. Janis Young (LC) replied that this is an open question right now. There are several items on the SAC agenda dealing with vocabularies for various fields, including the audience field approved at the Midwinter meeting. For the vocabulary for this field, it is not a given that the Policy and Standards Division of LC will devise the vocabulary but the results of the discussion at the SAC meeting will be shared with LC, discussed, and a determination will be made about next steps. Janis Young (LC) envisions a similar process for devising the vocabulary for chronological terms, should the field be approved. There may be a vocabulary currently available that would be suitable for the needs of the cataloging community. Fortunately, there are apparently a moderately limited (or at least not infinite) number of chronological terms. John Myers (CC:DA) agrees that the temporal term isn’t a subject but it is a qualifier. Thinking about the terms this way solidified the concept for him and he suggested bringing that concept into the field definition somehow. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) requested clarification on what was being qualified. John Myers (CC:DA) replied that it qualifies the topical heading that it is modifying in LCSH. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) suggested that instead of qualifier, the term is a facet of the resource. John Myers (CC:DA) allowed that the term facet is more appropriate in the subject realm.
Patricia Sayre McCoy (AALL) had a question about the example Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone (Motion picture). Since this is based on a previous novel, is there a need to acknowledge the previous publication of the book? Janis Young (LC) responded that in RDA, a motion picture is considered a new work so reference to the novel is not done in the authority record. Reinhold Heuvelmann (DNB) referred to the last example Mae West : the glamour collection, if there is a record for the anthology and separate records for each individual film, would you relate the records to each other using 530 fields? And then the 388 fields for the individual films would be for the original film. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) said that would work for an anthology of five films but not when you have a poetry anthology of a thousand poems. Reinhold Heuvelmann (DNB) then opined that the 388 indicator 2 feels like a 505 field. Adam Schiff (University of Washington) agreed that it did although if there are a lot of poems, there may not be a contents note.
Adam Schiff (University of Washington) said that based on the discussion the answer to “Is there a need for recording chronological terms representing creation dates and time periods in authority records in addition to coded values that may be recorded in field 046” is yes. The Committee agrees that there should be a field in authority records for time period of creation of works and expressions that parallels the use of the 648 field in bibliographic records. Proposed field 388 could accomplish this and be a useful way to collocate works and expressions based on controlled vocabularies for dates and time periods of creation. No other alternatives were brought forward to consider. The second question “Do you agree with the suggested method of distinguishing, through the first indicator, the difference between the date/time period of creation or origin of a work/expression (including an aggregate work) and the date/time period of creation or origin of the individual works/expression included in an aggregation” generated some discussion of the proposed indicator 3, however, there was no such provision made in the 648 field in the bibliographic format or in the 046 field. Would they need to be coded separately as well? Adam Schiff (University of Washington) felt it would be overkill but it could be presented as an option. The committee decided that the paper should come back without offering the inclusion of an indicator 3 as an option. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) commented that this option would require the 046 to be revisited and that application of the subfields in the 046 was difficult enough already. The SAC subcommittee will take the discussion under advisement and will bring back a proposal.
Sally McCallum reported that the MARC Update 16 came out in April. There is a new relators document that reconciles the RDA relators with the MARC relators. There were 38 relator terms added as well as other changes. Cataloging Distribution Service announced that they were no longer going to print documentation for distribution.
Sally McCallum (LC) announced that LC with the MARC partners, LAC, BL, and DNB, have been working on what will happen after MARBI. There will be a new committee, the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC). Many of the people who have been involved with MARBI will be on MAC. This will allow community involvement with the continuing maintenance of the MARC formats. Sally McCallum (LC) has talked with ALA about meeting space and times at the ALA conference. They will be setting those up after this conference. It will probably be the same days and times MARBI had been meeting but with probably no Monday meeting. Sally is asking for an hour and a half on Saturday and two hours on Sunday. We can always ask for more time if the agenda warrants it. The new charge and guidelines have been shared with the partners and the MAC members and they will be published on the MARC website. The responses to the invitations were very fast and affirmative. There will be a few new members. Regina Reynolds (LC) will be representing the ISSN Review Group. The Program for Cooperative Cataloging has been asked to have a representative or possibly from the Name Authority or Subject Authority Cooperative Projects. They are determining what would be their best option. CONSER has also been approached. LC and the partners will be maintaining MARC until it isn’t needed any more but the new MAC will also be looking at Bibliographic Framework issues. When changes are made to MARC, we will need to consider how the change will play out in BIBFRAME. Though some people think BIBFRAME is just MARC translated, it isn’t and the concepts behind BIBFRAME are very different. So at Midwinter there will be sections in proposals and discussion papers for BIBFRAME. Sherman Clarke (VRA) noted that the LITA Metadata Standards Committee was meeting the same time we were and he wondered if that was because they were taking over the MARBI times and didn’t realize we were still meeting. Sally McCallum (LC) thought maybe it was a mistake but that she needed to talk to those in charge of scheduling that meeting because it isn’t a good idea to have these meetings against each other. They may also have a representative so they wouldn’t want to schedule against us. John Myers (CC:DA) suggested that MAC could do some of its work online so that we don’t run out of time during the conference. Sally McCallum (LC) stated we have tried to do some work online but it didn’t seem to work well. We can retry this. Sherman Clarke (VRA) said that it has been a concern that he is usually the only VRA member that makes it to the MARBI meeting, mostly because not many VRA members are also members of ALA. The use of online tools could help other groups participate more fully.
The proposal was presented by Reinhold Heuvelmann (DNB) on behalf of the German National Library and libraries in German-speaking countries. They identified a need to distinguish between parts of a multipart monograph or a continuing resource/monographic series. Their idea is to use something similar to the subfield $7 in the linking entry fields with subfield $7 containing coded information that corresponds to coded information in the leader of the record that the field links to. This structure may serve as a model for a new subfield $7 in fields 800-830. In section two of the proposal, they lay out the structure of the proposed subfield $7. They only need two positions, one for type of record and the other for bibliographic level from the Leader/07 of the related record. While it might be advantageous to maintain a similar structure to subfield $7 across fields, there is already variance in how the $7 has been established in the 533 field. The proposal is to add subfield $7 to fields 800-830 with two positions. Position 0 would be for type of record and position 1 would the bibliographic level from the Leader/07 of the related record. Section three lays out some examples of how the subfield would be used.
Gary Strawn (ALCTS) pointed out that at the very bottom of section two and elsewhere in the proposal it says that the code corresponds to the code used in the Leader/06 but it doesn’t correspond to the code, it is the code used in the Leader/06. He wanted to make clear that whatever code is defined for the Leader/06 would also be valid here. Gary Strawn (ALCTS) moved to approve the proposal as written. Matthew Wise (ALCTS) seconded.
Sherman Clarke (VRA) made an editorial suggestion that either both labels for the positions should have the “from Leader/0X” phrase as part of the label or neither should have it, probably neither. Reinhold Heuvelmann (DNB) replied that the phrasing was taken from the subfield $7 of the 76X-78X description so if it is changed here, it should probably be changed there as well. William Jones (NYU) asked if the use of this subfield would be restricted to German-speaking libraries. Sally McCallum (LC) responded that the use or non-use of a subfield is up to the institution. If a library wants to use it and the Library of Congress doesn’t, that’s fine.
John Myers (CC:DA) complimented the proposal on the formulation of the examples. He also said that the proposed change is exactly what is needed because this leapt out as a great example and model for reformulating the Bibliographic Format in a more general manner to accommodate work/expression/manifestation records and to allow corresponding linking of the records. This shows the work our colleagues in German-speaking countries have done to improve the MARC formats by developing and expanding ways to improve linking and cross-referencing.
The motion was approved unanimously.
The proposal was introduced by Bill Leonard (LAC) for the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM). This proposal comes from a comment made regarding Proposal 2012-06 which defined a repeatable subfield $q in field 028 in the Bibliographic format. At that time, the CCM suggested that the addition of subfield $q would be a good addition to other standard number fields. CCM prepared Discussion Paper 2013-DP02 to explore adding subfield $q. In discussion, MARBI suggested that a proposal be developed to add the subfield $q for the qualifier to fields 015, 020, 024, and 027. This proposal presents those suggestions along with some editorial changes to the current definition of subfield $c in the 020 and 024 fields.
Elizabeth Plantz (NLM) stated that their only concern was how one would make sure the subfield $q matches to the appropriate subfield $a in a field where both are repeatable. Bill Leonard (LAC) responded that he wouldn’t recommend repeating the subfields in the same field since all these fields are repeatable. There is an example in the proposal where this is done. Sally McCallum (LC) said that the Library of Congress will revise the examples and remove ones with multiple subfield $a. Corine Deliot (BL) wanted to pick up on the point being made about explanation in italics and square brackets. The British Library found this very helpful but this explanation should also be put in with the information on field 028.
Bill Leonard (LAC) stated that CCM asked when editorial changes were discussed about the use of the term “foreign” in the field definition and scope for field 015 and whether that term is still appropriate. They were wondering if the definition and scope could be revised. Sally McCallum (LC) replied that this will be revised.
Sarah Beth Weeks (LITA) expressed her support for this proposal, noting that people coming into the MARC world from the tech side are shocked and dismayed that qualifying information is recorded in the same subfield as the information it is modifying. This is a great change.
Matthew Wise (ALCTS) moved that the proposal be accepted with minor changes. Sarah Beth Weeks (LITA) seconded. The motion was approved unanimously.
Sally McCallum (LC) thanked all those present and all our predecessors on this committee for thirty years of hard work and long hours on Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, Monday afternoons, and occasionally Tuesday mornings. It has been very important to the community to have a group of dedicated people to seriously look at and consider all proposals to maintain the MARC format. This has contributed greatly to the continued usability of the format.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan Moore
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