MARBI report
Midwinter 1997

(N.B. Though the January 1997 roster still says ÒUSMARC Advisory Group,Ó the LC home page now says ÒMARC Advisory Committee.Ó If the name has changed, the group members have not been officially notified.)

This report is in proposal and discussion paper order, followed by the business meeting report; discussion actually happened in a different order.

Proposal 96-8 This is the continuation of harmonization of USMARC and CanMARC. Value 3 was added to Encoding level (Ldr/17) for ÒAbbreviated levelÓ which is used in Canada for records that are minimal but not the same as National Level Bibliographic minimal level. Cataloging source codes were redefined and/or retained as blank for national bibliographic agency (rather than merely LC), c for cooperative, d for other, and u for unknown. Codes for VIM accompanying material (008/23-27) were made obsolete. The values in CanMARC 009 for cartographic material physical characteristics were added to various 007s and 008. Field 016 was added for National bibliographic agency control number. Field 084 will be used for CODOC numbers (Canadian document shelving numbers; option 2 in the proposal).

There was a long discussion of the CanMARC 9XX fields which are used for equivalent names and cross references. Though there is significant sympathy for the bilingual uses of the 9XX, there is also strong sentiment that these fields are domain-specific if not local implementations and belong elsewhere than the official MARC documentation. In addition, they are perhaps closer to authority data than to data that should reside on the bib record. The National Library of Canada wishes to get out of the documentation business but also would be the agency to define these fields. It was decided in the end that LC and NLC needed to negotiate how the CanMARC use of 9XX can be documented.

There were also several proposals on authority records. Byte 008/08 was defined for multilingual usage with a related 038 for details (option 2). A code was added for Sears List of Subject Headings in 008/11. Field 055 was added, parallel to the bib format, for series call numbers in NLC. Subfield 0 (zero) will be semi-reserved for Record control number in 5XX and 7XX fields.

The fields, subfields, etc. related to archival control were discussed in a block at the second meeting, as follows: The contention between the Canadian and U.S. archivists about field 520 (Summary, etc.) circled about the word ÒnoteÓ which is not used in Rules for archival description (the Canadian guidelines). The word ÒnoteÓ was dropped from the name and description of the field. RAD only would put Òscope and contentÓ information in 520. Field 544 was redefined to give the location of other archival materials, including data that would have been in 542. The first indicator will be defined to give the relationship (e.g. associated or related). Subfield n was added for notes. Subfield d and e will be used for the title and provenance of archival materials. For archivists, ÒprovenanceÓ refers only to the originator of a collection, not to the repository. Field 545 for biographical or historical note was accepted as proposed (adding indicators for type of data and revising names of subfields). Field 561 will be renamed from Provenance to History of ownership and custody. In the authority format, subfield e was added to 040 for description convention, value t was accepted for $w/0 (immediate parent body), and 678 (epitome) was accepted as proposed (not now used in U.S. authority records though such biographical or historical data is desired on archival-related records).

Proposal 97-1 The first indicator of 856 will be defined to indicate if the resource linking is for the resource represented by the bib record or a related resource. There was considerable discussion about how many indicator values would be needed and what those values would be. In addition, value 4 was added to the second indicator for HTTP (recognizing the substantial number of HTTP resources).

Proposal 97-2 Value 8 (No display constant generated) will be added to the second indicator of 76X-78X linking entry fields. Along with subfield i, this will be used to carry display text when the display constant is inappropriate or not present.

Proposal 97-3 Another round on the primary coding of computer files and electronic resources, without resolution. The issue of Òcontent vs. carrierÓ will come up at the Toronto cataloging conference and it is hoped that progress will be made in the cataloging arena so that progress can be made in the coding arena. There was some discussion of trying to solve some of the issues, particularly electronic texts. There will be more rounds of this discussion in future MARBI meetings.

Proposal 97-4 Subfield 5 was added to 655 for those cases when the genre/form term applies to the copy being described. At present, LC used a 710 with $5 for their artistsÕ books; 655 with $5 would allow them to code it as a genre rather than a collection.

Proposal 97-5 This paper proposed several changes to the classification format for multilingual classification schemes. Field 084 will be added for Classification scheme and edition. Field 686 will be added for Relationship to source note, covering expansions and variations from the standard schema.

Proposal 97-6 A new 007 was developed for remote-sensing images. Some of the bytes comes from the existing map 007 and other data was coded by the Canadians in 009. Some of the definitions and values were revised and the proposed 007 was accepted as amended.

Proposal 97-7 Value a was renamed in Ldr/08 as Archival (it had been Archival control). Value t will be redefined to include only manuscript materials that are not archivally controlled (the most common example being dissertations). Value p was redefined to indicate that the mixed materials are significant, rather than predominant (an archival collection may be cataloged for the former even though those materials do not predominate in the collection). An 006 for mixed materials did not pass.

Discussion paper 98: Subentity codes Several agencies outside the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. have indicated a need (some by already establishing them) for coding geographic subentities in the Country of publication code (008/15-17) and the Geographic area code (field 043). Australia and Brazil are two of the countries using or requesting subentity codes. The need is recognized and a proposal will be developed for the next MARBI meetings. Possibilities include stretching the 008 but it is more likely that a scheme will be developed in 044 (?), with the 008/17 perhaps having a value like x which would mean look at 044. For example, Brazil would be coded bl in the 008 with blx if there is an 044 with a state code.

Discussion paper 99: Metadata The Dublin Core set was extended to 15 elements after the third workshop held in Dublin (Ohio) in fall 1996. (The fourth workshop was held in Canberra in early March 1997.) The Weibel/Jul paper is about to be released. An RFC (request for comment) is also about to go out on how to embed Dublin Core in HTML. A new buzzword is PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection). PICS will allow the exchange of data in Dublin Core elements. More than simply embedded metadata, it will allow Òresource discoveryÓ and Òrecord management.Ó

Discussion paper 100: Script and romanization in authorities This paper did not get finished for discussion at Midwinter. It will deal with handling equivalent headings, for example, the romanized and Chinese-character forms of Deng Hsiao-ping. Basically, stay tuned.

Business meeting The Community Information Format update 1 came out in October. A new version of the language codes went to CDS in December and will be out Ònext weekÓ; there are 29 new codes and the codes are now in synch with NISO. The ISO list however failed to pass. A single code has been added for sign languages, with field 546 being used for details about the particular sign language. The new electronic version of the concise formats which includes examples is now available on the web. Bib update 3, authority 2, and holdings 3 are all expected in March. There will be a 1997 edition of the relator codes. Authority update 1 will be implemented later this spring; OCLC is completing some work for LC on this update (which includes the second indicator of 1XX, 4XX, and 5XX). LC control numbers will be going to four digits in 2000. The SGML DTD for MARC is available on the LC web; funds are being sought for conversion software. The National Digital Library Federation is working on cooperative metadata standards. Hierarchy is the biggest problem for MARC (we knew that) and linking seems more effortless on the web. A discussion paper is to be prepared on a universal method of indicating non-filing characters and another on 541 for holdings. MARBI will probably hold a joint meeting in San Francisco with CC:DA, details to be determined by the committee chairs (probably one hour in the Monday morning CC:DA slot with metadata as the topic). A program is scheduled for Annual conference in San Francisco in late June/early July. Rebecca Guenther, Stu Weibel, and Clifford Lynch are to be panelists. The Community Information Section Technologies Committee of the Public Library Association asked that the Community Information Format be moved from provisional to full status; a motion was passed to that effect.

The British Library is to begin sending authority records to LC via FTP, as OCLC and RLIN do. Their records will have an nb prefix in the 010. (This will probably translate in RLIN to an NAFB prefix.) The 040 $a will be Uk.