George Prager, Head of Cataloging at New York University Law School Library has sent his summary of the ALA Midwinter MARBI meetings to members of the American Association of Law Libraries Technical Services Special Interest Group. With his permission I am also posting it here along with his opening comments:
COMMENTS:
I have added a brief summary of each proposal and discussion paper presented at the American Library Association Midwinter MARBI Meetings, whhich took place January 24-25, 2009. A more detailed analysis of the papers will be available in my 2008/2009 Annual report, which will appear on the TSIS Website shortly before the AALL 2009 Annual Meeting, and later in TSLL.
Several proposals and discussion papers relate to RDA. These include: Proposals No. 2009-01/1, 2009-01/2, and 2009-01/3, and Discussion papers 2009-DP01/1 and 2009-DP-01/2. Also noteworthy is DP No. 2009-DP02, Definition of field 588 for metadata control note in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format.
SUMMARIES
Proposal No. 2009-01/1: New data elements in the MARC 21 Authority Format http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-01-1.html
New data elements will be needed in the MARC 21 Authority format to accommodate Resource Description and Access (RDA). All the new fields have been approved for addition to the format. These include fields: 046 (Special coded dates), 621 (Associated place), 622 (Address), 623 (Field of activity), 624 (Affiliation), 625 (Occupation), 626 (Gender), 627 (Family information), and 628 (Associated language). The proposal has been amended to replace $d “Dates” in the 62x fields with $o (Start date) and $p (End date), to provide more controlled searching. Also, at the meeting it was decided to add 2 more subfields to most of the new 62X fields: subfield $u for URI, and another subfield (value as yet undetermined), for source of the information.
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Proposal No. 2009-01/2: New content designation for RDA elements: Content type, Media Type, Carrier Type in the MARC 21 Formats http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-01-2.html
Three new fields have been approved: Field 336 (Content type), 337 (Media type), and 338 (Carrier type). These fields are intended to replace the General material designation (GMD), defined in AACR2, and used in Bibliographic field 245. “Content type” will be used in the MARC 21 Authority and Bibliographic formats; “Media typer” and “Carrier type” will be used only in the Bibliographic format. Also, new values for “Carrier type” were proposed and have been approved for addition to the Bibliographic 007 field; no new values were deemed necessary for Content or Media type.
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Proposal No. 2009-01/3: Identifying work, expression and manifestation records in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-01-3.html
Field “883”: “Entity type” was proposed to identify FRBR type 1 entitles: Work, expression, manifestation, and item. This proposal was rejected by the MARBI Committee. A major problem is that clean mapping of FRBR levels is difficult in our current bibliographic records, most of which contain manifestation information (such as publication information) and work information (such as subject headings), and sometimes expression level information as well (such as many uniform titles).
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Proposal No. 2009-02: Definition of new codes for legal deposits in 008/07 (Method of Acquisition) in the MARC 21 Holdings Format http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-02.html
The Biblioteca Nacional de Espana has proposed new codes for legal deposit. Status: Approved as amended: Code “d” will be renamed as “Deposit (Unspecified)”, and the definition will be revised. Code “l” (the letter) will be added for “Legal deposit”; Proposed Code “v” for “Depository program” will be deleted.
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Proposal No. 2009-03: Definition of field 080 in the MARC 21 Authority Format http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-03.html
The Authority Format has separate fields for many other classsification scheme numbers, all of which are also valid in the Bibliographic Format. The Biblioteca Nacional de Espana has proposed the addition of field 080, for a Universal Decimal Classification number, to be used for name, series, and subject records. This field already is used in the Bibliographic Format. Status: Approved.
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Proposal No. 2009-04: Addition of Codes for Map Projections in 008/22-23 (Maps) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-04.html
Status: The National Library of the Czech Republic has proposed two new codes for map projections. Status: Approved.
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Proposal No. 2009-05: Adding subfield $u for Uniform Resource Identifier to field 510 (Citation/References note) of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-05.html
Status: Approved. A recommendation will be added that the URI follow immediately after the citation. Although this proposal originated from the Bibliographic Standards Committee, ALA/ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, the usage will not be restricted to rare books and mansucripts, so examples will be added for citations to other types of material.
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Discussion Paper No. 2009-DP01/1: Encoding URIs for controlled values in MARC records http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-dp01-1.html
Currently, LC’s Network Development and MARC Standards Office is working on a registry for controlled lists (such as the MARC Code List for Languages), and establishing URIs both for the list itself and for each value on the list. This paper proposes subfield “l” (the number “1”), for coding URIs in place of or in addition to using terms from a controlled vocabulary. This DP will be brought back as a proposal.
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Discussion Paper No. 2009-DP01/2: Relationship Designators for RDA Appendix J and K http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-dp01-2.html
Appendix J lists possible relationships between the Group 1 FRBR entities: Works, expressions, manifestations, and items. Appendix K lists the possible relationships between the Group 2 FRBR entities: Persons, families, and corporate bodies. This Discussion paper recommends that subfields $e, $4, and $u be added for use in linking entry fields of the bibliographic format. It also recommends that subfields $4 and $e be added to 5XX fields in the authority format wherever they are not yet authorized. This paper will be brought back as a proposal.
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Discussion Paper No. 2009-DP02: Definition of field 588 for metadata control note in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-dp02.html
At the MARBI meeting, it was suggested that this field be modelled upon a similar field in UNIMARC, field 830, named “General Cataloguer’s Note”. It was also suggested that the field be renamed, narrowed in scope, and made more structured, with possibly a value added to allow suppression of the field upon a case by case basis. First indicators are being proposed for “blank”: ” Free text”; “0” Source of title; “1” “Description based on”, and “2” “Latest issue consulted”. Using these indicators for common messages of this type will minimize keying, lessen spelling errors, and provide useful information in a language neutral manner. Further feedback wil be sought from the MARC list. This paper will be brought back as a proposal.
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Discussion Paper No. 2009-DP03: Changing field 257 (Country of producing entity for archival films) of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format to include non-archival materials http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2009/2009-dp03.html
LC’s current policy is that geographic subdivisions are not allowed after film genre headings (Field 655), unless the source of the term is coded in $2 as “local”. As an alternative, Field 257 has been proposed, in order to bring out what country or countries a film has been produced in. This DP will be brought back as a proposal.
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