MARBI (Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee) will be
considering eight proposals and one discussion paper during its sessions
at the American Library Association conference in Atlanta, June 15-17.
The agenda, which has links to full texts of the papers, is available at
http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marbi/an2002_age.html.
Several of the papers cover issues of interest to art librarians. I have
summarized these below. Please post your comments on the list, or, if
you prefer, send them directly to me.
Proposal 2002-10 proposes defining subfield $u for field 506
(Restrictions on access note) and field 540 (Terms governing use and
reproduction note) in the Bibliographic Format. This subfield would
provide a direct link between bibliographic records and addressable
electronic files containing current information about restrictions
imposed on access, use and/or reproduction of materials described in the
records. This would make detailed descriptions of policies available
through the catalog, just a click away from the bibliographic record. It
also has the advantage of making it easier to update the policies (the
library has to change only one file, instead of hundreds of
bibliographic records).
Here is an example from the Prints and Photographs Division of the
Library of Congress:
100 1# $aBrumfield, William Craft, $d1944- $ephotographer.
245 10 $aChurch of Zosima, Savvaty, and Herman (1900), with Legation of
Solovetskii-Transfiguration Monastery (19th
century), west view, Arkhangelsk, Russia $h[graphic].
260 ## $c1999.
300 ## $a1 slide : $bcolor ; $c35 mm.
500 ## $aTitle, date, and place from photographer's inventory.
506 ## $aDigital images provided in preference to originals as per
Divisional preservational policy.
540 ## $aReproduction is restricted through October 2014. See
Restrictions Statement for more
information:$uhttp://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/res/273_brum.html
Proposal 2002-14 deals with changes to MARC21 requested by UK libraries,
who are migrating from their own version of MARC to MARC21.
One proposed change is the definition of a field 026 (Fingerprint
Identifier) for use in identifying antiquarian books. "Fingerprints"
consist of groups of characters taken from specified positions on
specified pages of a book, in accordance with the principles laid down
in various published guidelines.
Questions:
Does anyone reading this message record fingerprints for their rare
books? Could the field be used for comparable schemes used for
describing art objects?
The UK libraries also propose a new field, Field 563, for binding
information. At present, binding information must be recorded in a
general 500 note, or a 590 note, which is used for local information of
all kinds (and which has been effectively superseded by the definition
of a subfield $5 to identify copy-specific information). The UKMARC
community would like a field devoted to binding, to be able to
distinguish this information from other bibliographic notes.
Two examples of binding notes using the new field:
563 ## $aLate 16th century blind-tooled centrepiece binding, dark brown
calf.$5StEdNL
563 ## $aGold-tooled morocco binding by Benjamin West, ca. 1840.$5Uk
Questions:
Are those who record binding information (principally rare book
catalogers) in favor of a new field? What are the implications for
existing records, which will have this information in a 5XX note?
Acquisitions librarians may be interested in the UK libraries' proposal
to define fields for acquisitions information on the bibliographic
record. These fields are intended for use primarily by the book trade,
rather than by libraries purchasing books. Field 363 would carry price
information, field 364 would carry information about the availability of
an item.
Discussion Paper 2002-DP08 tackles the weighty issue of expression-level
collocation in online systems. How do libraries pull together for their
users all the manifestations of a work, as well as related material? For
example, the library may own three texts published by different
publishers of the same novel, AND an audiocassette of someone reading
the novel, AND a video recording of a lecture analyzing the novel. All
of these items might interest the same user, but how easy will it be for
a user to tell from the display which is which? One approach mentioned
in the paper is to create expression-based authority records (analogous
to authority records for uniform titles, but one level more specific).
The issue has implications for art librarians and visual resource
curators; it will be interesting to hear from other communities, and to
explore the various techniques that might be used.
--
Elizabeth O'Keefe
Director of Collection Information Systems
The Pierpont Morgan Library
29 East 36th Street
New York, NY 10016-3403
TEL: 212 590-0380
FAX: 212 685-4740
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