Two proposals and two discussion papers were considered at the
MARBI sessions at ALA Annual in Chicago.
Proposal No. 2013-08 <
http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2013/2013-08.html >: Defining Subfield $7 in the 8XX Series Added Entry Fields in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Record
German libraries generally do not create authority records for series,
preferring to describe the series in a bibliographic record that is
linked to bibliographic records for individual parts of the series. This
proposal, requested by the German libraries, enables catalogers to
designate the type and bibliographic level of a series in a record
describing part of that series. The proposal was accepted with a few
minor changes to wording.
Proposal No. 2013-09 <
http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi2013/2013-09.html >: Defining Subfields for Qualifiers to Standard Identifiers in the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings Formats
This proposal defined a new, repeatable subfield $q for information
qualifying the record control number in subfield $a of standard record
number fields 015, 020, 024, and 027. (Field 022, the ISSN field, was
not included.) Qualifiers for record numbers may consist of information
about the physical format (folded, paperback, acid-free paper, sewn),
the publisher, the volume number, the content (score), etc. Separating
this information from the record number will improve efficiency and
granularity. This proposal passed with a few minor changes.
Discussion Paper No. 2013-DP05 <
http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2013/2013-dp05.html >: Defining Indicator Values for 588 Source of Description Note in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
The 588 field was originally proposed by serials catalogers, who
frequently record information about their descriptive data, such as the
latest issue consulted, or the issue on which the description is based.
Their experience with the field has revealed that typing the somewhat
lengthy captions slows down record production, and results in frequent
misspellings. The paper suggested defining indicators which could be set
to display the labels; this would save cataloger time, and cut down on
errors. It was pointed out, though, that the information provided is
really data about data, and therefore not simply a display issue.
Administrative metadata is growing, and committing to the use of an
indicator may not be a good strategy for the long term, since only a
limited number of indicator values are allowed in MARC. It was agreed
that the discussion paper should come back as a proposal, using the
indicator technique rather than some other method, and using the same
indicator for the Description based on and Identification of resource
based on labels. The suggestion that a blank indicator be made obsolete
was rejected.
Discussion Paper No. 2013-DP06 <
http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi2013/2013-dp06.html >: Defining New Field 388 for Chronological Terms in the MARC 21 Authority Format
This paper was another in the series of
MARBI
papers and proposals offered to support the development of LCGFT
(Library of Congress Genre/Form terms). LCGFT excludes facets such as
creator or audience characteristics or chronological terms, so new MARC
fields have been defined to accommodate these facets. These have obvious
implications for art catalogers, especially when creating authority
records for individual works of art. The paper under consideration
discussed defining a field in the authority format for chronological
terms. This would be used for recording controlled words or phrases, as
opposed to the coded dates recorded in the 046 field. This would have
the advantage of allowing users to search by a period term, which can
cover a wide range of dates and which is often culture-specific, as
opposed to merely a date. Catalogers would be able to indicate whether
the period terms applied to the date of creation of the work, or to the
date of component works within a compilation (in other words, a 19th
century anthology of Elizabethan era poetry could be coded as both 19th
century and as Elizabethan).
Issues raised during the discussion included the difference between
subject and genre metadata; the value of providing access by period for
compilations, since the creation date of a compilation is usually the
equivalent of a publication date; and possible confusion caused by the
fact that different disciplines treat period differently (for modern
music, the preferred division is by decade, for other disciplines, it
may be by century, or by regnal periods). The authors of the paper were
asked to rewrite the paper, providing different examples and explaining
more clearly how this will support genre-based access as opposed to
subject-based access.
The meeting on Sunday, June 30, was the last session of the ALA committee
MARBI before its dissolution. A new ALA committee, the Metadata Standards Committee, is replacing
MARBI
as the committee charged with playing a leadership role in the creation
and development of metadata standards for bibliographic description.
This will not, however, end ARLIS/NA’s involvement in metadata issues
related to data format. ARLIS/NA liaisons have never been members of
MARBI.
Instead they have been members of LC’s MARC Advisory Committee (MAC),
which consists of representatives of large national libraries, non-ALA
library associations, bibliographic utilities, and other organizations
with an interest in the development of MARC. MAC will continue its role
of advising the Library of Congress on MARC as well as on the
development of BIBFRAME. While liaisons participated in
MARBI
discussions, they had no voting role. Members of the MAC will be able
to vote on proposals presented to the Committee. It’s good to know that
ARLIS/NA and VRA now have a more active role in the maintenance of the
MARC standards, and that they will have a voice in the development of
BIBFRAME.