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MAC Meeting Minutes
MARC Advisory Committee


ALA Annual Meeting
Las Vegas, NV - June 28-29, 2014


MARC Steering Group Members:

Sally H. McCallum               LC                Library of Congress
Bill Leonard                    LAC               Library and Archives Canada 
Thurstan Young                  BL                British Library
Reinhold Heuvelmann             DNB               Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

MAC Chair and Secretary

Matthew W. Wise, Chair          NYU               New York University
Everett Allgood, Secretary      NYU               New York University

MARC Advisory Committee Representatives and Liaisons:

Sandra Barclay                  STS             Kennesaw State University
Sherman Clarke                  VRA             Freelance art cataloger 
Catherine Gerhart               OLAC            University of Washington
Richard O. Greene               OCLC            OCLC
Stephen Hearn                   SAC             University of Minnesota
Shana L. McDanold               PCC             Georgetown University
Susan M. Moore                  MAGIRT          University of Northern Iowa
John Myers                      CC:DA           Union College
Cory L. Nimer                   SAA             Brigham Young University
Elizabeth O'Keefe               ARLIS/NA        Morgan Library and Museum
Robert Pillow                   AVIAC           VTLS, Inc.
Elizabeth Plantz                NLM             National Library of Medicine
Regina Reynolds                 ISSN            Library of Congress
Sandy Rodriguez                 MLA             University of Missouri-Kansas City
Patricia Sayre-McCoy            AALL            University of Chicago Law School
Katherine Timms                 LAC             Library and Archives Canada
John Zagas                      LC              Library of Congress

Other Attendees:

Karen Anderson                  Backstage Library Works
Tassanee Chitcharoen            University of Colorado, Boulder
Lia Contrusi                    Columbia University Law Library
Ana Cristan                     Library of Congress
Reed David                      University of Alaska Anchorage
Scott Dutkiewicz                Clemson University
Kevin Ford                      Library of Congress
Kathy Glennan                   University of Maryland
Bruce Johnson                   Library of Congress
William W. Jones                New York University
Marilyn McCroskey               Missouri State University
Tony Olson                      Northwestern University
Adam Schiff                     University of Washington
Gary Strawn                     Northwestern University
Ken Wade                        UCLA
Jay Weitz                       OCLC
David Williamson                Library of Congress
Janis Young                     Library of Congress

[Note: anyone who attended and is not listed, please inform LC/Network 
Development and MARC Standards Office.]

Introductions, etc.

Introduction of members

Matthew Wise (NYU, 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.

Approval of minutes from MAC January 2014 meetings

Matthew Wise (NYU, Chair) asked if there were any corrections to the minutes of the ALA 2014 Midwinter meeting. A motion was passed and the minutes were approved unanimously.

Library of Congress Report

LC added the “LC Medium of Performance Thesaurus for Music” (terms of which are used in Field 382, one of the new fields for RDA defined in the Bibliographic and Authority formats), as well as the “American Folklore Society Ethnographic Thesaurus” into id.loc.gov, where their URIs are now available: http://id.loc.gov/authorities/performanceMediums.html and http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/ethnographicTerms.html.

MARC 21 Update 18 (Apr. 2014) is available via the MARC website. PDF versions of the MARC 21 Concise format have been discontinued and LC will no longer maintain the separate “Concise” edition. (This decision was based on the low number of downloads in recent years.)

MARC PROPOSALS

 

PROPOSAL 2014-04: Adding Miscellaneous Information in Topical Term and Geographic Name Fields of the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats
URL: //www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2014/2014-04.html
Source: German National Library
Summary: This paper proposes a way to designate "miscellaneous information" in topical term fields and geographic name fields of the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority formats. In addition, the paper proposes the re-definition of subfield $g "Miscellaneous information" as a repeatable subfield in fields where it is already defined.
Related Documents: 2014-DP03

MAC Discussion and Action taken: The proposal was approved unanimously.

Some discussion that many of the concerns expressed in the proposal are more properly cataloging concerns and need to be addressed and clarified within cataloging codes and by individual automated systems rather than within the MARC 21 format.

Caveat was made that there will be some situations in which a parenthetical qualifier within a 65X field does belong in subfield $a and not in the proposed subfield $g. For example, this commonly occurs with geographic name headings (i.e., Las Vegas (Nev.), not Las Vegas $g (Nev.)) in the context of LCSH.

MAC decided not to include subfield $g within the X55 genre/form headings at this time.


PROPOSAL 2014-05: Designating Relationships between Subject Headings from Different Thesauri in the MARC 21 Authority Format
URL: //www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2014/2014-05.html
Source: German National Library
Summary: This paper proposes a way to designate relationships between entries of different thesauri in a MARC authority record.
Related Documents: 2014-DP02

MAC Discussion and Action taken: The proposal was approved unanimously, with minor editorial revisions. (There were a couple of typos noted by Reinhold Heuvelmann (DNB) and others in the paper as distributed. These will be corrected.)


PROPOSAL 2014-06: Defining New Field 388 for Time Period of Creation Terms in the MARC 21 Authority and Bibliographic Formats.
URL: //www.loc.gov/marc/mac2014/2014-06.html
Source: ALCTS Subject Analysis Committee Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation
Summary:This paper proposes the establishment of new field 388 in the Authority and Bibliographic formats to record the time period of creation or origin of works and expressions.
Related Documents: 2012-DP03; 2013-DP06

MAC Discussion and Action taken: Approved, with the following amendments: 1) Define field 388 for Time Period of Creation, with editorial changes to the indicator value captions following MARC documentation naming conventions. 2) Add field 370 (Associated Place) to the Bibliographic format (NOTE: field 370 should have been added to the Bibliographic format when it was defined in the Authority format in 2009. Due to an oversight, it was not.). 3) Repeal the recent MARBI decision (proposed in 2013-07) to define a first indicator value (Type of date or time period) in field 648 (Subject Added Entry-Chronological Term) in the Bibliographic format; make the indicator "undefined" again. Type of time period will be covered in the Bibliographic format by the first indicator in new field 388.

Much of the discussion on this proposal centered upon another field altogether, the Bibliographic 648 field. MAC expressed concern that if the proposed 388 field is approved for both the Bibliographic and Authority formats, substantial revision may be necessary for the Bibliographic 648 field.

Following consultation with OCLC and the status of implementing the 648 changes, MAC determined they have not yet been put into place. That being the case, the decision was made to rescind the 2013 change to the Bibliographic 648 first indicator value, and reinstate it as “undefined.”

With this redundancy/confusion concern between the 388 and 648 fields addressed, the proposal was approved unanimously.


MARC DISCUSSION PAPERS

 

DISCUSSION PAPER 2014-DP05: Adding Dates for Corporate Bodies in Field 046 in the MARC 21 Authority Format
URL: //www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2014/2014-dp05.html
Source: British Library
Summary: This discussion paper considers the options for accommodating date of establishment and date of termination of a corporate body.
Related Documents: 2008-DP05; 2009-01  

MAC Discussion and Action taken: This paper will come back as a proposal.

In answer to the question 5.1, there was a clear preference for Option 1 because it provides a cleaner one-to-one mapping, greater granularity, and will generate clear display labels. There were some editorial changes suggested for the proposed subfield captions in Option 1.

In answer to the question at 5.2, MAC decided that the 046 Field Definition and Scope should be expanded as it relates to corporate bodies.

In answer to question 5.3 regarding the subfield labels for 046 subfield $s and $t, MAC decided the labels will remain the same and the subfield definitions will be clarified.


DISCUSSION PAPER 2014-DP06: Defining Values for Indicator 1 in Field 037 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
URL: //www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2014/2014-dp06.html
Source: British Library
Summary: This paper considers the definition of values for Indicator 1 in Field 037 to sequence sources of acquisition.
Related Documents: 2011-02

MAC Discussion and Action taken: This paper from the British Library generated prolonged discussion. The paper will come back as a proposal; the British cataloging community has presented a demonstrable need to record this “Source of Acquisition” information, principally for electronic resources available over time. The British Library proposal will incorporate subfield $3 (Materials specified) - for specifying the part of the serial to which the acquisition source pertains and subfield $5 (Institution to which field applies), as well as try to address the concerns raised during the MAC discussion.

As Matthew Wise (NYU, Chair) pointed out, one reason for the prolonged discussion on this paper stems from the fact that the Acquisitions community does not have a communications and exchange standard similar to MARC 21. As a result, MAC (and MARBI before it) is constantly trying to find logical places within the MARC 21 Bibliographic or Holdings format for Acquisitions information.

Some of the concerns with this Discussion Paper, followed by comments, expressed during the meeting:

1) Serials catalogers do not want to see standard numbers (and specifically the ISSN) re-purposed in non-standard ways, essentially as stock numbers.
The British Library representative pointed out that catalogers do not have a choice as to whether standard numbers are used as the basis of stock numbers by data aggregators. Recording such stock numbers in the MARC bibliographic format is already possible using field 037. Sequencing the field is an unrelated issue.

2) These electronic resources are often available from more than one source or provider simultaneously. What about situations where not all of these providers are encoded in 037 fields? Wouldn’t that serve to possibly privilege or favor those providers that are recorded?
It was noted that definition of subfield $5 in field 037 offers the means for simultaneous providers to be recorded on the same record while also enabling an institution to identify which provider relates to it. Hence, market place bias can be avoided.

3) How would this play out with Aggregator-Neutral cataloging guidelines?
Thurstan Young (BL) pointed out that the provider neutral model does not currently mandate the recording of field 037 in an unsequenced form. Therefore, no change should be necessary.

4) Bibliographic maintenance of these 037 fields over time, including the likelihood that they will contain obsolete information (i.e., providers who may no longer provide the resource, or even exist).
It was noted that the issue under discussion is sequencing. The issue of obsolescence may apply whether or not field 037 is sequenced. The definition of subfield $5 provides a means of identifying the source of acquisition with a specific institution rather than implying that the sequence is universally applicable.

5) Clarification of the term “Availability” and how it is defined within this context.
It was pointed out that the definition of $5 provides a means of linking availability to a specific institution.

6) Sequencing acquisition sources for resources may not require a MARC/bibliographic record solution but would be better handled by local solutions.
It was noted that this concern was addressed in the Discussion Paper. As a long term measure, a local approach is undesirable from the perspective of sharing information with third parties. Because it represents a non-standard usage of MARC, it also has the potential to make future system upgrades less straightforward.

7) The information contained in field 037 would be better recorded in the Holdings format rather than the Bibliographic format.
Thurstan Young (BL) noted, however, that the source of acquisition is distribution information, rather than information which necessarily relates to the stock held by a single institution. Hence, its treatment as bibliographic rather than holdings information is appropriate.

DISCUSSION PAPER 2014-DP07: Broaden Usage of Field 088 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
URL: //www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2014/2014-dp07.html
Source: Alaska Resources Library and Information Services (ARLIS)
Summary: This paper proposes broadening the usage of field 088 (Report Number) in bibliographic records to include series numbers (in particular for series in technical report and government publications) by deleting the sentence "Not used to record a number associated with a series statement" in field 088's field definition and scope.

MAC Discussion and Action taken: There was general support for the direction of this paper and it will come back as a proposal.

Regarding question 6.1, no one in the room could remember the details as to exactly why this prohibition of practice was initiated. It likely evolved from MARC’s general aversion to redundancy and an effort to minimize record length, etc.

Sally McCallum (Library of Congress) spoke in favor of the discussion paper as it will certainly aid with resource retrieval for users. Proper implementation will also clarify cataloging practices and will likely aid with training efforts as well.

Thurstan Young (British Library) and others believe addressing this need editorially may be the most pragmatic solution. That is, simply deleting the sentence instructing catalogers not to record series numbering in the 088 field.


Update on ALA Midwinter 2014 MARC Paper


DISCUSSION PAPER 2014-DP01: Designating Never Published in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
URL: //www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2014/2014-dp01.html
Source: German National Library
Summary: This paper discusses a way to designate in a MARC bibliographic record that a bibliographic resource has never been published.

UPDATE (06/2014): Reinhold Heuvelmann (DNB) reported that following further review and some editorial revisions, MARC 21 Bibliographic field 366 will indeed fulfill the needs of the German and Austrian cataloging community.

As detailed below in the update to the “Status/Comments” section for 2014-DP01, beginning in September 2014 code “AB” will be used in 366 subfield $c, along with the source code “onixas” in subfield $2.

STATUS/COMMENTS:
12/20/13 - Made available to the MARC community for discussion.

01/26/14 - Results of MARC Advisory Committee discussion: The Committee suggested considering field 366 (Trade Availability Information), with $c (Availability status code) containing a code for cancelled.  DNB will consider whether the 366 field meets its current requirements as specified, or whether a proposal to expand its usage should be submitted at Annual 2014.

06/29/14 - Update: DNB has considered field 366 (Trade Availability Information), and, after a few editorial changes were made to the MARC documentation, found that it meets the requirements.  No
proposal had to be submitted.  DNB will use field 366 for its MARC data services in a brief form, "366 ## $c AB $2 onixas", starting in September 2014.

 

Respectfully submitted,
Everett Allgood


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