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MARC PROPOSAL NO. 2026-06

DATE: June 11, 2026
REVISED:

NAME: Defining a New Field for Notated Movement Characteristics in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats

SOURCE: Music Library Association (MLA)

SUMMARY: This paper proposes defining a new field 358 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority formats for recording Notated Movement Characteristics, which includes Format of Notated Movement and Form of Movement Notation.

KEYWORDS: Field 358 (AD, BD); Notated Movement Characteristics (AD, BD); Format of Notated Movement (AD, BD); Form of Movement Notation (BD)

RELATED: 2026-DP04; 2021-05; 2020-DP12

STATUS/COMMENTS:
06/11/26 – Made available to the MARC community for discussion.

Proposal No. 2026-06: Defining a New Field for Notated Movement Characteristics

1. BACKGROUND

As part of ongoing efforts to better represent dance and other forms of notated movement in the MARC formats, Discussion Paper No. 2026-DP04 was brought to the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) in February 2026. That paper presented three options for recording notated movement characteristics in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format. Following the consensus of feedback received, this proposal pursues the option of defining a new field 358 (Notated Movement Characteristics) in the Bibliographic and Authority formats.

2. DISCUSSION

2.1. Parallels with Field 348

Given the similarities between movement notation and music notation, the structure and terminology for the proposed field 358 is designed to parallel field 348 (Notated Music Characteristics) in the Bibliographic format.

Field 348 is currently defined in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format, in part, as follows:

All of the subfields present in field 348 have been brought over to the proposed field 358, with the exception of subfields $b (Format of notated music code) and $d (Form of musical notation code). During consideration of the discussion paper, there was general agreement that equivalent subfields for notated movement characteristic codes are not needed at this time, because terms in the proposed field currently do not have a defined set of coded values.

2.2. Terminology

The term notated movement characteristics is an umbrella term for the two distinct aspects of format of notated movement and form of movement notation.

Currently, the equivalent term for form of movement notation in the RDA Registry is Form of Notated Movement. A comment has been submitted by the authors of this paper to change the name of this element to Form of Movement Notation. This change, along with the proposal to create the RDA element Format of Notated Movement, would align choreographic movement terminology with the existing terms for notated music. To avoid confusion, subsequent sections of this paper will use the term Form of Movement Notation to refer to the RDA Registry element Form of Notated Movement.

2.3. Scope of Field and Definition of Choreographic

During the discussion of Discussion Paper No. 2026-DP04, it was recommended that the scope of "notated movement" be broad enough to include types of movement beyond dance, such as marching band drill charts, figure skating diagrams, and even chess notation. We recognize that no single community has expertise in such a diverse set of examples, so we have mostly limited our examples below to dance notation, with the intention that other communities may use this field for their own types of movement notation as needed.

In the proposed definition to field 358 below, the word "choreographic" is used broadly, in the same sense used by RDA in its definition of "choreographic work": "A work that is realized as notated movement, performed movement, or tactile notated movement."

2.4. Authority Format

Discussion Paper No. 2026-DP04 did not include provisions for recording notated movement characteristics in the Authority format. However, during the February 2026 meeting, MAC agreed that it would be useful to be able to record format of notated movement terms in the Authority format. The use case for recording form of movement notation terms in the Authority format is less clear, and warrants a separate discussion paper in the future. Therefore, this paper expands the scope of the proposed field 358 to be defined in the Authority format, with the omission of subfield $c. This aligns the new field with current practice in field 348 (Notated Music Characteristics).

3. PROPOSED CHANGES

3.1. New Field 358 in the Bibliographic Format

Define field 358 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format (in the 3XX Physical Description, etc., block) as follows:

358 - Notated Movement Characteristics (R)

Field Definition and Scope

The choreographic or physical layout of the content of a resource that is presented as movement notation, as well as the type of the notation itself.

Multiple terms from the same source vocabulary may be recorded in the same field in separate occurrences of subfield $a (Format of notated movement term) and subfield $c (Form of movement notation term). Terms from different source vocabularies are recorded in separate occurrences of the field.

First Indicator - Undefined
# - Undefined

Second Indicator - Undefined
# - Undefined

Subfield Codes

$a - Format of notated movement term (R)
Term for the format of notated movement in the resource.

$c - Form of movement notation term (R)
Term for the form of movement notation in the resource.

$0 – Authority record control number or standard number (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

$1 – Real World Object URI (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

$2 - Source (NR)
Identification of the source of terms when they are from a controlled list.

$3 - Materials specified (NR)
Part of the described materials to which the field applies.

$6 - Linkage (NR)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

$7 - Data provenance (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix J: Data Provenance Subfields.

$8 - Field Link and sequence number (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

3.2. New Field 358 in the Authority Format

Define field 358 in the MARC 21 Authority Format (in the 1XX, 3XX: Heading Information Fields block) as follows:

358 - Notated Movement Characteristics (R)

Field Definition and Scope

The choreographic or physical layout of the content of a resource that is presented as movement notation.

Multiple terms from the same source vocabulary may be recorded in the same field in separate occurrences of subfield $a (Format of notated movement term). Terms from different source vocabularies are recorded in separate occurrences of the field.

First Indicator - Undefined
# - Undefined

Second Indicator - Undefined
# - Undefined

Subfield Codes

$a - Format of notated movement term (R)
Term for the format of notated movement in the resource.

$0 – Authority record control number or standard number (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

$1 – Real World Object URI (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

$2 - Source (NR)
Identification of the source of terms when they are from a controlled list.

$3 - Materials specified (NR)
Part of the described materials to which the field applies.

$6 - Linkage (NR)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

$7 - Data provenance (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix H: Data Provenance Subfields.

$8 - Field Link and sequence number (R)
See description of this subfield in Appendix A: Control Subfields.

4. EXAMPLES


4.1. A manifestation consisting of a dance score and parts with notated movement


300 ## $a 1 dance score (19 pages) + 5 dance parts ; $c 31 cm
358 ## $a dance score $a dance part
358 ## $c Beauchamp-Feuillet notation $2 rdafnv
655 #7 $a Dance scores. $2 lcgft
655 #7 $a Parts (Dance) $2 local

4.2. A manifestation consisting of music scores with notated music and dance scores with notated movement


300 ## $a 1 vocal score (1 volume, unpaged) + 1 dance score (1 volume, unpaged) + 1 piano conductor part (2 volumes) + 2 parts
348 ## $a vocal score $2 rdafnm
348 ## $a piano conductor part $2 rdafnm
348 ## $a part $2 rdafnm
348 ## $c staff notation $2 rdafmn
358 ## $a dance score
358 ## $c Labanotation $2 rdafnv
...
655 #7 $a Vocal scores. $2 lcgft
655 #7 $a Scores. $2 lcgft
655 #7 $a Parts (Music) $2 lcgft
655 #7 $a Dance scores. $2 lcgft

4.3. A manifestation consisting of a condensed score, instrumental parts, and marching band drill parts


300 ## $a 1 score 8 (pages) + 1 formation and text (12 unnumbered pages) + 18 parts ; $c 27 cm
348 ## $a score $a part $2 rdafnm
348 ## $3 score, parts $c staff notation $2 rdafmn
358 ## $3 formation and text $a drill sheet
358 ## $3 formation and text $c marching band drill
...
650 #0 $a Band music, Arranged $v Scores and parts
650 #0 $a Marches (Band) $v Scores and parts
650 #0 $a Marching drills
...
655 #7 $a Scores. $2 lcgft
655 #7 $a Parts (Music) $2 lcgft

4.4. An authority record for an English translation of a compilation of country dances, including lines of music (lccn n 81058146)


348 ## $a score $2 rdafnm
358 ## $a dance score
377 ## $a eng

5. BIBFRAME DISCUSSION

The BIBFRAME ontology already includes bf:NotatedMovement (a subclass of bf:Work) and bf:MovementNotation (a subclass of bf:Notation). The existing RDA list "RDA Form of Notated Movement" could be used with the bf:MovementNotation class. Additional properties and classes could be proposed as needed.

6. SUMMARY OF PROPOSED CHANGES

6.1. In the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format, define new field 358 as follows (see Section 3.1. for a full description of the field):

6.2. In the MARC 21 Authority Format, define new field 358 as follows (see Section 3.2. for a full description of the field):

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