PROPOSAL NO.: 2005-04

DATE: December 10, 2004
REVISED:

NAME: Hierarchical Geographic Names in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

SOURCE: ALA MAGERT Cataloging and Classification Committee

SUMMARY: This paper proposes subfields to be used in Field 662 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) to allow a hierarchical approach to subject-oriented geographic coverage.

KEYWORDS: Field 662 (BD); Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name (BD); Field 752 (BD); Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name (BD); Hierarchical Place Name (BD)

RELATED: 2004-DP02 (January 2004); 2004-07 (May 2004)

STATUS/COMMENTS:

12/10/04 - Made available to the MARC 21 community for discussion.

01/15/05 - Results of the MARC Advisory Committee discussion - There was much discussion about the proposed subfields, but further work is needed. The committee favored parallel 662/752 fields. Examples from vocabularies beyond the LC name authority file are needed. Subfield repeatability clarification is also needed. Reconsideration of the definition of subfield $f to eliminate jurisdictions was requested. Consideration of a subfield to link to a thesaurus record was suggested.

03/02/05 - Results of LC/LAC/BL review - Agreed with the MARBI decisions.


Proposal 2005-04: Hierarchical Geographic Names in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

1. BACKGROUND

In current MARC 21 documentation, Field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) "is assigned ... to give access to a bibliographic record through a hierarchical form of a place name related to a particular attribute (e.g. for newspapers, the name of the community served; for rare books, the place of publication or printing)." Some applications, such as online catalogs of graphic images, have used the hierarchical geographic name structure of field 752 to provide subject access.

Some users expressed the need to distinguish between a hierarchical approach that provides place of manufacture/publication information for an item described in a bibliographic record and a hierarchical approach that provides subject-oriented geographic coverage. As a result, this issue was brought to the MARC Advisory Committee.

Discussion Paper 2004-DP02 was presented for review and discussion in January 2004. It discussed the variety of current usages of field 752 and the need of some institutions to differentiate between place of manufacture/publication information and subject-oriented geographic information. The discussion paper suggested either adding an indicator to field 752 to show whether the place name provided manufacture/publication information or subject information, or defining a new field in the subject range for subject-oriented access. There was no consensus as to the preferred approach.

The MARC Advisory Committee discussed Proposal 2004-07 (Applying Field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) for Different Purposes in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format) in June 2004. The paper proposed alternative methods to facilitate different indexing of the field, either by 1) adding indicators to the 752 field to show whether the place name designated the place of manufacture/publication or provided subject access; or 2) by defining a new field (field 652) for subject use.

The paper also proposed defining a subfield $2 to identify any thesauri used as sources of the field's content and possibly expanding some subfields' definitions and changing their repeatability as a means of extending place hierarchies.

The second option (define a new field) was approved in part. Participants agreed that field 662 (rather than field 652, which had been definedbut made obsolete) was an appropriate field to contain a hierarchical form of a geographic name that would provide subject coverage. Participants decided that the portion of Proposal 2004-07 concerning the definition of a subfield $2 and the possible expansion of subfields' definitions and changes to their repeatability in both the 662 and 752 fields should be covered in a new proposal.

2. DISCUSSION

2.1 Limitations of Field 752 for providing geographic subject coverage.

The 752 field was designed to provide access through a hierarchical form of a place name related to a particular attribute (e.g. for newspapers, the name of the community served; for rare books, the place of publication or printing).

Field 752 indicators and subfields are listed below:

Field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)
  First indicator    
      # Undefined    
  Second indicator    
      # Undefined    
  Subfield codes    
      $a Country (NR)
      $b State, province, territory (NR
      $c County, region, islands area (NR)
      $d City (NR)
      $6 Linkage (NR)
      $8 Field link and sequence number (R)

This structure of field 752 is limited in terms of geographic coverage since not all types of geographic entities may be included. This may be due in part to the field's original purpose, as it was originally defined to contain a hierarchical form of geographic access to newspapers, primarily American newspapers. The definition was later expanded to allow for a more generalized application of the field.

2.2. Desirability of defining additional subfields.

The current subfields in field 752 do not specifically allow for coverage of terrestrial areas larger than countries, for named sections of cities, for extraterrestrial bodies or other types of geographic entities. Modifying the subfield structure used in field 752 for field 662 and adding additional subfields would allow for a greater degree of specificity than would be allowed if the same subfields from field 752 were exclusively used in field 662, and a greater degree of specificity has been sought by some users. In addition, adding a subfield to the 752 field to allow adding hierarchical place names for areas such as neighborhoods might be desirable.

It is likely that at some point there would be interest in developing thesauri for hierarchical place names. Adding a subfield $2 (Source of heading in term) would allow a thesaurus to be specified.

2.3 Possible solutions

Option 1. Define Field 662 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) with new subfields and make no changes to pre-existing 752 subfields, but add subfields $e and $2. This option would define field 662, using some of the same subfields (with some modifications) that are in field 752, and add additional subfields to allow a greater degree of specificity than currently allowed by field 752's subfields. Currently in field 752 county, region, and islands area are all included in subfield $c; it may be desirable to break these out into separate subfields, since they are different kinds of geographic entities at different hierarchical levels. In addition, state, province, and territory are all included in $b, but since these are all first level subdivisions of a country, it is not proposed that these be broken into separate subfields. Field 752 would no longer be used for subject-related content, but to record place of production or publication information, so its basic structure would remain the same. Subfield $e would be added for hierarchical place names for areas such as neighborhoods. Subfield $2 would be added to allow a source to be specified if thesauri for hierarchical place names were developed.

This option involves using 752 subfields in field 662 with the following modifications:

  1) Break out subfield $c (County, region, islands area) into two subfields:
    $c County    
    $f Region, islands area
  2) Add the following subfields:  
    $e City subsection
    $g Extraterrestrial area
    $2 Source of heading or term
  3) Leave field 752 as is, but define $e (City subsection) and $2 (Source of heading or term).
  4) Revise the definition of $a to "Country or larger" and make it repeatable.

Field 662 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)
  First indicator  
      # Undefined  
  Second indicator  
      # Undefined  
  Subfield codes  
      $a Country or larger (R)
          Subfield $a contains the name of a country or a larger geographic entity, e.g., continent or hemisphere..
      $b State, province or territory (NR)
          Subfield $b contains the name of a first order political division or jurisdiction, such a state, province or territory.
      $c County (NR)
          Subfield $c contains the name of a county or other second order political division or jurisdiction. It also includes the largest local administrative unit in various countries, e.g. England.
      $d City (NR)
          Subfield $d contains the name of a city or town.
      $e City subsection (R)
          Subfield $e contains the name of a smaller unit within a city or town, such as a neighborhood, park or street.
      $f Region, islands area (R)
          Subfield $f contains the name of a region or island area that has official status as a jurisdiction, usually incorporating more than one first-level jurisdiction. It can also contain the name of a non-jurisdictional geographic entity, e.g., geographic features.
      $g Extraterrestrial area (R)  
          Subfield $j contains the name of any extraterrestrial space or entity.
      $2 Source of heading or term (NR)  
      $6 Linkage (NR)  
      $8 Field link and sequence number (R)  
             

  Examples  
    662 ## $gMoon.
    662 ## $aAntarctica.
    662## $aCanada $bBritish Columbia $dVancouver.
    662 ## $aNorth America $aUnited States $bNew York (State) $dNew York $eBrooklyn.
    662 ## $aCanada $bOntario $fNiagara Falls.
    662 ## $aCanada $bNew York (State) $fNiagara Falls.
      [The field would be repeated if a geographic feature extended into more than one jurisdiction.]
    662 ## $aUnited States $bSouth Carolina $fCharleston Region.
    662 ## $aFrance $fFranche Comté.
    662 ## $aMidddle Earth $bGondor $dMinas Tirith.
      [Imaginary places are treated as real places.]
       

Option 2. Define Field 662 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) with new subfields and change subfields in the 752 field to match those of field 662. This option is the same as above for field 662. The structure of field 752 would be changed to allow for more specific coding and in the interest of maintaining symmetry between similar fields (both for recording hierarchical place names).

In either case, it might be considered whether a field is needed in the MARC 21 Authority Format for the control of a hierarchical geographic name. This would require an additional proposal.

3. PROPOSED CHANGES

3.1. Define Field 662 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) and add subfields $e and $2 to Field 752

• Define field 662 with modified 752 subfields, plus additional ones.

Field 662 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)
  Both indicators  
      # Undefined  
  Subfield codes  
      $a Country or larger (R)
      $b State, province or territory (NR)
      $c County (NR)
      $d City (NR)
      $e City subsection (R)
      $f Region, islands area (R)
      $g Extraterrestrial area (NR)  
      $2 Source of heading or term (NR)  
      $6 Linkage (NR)  
      $8 Field link and sequence number (R)  

• In field 752 define subfield $e for a City subsection and subfield $2 to allow citing any thesaurus used. Retain pre-existing subfields but make $a repeatable.

3.2. Define Field 662 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) and expand Field 752

• Define field 662 with modified 752 subfields plus additional ones (see above under 3.1)

• Change subfields in field 752 to match those of field 662.


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