BCC2010/SMF/2

MARC Formats Subcommittee Business Meeting
Tuesday March 23, 2010, 2:00pm
San Diego, CA

Compiled by: Bruce Evans and Kerri Baunach
 

Attendees: Kerri Baunach, Catherine Busselen, Bruce Evans (acting chair), Robert Freeborn, Kathy Glennan (reporting for Jim Alberts), Peter Lisius, Daniel Paradis, Jay Weitz (OCLC Representative), Stephen Yusko (LC Representative)

Jim Alberts, outgoing chair of the subcommittee, was unable to attend this meeting.  In his absence, Bruce Evans, incoming chair, chaired the meeting.  Bruce began by thanking Matthew Wise and Kerri Baunach for their four years on the subcommittee, as well as by thanking Jim Alberts for his service as chair of the subcommittee over the last four years.  He also announced that applications were being accepted from anyone interested in serving on the MARC Formats Subcommittee.  Each subcommittee member then introduced themselves.

After Bruce’s introductory comments, Kathy Glennan reported on music-related MARBI Proposals presented at Midwinter. The first was MARC Proposal 2010-03 Recording Place and Date of Capture in the MARC21 Bibliographic Format (033/518): This was a discussion paper at Annual and then came as a proposal at Midwinter; discussion was lengthy regarding adding subfield coding for added granularity to the 518, and adding codes to the 033, since these fields have linked information.  In the end, changes were made to both fields and the proposal passed.  These changes will be part of an LC MARC update in May, which will in turn make it available to RDA testers in time to start their work in June. LC turned this around very quickly (dated March 5, 2010), as MARC updates usually only come out every October. The second music-related proposal was MARC Proposal 2010-04: New data elements in the MARC21 Authority and Bibliographic Format for works and expressions: This proposal dealt with the addition of fields for both authority and bibliographic formats to enable experimentation with RDA elements within the constraints of MARC21. Another consideration for this proposal was to establish the same tags for new content in both bibliographic and authority records. The proposal focused on RDA chapter 6 and enables recording of this information even if not required.  Kathy went through some of the finer details of the codes including: 380 – form of work; new subfield codes in field 046 for date of work or expression; 382 medium of performance; 383 numeric designation of a musical work (specifically, make repeatable for multiple numeric/thematic catalog designations; think Vivaldi); and 384 for musical key. MARBI approved the proposal and these changes will be part of Update 11.  See www.loc.gov/marc for more details; changes will be marked in red. Kathy answered a couple questions about these proposals. She also mentioned that there is talk of creating expression-level records for each arrangement of a musical work.

Next, Jay reported on OCLC’s plans for implementing the various changes (in time for the US national libraries’ test of RDA) and any particular impact they see. Jay said that they had been working on Update 10 when Update 11 appeared.  They decided to implement all of Update 10 and those things in Update 11 that relate directly to RDA.  One thing not being implemented was the addition of the “Form of Item” (CF 008/23, 006/06) element to the computer file format. This will happen sometime in the next year with the next version of the Connexion Client.  RDA-related changes being implemented include: 38X fields in Authorities and Bibs; 046 field in Authorities; 336, 337, 338 and repeatable 041 $e in Bibs; and 336 and 37X fields in Authorities.  All should be implemented by May 16; some aspects may be implemented later due to indexing issues.  There should be a Technical Bulletin out probably next month with all the explanations. Kathy asked about display issues regarding the 336, 337, and 338.  Jay explained how these are a replacement for the GMD (current 245 $h) and displays will be up to each local system.  However, OCLC has to think about “card print” and this has been debated extensively.  At this time they have decided not to print these fields. Mark Scharff asked if OCLC planned to backload these new fields (i.e. 336, 337, and 338) into pre-existing records or start from scratch. Jay answered that for now they will start from scratch. However, the option to backload could be open if it were to prove useful. Mark mentioned that since pre-AACR2 records, for example, don’t have the word “score” in them, that adding 336, 337, and 338 could be useful.

Stephen Yusko then reported on LC related news. LC is working with OCLC on the coordination and release of tag table information. Steve discussed the RDA in MARC document issued in January 2010, found at http://www.loc.gov/marc/RDAinMARC29.html.  This document covers 5 broad areas: MARC21; Content, Media and Carrier Types; Attributes of Names and Resources; Relationships; and Miscellaneous other changes to MARC for RDA. He also talked about a second document on RDA training at LC.  The RDA test consists of training from the time of RDA publication/availability until the end of August and about 3 months of testing.  This will be followed by review and report.  Kathy mentioned that MLA is part of a test funnel in cooperation with OLAC.

Bruce then asked the committee for ideas about how MLA should respond to RDA-related MARC issues arising out of the RDA test. The 033/518 issues are a good example of problems that can arise during testing.  As things specific to music concerns come up, how should these be handled?  The subcommittee discussed filtering this information through the MLA/BCC structure, how the MLA membership is to be kept informed, and when an announcement should be made.  This subcommittee should be prepared to vet these issues and submit proposals to MARBI via BCC. Here are some outcomes from this discussion: Kathy should be able to gather a list of names of those participating in the official test via the OLAC/MLA funnel, so those people can be targeted; an electronic announcement should be made on MLA-L when the RDA product becomes available (June 2010) and coordinate this with CAPC; those not in the official test should filter issues they encounter to the MARC Formats Subcommittee.

Kathy then brought an issue to our attention surrounding the adoption of the IAML coded list of genres for the 047. To review, she mentioned that the IAML codes are three characters long and can be used with a $2 source code. However, the creation of the appropriate $2 code was not automatic with the MARBI approval of the proposal in 2006. Last summer, Kathy wrote to LC requesting that it be created. OCLC implemented use of these codes in August 2009.  The $2 with code “iamlmf” is now available for 047 and $2 with code “iamlmp” is available for 048.

With the upcoming release of RDA, Bruce asked if any members of the committee are working in environments where they can test some of the new functionality that the recent MARC changes would enable for RDA. Specifically, we’re interested to see how the 38X fields and other newly approved fields work for display and use. Some possibilities: Peter Lisius (Kent State): planning on following test schedule so should be able to; Kerri Baunach (Univ. of KY): this is a possibility, would have to talk to the systems person at her institution. Grace Fitzgerald followed this up by suggesting that we make friends with our programmers, because they could enable us to test these fields.

To conclude the meeting, Bruce asked if people have specific concerns with MARC, or ideas for improvement. If so, please send concerns to members of the committee. In relation to this issue, Kathy announced that there is some discussion in the wider community regarding “classic” MARC (ISO 2709) vs. MARCXML, particularly since we are approaching the limits in “classic” MARC regarding the number of subfields that are still available in certain tags. She recommended to not be surprised if MARBI considers making changes only in MARCXML sometime in the future.

No other issues were brought forward at this time, and with that the meeting adjourned at 3:30pm.

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Last updated April 15, 2010