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Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 10:42:59 -0600 (CST)
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MARBI topics of possible interest to the cartographic community
 
What follows are brief summaries of selected papers and proposals that are
scheduled to come before the Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information
Committee (MARBI) at ALA Midwinter.  If you have any questions or comments,
please feel free to send them to me.
 
98-15R Obsolete fields in the MARC Bibliographic Format
 
This paper is a revision of 98-15: Obsolete fields in the MARC Bibliographic
Format, which was voted down by MARBI at the June 1998 meeting.  The proposal
is to make obsolete Fields 261, 400, 410, 411, and subfields 260 $d and X11 $q.
These are obsolete in the CANMARC documentation and unless made obsolete in
USMARC, harmonization of the two formats will reintroduce these no-longer valid
fields into Canada.
 
98-16R  Nonfiling characters in all MARC formats
 
This is a revision of a paper that was discussed at the June 1998 meetings of
MARBI.  The proposal is to have two control characters defined, one to mark the
beginning and one to mark the ending of non-filing characters.  In previous
discussions, preference was expressed for limiting the technique to sorting.
The control characters would mark off a non-filing zone that would include all
characters preceding the first filing character in title, name, and subject
headings.  The non-filing indicators that currently exist in some fields would
be obsolete.
 
99-01  Enhancement of Computer file 007 for Digital Preservation/Reformatting
 
This proposal suggests changes to the 007 values for Computer Files and adding
eight new optional bytes to encode information for those items that have been
digitally reformatted for preservation.  These changes would allow information
needed by the preservation community to be coded in the bibliographic record.
 
99-04  Definition of Field 007 (Physical Description Fixed Field) for Tactile
Materials in the MARC Bibliographic and Holdings Formats
 
This proposal was developed from Discussion Paper 104, which was presented at
MARBI meetings in January of 1998.  This proposal calls for the addition of a
007 field for tactile materials.  Adding this field would mean that a tactile
map would have two 007 fields (one for maps and one for tactile materials).
 
99-06  Repeatability of subfield $u (URL) in field 856 of the MARC formats
 
If approved, this proposal would make the $u of field 856 non-repeatable.  As
the use of the 856 field has increased, numerous questions as to when to use a
repeated $u or multiple 856 fields have been asked.  Making the $u
non-repeatable would answer the questions.
 
DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 111: Alternate graphics without 880 in Bibliographic,
Holdings, Authority, and Community Information records
 
Currently, if a bibliographic record needs to contain non-roman characters, the
information is recorded in the 880 fields.  As more systems become able to
handle multiple scripts and with  Unicode adaption increasing, there are
questions being raised about the viability of the current system for recording
non-roman characters.  A topic of discussion that will be taken up is the idea
of making all fields in the MARC record repeatable to accommodate alternate
graphic repeating fields.  This will probably generate some discussion.
 
 
DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 112: Defining URL/URN subfields in fields other than field
856 in the MARC Bibliographic/Holdings Formats
 
There have been requests to add subfields for URLs and URNs to fields 037
(Source of Acquisition) and 583 (Action Note).  This paper presents the
reasoning behind the requests and provides questions to be covered at the MARBI
meeting.
 
There are also several proposals concerning the Holdings Format, but I don't
know if there's enough interest to warrant summarization for the list.  Let me
know if you have any thoughts on any of the proposals or discussion papers or
if you want me to summarize the Holdings Format ones.
 
Thank you.
 
Susan Moore
Rod Library
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA
 
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