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Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 15:48:01 -0400
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: new MARC fields in online systems
Sender: [log in to unmask]


Can anyone (especially those from libraries using Innovative Interfaces for
their online catalog) tell me how their library has gotten their online
system to accomodate these new MARC fields for geospatial data:  342,
Geospatial reference data; 343, Planar coordinate data; and 352, Digital
graphic representation?

With our Innovative system, we have to group fields into a limited number
of "group tags" (if I understand correctly).  These tags make a difference
in how the fields are labelled in the display of records.  (They don't
really relate to indexing -- again, if I understand correctly -- and we are
not going to index these fields.)   For our existing fields, we have a
group for mathematical data that includes the 255, and we have a group for
description which includes the 300 (but not all 3xxs necessarily), and a
group for notes which includes the 500.   My first inclination was to put
the 342 and 343 with the mathematical data group field, and the 352 with
either the description or note group.  But perhaps they should all go with
the description group or the note group.  And maybe since MARC groups them
all as 3xx, we should follow that lead and group them all as description.

I'd be interested to hear how others of you have handled this, or what you
think the implications of a particular decision are.  We haven't used the
fields in our cataloging yet, but we want to prepare our system for them,
and want to group them in the way that seems to make the most sense.  Your
comments will be much appreciated.

Nancy Kandoian
Map Division
New York Public Library
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