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     MARBI items of interest to the cartographic community
 
     The Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee appears to have a
slightly lighter load for Midwinter, in that the only item on the Monday
meeting schedule is continued discussion of items from Saturday and Sunday.
There are a few proposals and discussion papers of interest to the cartographic
community.  They are given in agenda order.  Full text of these papers can be
found at gopher://marvel.loc.gov/11/services/usmarc/marbipro
 
     Discussion Paper 106 concerns the feasibility of creating a new date code
in field 008 to provide access to incorrect dates.  Right now, only the
corrected date is recorded in the 008 field.  Because many systems use the date
recorded in the 008 field in displays and limiting, retrieval is negatively
impacted for when only the incorrect date is known.  Included in the questions
for consideration is the question: "How about atlases which regularly have
incorrect' dates on the item since the atlas is for the next year?"  Any
thoughts on that?
 
     Proposal 98-6 if passed would add a code in the 008 field so that when the
primary material being cataloged is electronic, that information could be
easily coded.  This proposal stems from Proposal 97-3R, which made a 007 field
mandatory for electronic material cataloged based on their content and not the
fact that their physical carrier is a computer file.  Without adding an
additional code in the 008 field, the mandatory nature of the 007 is not
enforceable.  This approach has precedent in that this is how microforms are
treated.
     There are three options in the proposal on how the code could be added for
cartographic material.  Option 1 would add to the 008 and 006 fields a
character position called "form of item" and would have the following codes:
 
        #     None of the following
        a     Microfilm
        b     Microfiche
        c     Microopaque
        d     Large print
        f      Braille
        r      Regular print reproduction
        s      Electronic
This option would then make code m for Braille and code q for Large print
obsolete in the 008/33-34 area (Special format characteristics).
    Option 2 would add to the 008/25 position (Type of cartographic material)
the code "s" for electronic.
    Option 3 would add to the 008/33-34 position (Special format
characteristics) the code "s" for electronic.
 
     Discussion Paper 104 explores the possible definition of an 007 field to
indicate physical characteristics for tactile material.  For maps intended to
be read by touch, two 007 fields would need to be input, one for the map and
one for the "tactileness".
 
     If you have any comments you'd like to share on these papers, you can post
them to the list or just to me.  Thank you.
 
Susan Moore
MAGERT liaison to MARBI
Cataloging Dept.
Rod Library
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA