--- Begin Forwarded Message --- 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 [log in to unmask] --- End Forwarded Message ---