> Karen, Jonathan, et al.:
>
> Yes, it's true: when we look closely at how AACR2 and MARC21 work
> together, we see a history of expediency and kludges, all intended to
> help us keep doing what we're doing with the least possible
> disruption. To a great extent, we knew what we were doing (had no
> other choice, really), but the edifice we created is looking
> seriously creaky.
>
> What would be nice at this stage would be a careful categorization
> and analysis of what purpose each field/subfield in MARC actually
> serves. Is it there to support some descriptive or relationship
> need? Is it administrative in nature (about the metadata, not about
> the resource described?) To me the need for this is obvious as we
> consider the implications of new agreement between RDA and DCMI, and
> how we would move forward from that point.
The Wikipedia entry for MARC is fairly spartan for a standard that is so
central to us. This could be a place for a de facto glossary of MARC fields.
K.G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com
Received on Fri May 11 2007 - 08:51:17 EDT