In the discussion of MARC vs. RDF it seemed to me that people think of
MARC as what they see on the screen of OCLC or your ILS. But actually
MARC looks like this:
01252nam 2200265K
4500001000800000005001700008007001400025007001400039007001400053008004100067035001200108035002000120040002000140049000900160100002200169245033700191260006200528300005200590533014800642610003400790830006000824949003000884903000900914985006300923 4270827 20030530021400.0 hdrafa---baca hdrbfa---baaa hdrbfa---baba 000601r19221622xx
h a 000 0 eng d a4270827 a(OCoLC)44163773
aCGU cCGU dOCoLC aCGUA 1 aRobinson, Thomas. 10 aAnatomie of the
English nvnnery at Lisbon in Portvgall h[microform]. bDissected and laid
open by one that was sometime a yonger brother of the couent: Who (if
the grace of God had not preuented him) might have growne as old in a
wicked life as the oldest amongst them. cPub. by authoritie. (By Thomas
Robinson of King's Lynn). 1622. aKing's Lynn : bThew and son, pub. by
E.M. Beloe, c[1922?] a2 p. l., bfacsim. (4 p. l., 32 p.) 1
l. c28 cm. aMicrofilm. bChicago : cUniversity of Chicago
Library, d2000. e1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. f(History of religions
preservation project, MN41672.1) 20 aSion House (Lisbon, Portugal)
0 aHistory of religions preservation project ; vMN41672.1.
aJRL cMicSLN e41672.1 gc.1 aMARS
a microfm 41672.1 bc.1 cUCSLN dJRL eMic rmq7090430 sn tstks
An application has to know the secret of how to interpret this to give
you the display you are used to seeing. Needless to say, MicroSoft and
other big commercial vendors wouldn't bother to be able to interpret
this. So you have to have something like the "MARC Breaker" of the
little free MARC Edit program to convert this to something you might
use. MARC in and of itself can be a barrier to being able to use
records with other computer programs.
XML, though, has rules that will let lots of software written for lots
of things be able to handle it. So whether you are using "245" or
"title" to identify the title part, it really is easier for a
nonlibrary-specific program to find and use the information. The XML
version below is more verbose but storage and processor speeds are now
much less expensive than they were when MARC was developed. If you
limit yourself to the MARC format you limit what programs you can use to
manipulate the data. I'm sure that's not the only aspect of this that
people were talking about but it is useful to remember that that is what
MARC really looks like. I'll put the XML below for comparison, or you
can ignore it. I think with RDF it may be better in the future to use a
word like "title" rather than "245" because software in the "semantic
web" will be more likely to be able to read real words and make
inferences from them. At least I think that is the intention.
Frances McNamara
University of Chicago Library
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><collection
xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim">
<record>
<leader>01252nam a2200265K 4500</leader>
<controlfield tag="005">20030530021400.0</controlfield>
<controlfield tag="007">hdrafa---baca</controlfield>
<controlfield tag="007">hdrbfa---baaa</controlfield>
<controlfield tag="007">hdrbfa---baba</controlfield>
<controlfield tag="008">000601r19221622xx h a 000 0 eng
d</controlfield>
<datafield tag="035" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">4270827</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="035" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">4270827</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="035" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">(OCoLC)44163773</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="040" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">CGU</subfield>
<subfield code="c">CGU</subfield>
<subfield code="d">OCoLC</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="049" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">CGUA</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="100" ind1="1" ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Robinson, Thomas.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="245" ind1="1" ind2="0">
<subfield code="a">Anatomie of the English nvnnery at Lisbon in
Portvgall</subfield>
<subfield code="h">[microform].</subfield>
<subfield code="b">Dissected and laid open by one that was
sometime a yonger brother of the couent: Who (if the grace of God had
not preuented him) might have growne as old in a wicked life as the
oldest amongst them.</subfield>
<subfield code="c">Pub. by authoritie. (By Thomas Robinson of
King's Lynn). 1622.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="260" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">King's Lynn :</subfield>
<subfield code="b">Thew and son, pub. by E.M. Beloe,</subfield>
<subfield code="c">[1922?]</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="300" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">2 p. l.,</subfield>
<subfield code="b">facsim. (4 p. l., 32 p.) 1 l.</subfield>
<subfield code="c">28 cm.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="533" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Microfilm.</subfield>
<subfield code="b">Chicago :</subfield>
<subfield code="c">University of Chicago Library,</subfield>
<subfield code="d">2000.</subfield>
<subfield code="e">1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.</subfield>
<subfield code="f">(History of religions preservation project,
MN41672.1)</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="610" ind1="2" ind2="0">
<subfield code="a">Sion House (Lisbon, Portugal)</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="830" ind1=" " ind2="0">
<subfield code="a">History of religions preservation
project;</subfield>
<subfield code="v">MN41672.1.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="949" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">JRL</subfield>
<subfield code="c">MicSLN</subfield>
<subfield code="e">41672.1</subfield>
<subfield code="g">c.1</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="903" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">MARS</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="985" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">microfm41672.1</subfield>
<subfield code="b">c.1</subfield>
<subfield code="c">UCSLN</subfield>
<subfield code="d">JRL</subfield>
<subfield code="e">Mic</subfield>
<subfield code="r">mq7090430</subfield>
<subfield code="s">n</subfield>
<subfield code="t">stks</subfield>
</datafield>
</record>
Received on Fri May 25 2007 - 13:41:17 EDT