By "de jure" I mean an Act of Congress that requires and empowers the Library of Congress, as an agency of the legislative branch, to form and implement bibliographic standards. Absent any such law, why couldn't a competing group set up shop? Whether that's a good idea is another question.
Mark Andrews
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries on behalf of Karen Coyle
Sent: Sun 5/27/2007 12:30 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] MARC vs XMLMARC
I would say both. As I say, the group is advisory to LoC and there is no group other than LoC that can make decisions about MARC21, although MARC21 now includes LoC, the Canadian national library, and the British Library. Those latter two (which I had forgotten in my earlier post) also have non-voting seats on MARBI, much as LoC does. However, LoC sits at the head of the table and presents the proposals for changes. I don't know within LoC if there is any other structure that combines the three "national" libraries for decision-making. LoC does not have direct control over ISO 2709, but I think it is highly unlikely that there will be changes to that standard since it has not changed since it was created in 1966 or so.
kc
Received on Sun May 27 2007 - 12:24:29 EDT