Re: Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want

From: Galen Charlton <gmcharlt_at_nyob>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:50:14 -0400
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Hi,

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
> You've still got to know _what_ authority file the control number came from.
> Does the MARC standard provide a way to identify that?
>
> A US cataloger is likely using the US NAF, but a German or French cataloger
> is not.  So if all you've got is a bare control number in $0, you've still
> got to know what authority file it comes from.

It looks like it could be done in two ways.  The $0 is supposed to
contain a parenthesized prefix containing the code of the institution
that assigned the authority record ID, and that presumably could be
used as a proxy for identifying the name or uniform title authority
file being used.  For subject headings, the 6XX second indicator and
subfield $2 would identify the thesaurus, and by implication the
subject authority file that $0 would refer to.

Regards,

Galen Charlton
LibLime
Received on Thu Apr 23 2009 - 12:51:53 EDT