Re: MARC 856 question

> If the data in field 856 relates to a constituent unit of the

> resource represented by the record, use subfield 3 to

> specify the portion(s) to which the field applies."



This much makes sense to me.  What makes little, if any, sense to me is why a web page listing the table of contents of a book would ever have been considered a "constituent unit" of the resource itself.



It seems to me that the table of contents is a *description* of the book's contents, not a meaningful *part* of the book.  I can only arrive at the latter idea through a rather large leap of logic.



Encoding these links with ind2=1 or 0 was, IMO, a mistake.  Flat out.  That was a bad decision.  It significantly undermined the utility and clarity of the 856.



Okay, I know, that's overly-dramatic.  With a (non-trivial, but not altogether complex) algorithm, I know we can, in fact, divine whether an 856 is a full-text link or not for the vast majority of records (although certainly not all).



But the fact that we have to do that at all is sad.  Whether the resource is available online or not is a *big deal* to end-users.  For many it can be *the* deciding factor for whether they even bother to look at the resource at all.  Why is something so important not un-ambiguously encoded in the MARC record?



--Dave

==================
David Walker
Library Web Services Manager
California State University
http://xerxes.calstate.edu
________________________________________
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of john g marr [jmarr_at_UNM.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 11:35 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] MARC 856 question

On Thu, 2 Jun 2011, Walker, David wrote:

> 856 40 indicates that the link it to the resource, but not necessarily
> the *whole* resource.

  Correct. As OCLC puts it:

    "The electronic location in field 856 is for the same resource
described by the record as a whole ... If the data in field
856 relates to a constituent unit of the resource represented by the
record, use subfield 3 to specify the portion(s) to which the field
applies."

  You would probably have separate 856s for the entire "same resource as
described by the record as a whole" and any constituent part (e.g.
contents) linked individually.

> ... table of contents links ... are also often coded as ind 2 = 1 (a
> version of the resource), but so are many full-text links, so that
> doesn't help.

  Right again. It's the same idea:

    "The location in field 856 is for an electronic version of the resource
described by the record. In this case, the item represented by the
bibliographic record is not electronic, but an electronic version is
available. If the data in field 856 relates to a constituent unit of the
resource represented by the record, use subfield 3 to specify the
portion(s) to which the field applies."

  John G. Marr
  Cataloger
  CDS, UL
  Univ. of New Mexico
  Albuquerque, NM 87131
  jmarr_at_unm.edu
  jmarr_at_flash.net


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