MARC
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MARC stands for MAchine-Readable Cataloging. There have been many forms of MARC, but the standard used today in the United States is MARC21, which was created from the merging of USMARC and CAN/MARC. The MARC standards consist of the MARC formats, which are standards for the representation and communication of bibliographic and related information in machine-readable form, and related documentation. MARC is an acronym for MAchine-Readable Cataloging. It defines a bibliographic data format that was developed by Henriette Avram at the Library of Congress beginning in the 1960s. It provides the protocol by which computers exchange, use, and interpret bibliographic information. Its data elements make up the foundation of most library catalogs used today.
The record structure of MARC is an implementation of ISO 2709, also known as ANSI/NISO Z39.2.<ref>MARBI, "MARC 21 Formats." page 1. L.O.C.1996</ref> MARC records are comprised of three elements: the record structure, the content designation, and the data content of the record. The record structure implements national and international standards (eg. Z39.2, ISO2709.) The Content Designation is "the codes and conventions established to identify explicitly and characterize. . . data elements within a record"<ref>MARBI, "MARC 21 Formats." page 1. L.O.C.1996</ref> and support their manipulation. The content of data elements in MARC records is defined by standards outside the formats such as AACR and L.C. Subject Headings.<ref>MARBI, "MARC 21 Formats." page 2. L.O.C.1996</ref>
The future of the MARC formats is a matter of some debate in the worldwide library science community. On the one hand, the formats are quite complex and are based on outdated technology. On the other, there is no alternative bibliographic format with an equivalent degree of granularity. The huge user base, billions of records in tens of thousands of individual libraries (including over 50,000 belonging to the OCLC consortium alone), also creates inertia. (See also, Path dependency).
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[edit] MARC formats
Authority records — MARC authority records provide information about individual names, subjects, and uniform titles. An authority record establishes an authorized form of each heading, with references as appropriate from other forms of the heading.
Bibliographic records — MARC bibliographic records describe the intellectual and physical characteristics of bibliographic resources (books, sound recordings, video recordings, and so forth).
Classification records — MARC records containing classification data. For example, the Library of Congress Classification has been encoded using the MARC 21 Classification format.
Community Information records — MARC records describing a service providing agency. For example, the local homeless shelter or tax assistance provider.
Holdings records — MARC holdings records provide copy-specific information on a library resource (call number, shelf location, volumes held, and so forth).
[edit] MARC 21
MARC 21 is a result of the combination of the United States and Canadian MARC formats (USMARC and CAN/MARC). MARC21 is based on the ANSI standard Z39.2, which allows users of different software products to communicate with each other and to exchange data. Taylor, A "The Organization of Knowledge", page 77. libraries unlimited, 2004 MARC 21 was designed to redefine the original MARC record format for the 21st century and to make it more accessible to the international community. MARC 21 has formats for the following five types of data: Bibliographic Format, Authority Format, Holdings Format, Community Format, and Classification Data Format. Taylor, A "The Organization of Knowledge", page 77. libraries unlimited, 2004. Currently MARC 21 has been implemented successfully by The British Library, the European Institutions and the major library institutions in the United States, and Canada.
MARC 21 allows the use of two character sets, either MARC-8 or Unicode encoded as UTF-8. MARC-8 is based on ISO 2022 and allows the use of Hebrew, Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek and East Asian scripts.
[edit] MARC variants
There are many national and international variants of MARC, including
- MARC 21: the "harmonization" of USMARC and CAN/MARC; it is maintained by the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress.
- AUSMARC: national MARC of Australia, published by the National Library of Australia in 1973; USMARC adopted in 1991
- BIBSYS-MARC: used by all Norwegian University Libraries, the National Library, all college libraries, and a number of research libraries.
- NORMARC: national MARC of Norway, based on MARC21
- danMARC2: national MARC of Denmark, based on MARC21
- INTERMARC: MARC used by Bibliothèque nationale de France
- UNIMARC: created by IFLA in 1977, it is the official MARC in France, Italy, Russia, Portugal, Greece and other countries.
- CMARC: national MARC of the Republic of China, based on UNIMARC
- KORMARC: national MARC of South Korea, KS X 6006
MARC 21 is not a new format. The original American version of MARC became known as USMARC in the 1980s; there was also a separate Canadian version with minor differences called CAN/MARC. After making minor changes to both formats, the USMARC and CAN/MARC specifications were merged in 1997 to create MARC 21, the name intended to reflect the 21st century. The British Library has announced that it will no longer develop the UKMARC standard it had maintained since 1975 and will instead adopt MARC 21.
In Germany a non-MARC format called MAB (Maschinelles Austauschformat für Bibliotheken) is used.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Understanding MARC Bibliographic Machine Readable Cataloging, a good introduction
- MARC authority records
- MARC 21 home page
- MARC frequently asked questions
- List of MARC country codes
- Network Development and MARC Standards Office
- MARC 21 Character Sets
- Usenet post about MARC
- Amazon to MARC Converter
- MAB information, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
[edit] Notes:
<references/>ar:مارك (نظام فهرسة) da:MARC standarder de:Machine-Readable Catalog fr:Format MARC it:MARC nl:MARC nn:MARC-standardar pl:MARC pt:Formato MARC ru:MARC sv:MARC-standarden zh:機讀編目格式標準
[edit] Definitions
In order to understand MARC format and MARC records, a few definitions are helpful.
Machine-readable: If data from a cataloging record is machine-readable, it can be read by a particular type of machine or computer.
Cataloging record: Information that was once found on catalog cards. This information can be a physical description, a main entry, any added entries, subject headings, and a call number.
Field: The portion of a MARC record dedicated to one of the types of information found in a cataloging record, i.e. an author field, or a subject heading field.
Tag: A 3-digit number that represents a field. Each field in a MARC record has a tag.
Indicator: Each field has two indicators, with the exception of the fixed fields 001 through 009. The indicator gives further information about the field. An indicator is a single digit number. When an indicator is not used, it is blank. Blank is often represented by the character "#".
Subfield: A type of data within a field. Always preceded by a subfield code.
Subfield code: A code that tells what the information in the subfield is. Unlike tags and indicators, a subfield code is a lowercase letter. It is preceded by a delimiter.
Delimiter: A symbol to indicate a subfield code. They appear different depending on the software used to read the MARC record. Common delimiters are "$", "|", "@", "‡", or "_".
Content designators: Tags, indicators, and subfield codes.
[edit] MARC21 Tags
[edit] Divisions for Bibliographic Records
- 0XX Control information, numbers, codes
- 1XX Main entry
- 2XX Title, statement of responsibility, edition, and publication information
- 3XX Physical description, etc.
- 4XX Series statements (from the book)
- 5XX Notes
- 6XX Subject added entries
- 7XX Added entries other than subject or series
- 8XX Series added entries (from outside authorative sources)
- 9XX Local use
1XX, 4XX, 6XX, 7XX, 8XX, are all under authority control, and therefore require authority MARC records.
[edit] Parallel Content
Tags under authority control also have the same definitions for the last two digits. Here, the X can be replaced by a 1, 4, 6, 7, or 8.
- X00 Personal names
- X10 Corporate names
- X11 Meeting names
- X30 Uniform titles
- X40 Bibliographic titles
- X50 Topical terms
- X51 Geographic names
[edit] External Links
- Understanding MARC Bibliographic Machine Readable Cataloging
- Understanding MARC Authority Machine Readable Cataloging
- MARC standards home page
- Cataloger's Reference Shelf help pages about MARC 21
