The Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange met on January 22 and provides the following responses to the winter 2018 proposal and discussion papers.
2018-01: Coding 007 Field Positions for Digital Cartographic Materials
Paper sponsored by CCM and MAGIRT. Fully supported as written.
2018-DP01: Defining New Subfield $i in Fields 600-630
CCM supports defining $i in 600-630 to allow the recording of RDA subject relationship designators from App.M in appropriate subject fields. CCM agrees that subject relationships should be consistently coded in the 6XX block. CCM does not feel that using subfields $e/$j is entirely appropriate for RDA App.M designators.
On the whole CCM feels that the need for proposed MARC 21 changes should rely on actual use cases from current standards, and not hypothetical or potential future use cases.
2018-DP02: Subfield Coding in Field 041 for Accessibility
Paper sponsored by CCM.
CCM fully supports adding coding to distinguish subtitles from SDH and CC, to accommodate described video, and to more accurately describe signed languages.
2018-DP03: Inventory of Newer 3XX fields that Lack Subfield $3
CCM supports the addition of $3 in the Bibliographic format for all four of these fields: 377, 380, 381, 383, for when more granular descriptions of compilations is desired.
CCM does not see a use case for the expansion of $3 in 3XX fields in the authority record. This sort of granularity is appropriate for compilations, that is aggregates. According to the IFLA LRM model, aggregation is recorded at the manifestation level. Authority records would instead be focused on the work or expression level.
2018-DP04: Multiscript Records Using Codes from ISO 15924
CCM supports allowing script codes from ISO 15924 to be used in 880 $6 in model A multi-script records. Model A is commonly implemented. Using ISO codes for scripts, when this identification is needed at the level of the paired field, makes a great deal of sense, particularly in records encoded according to the Unicode character set. In that case, field 066 is not intended to be used, so no changes are needed in that field.
CCM would prefer allowing the ISO 15924 codes to be used in Unicode records, but not deprecating the previous coding convention that may appear in existing records, particularly in existing records coded according to the MARC-8 character set.
CCM does not support pursuing explicit identification of languages at the field or subfield level. As previous investigations have shown, this is far too complex as there are far too many cases in which multiple languages will appear in the same field or subfield.
2018-DP05: Adding Institution Level Information to Subject Headings
CCM is still not clear on how exactly the institution information for a subject heading would be used, particularly in large consortial databases with many participants. Wouldn't each participant have to label all the subject fields that they accept, resulting in very long strings with dozens of $5 on those subjects that all consortial participants accept? The use case is still not clear to CCM as we are not familiar with the practices and assumptions of the German shared database environment.
CCM sees issues with both options proposed.
Using $5 in 6XX would have an impact on subject indexing routines, and would need to be suppressed from display. The interpretation of the $5 information is not clear, its relationship to the 040 $d also.
Redefining 883 and using $8 linking subfields is also a challenge. In general, maintaining $8 links is complex and error prone unless it can be fully automated. This usage would reorient field 883 considerably, compared to its original purpose.
CCM posits that a full solution for granular recording of data provenance may not be possible before moving to an RDF environment.
2018-DP06: Versions of Resources
CCM appreciates that this need arises from a very specific use case relating to machine processing of versions of journal articles available electronically, and using vocabulary such as from NISO-RP-8-2008 Journal Article Versions (JAV), and not generically to all monograph editions.
CCM considers that options 3 or 4 could be pursued.
Option 3, expanding field 562. CCM notes that this was originally an archival field. As the desired codes represent intellectual versions, not physical ones, another subfield might be better than expanding the existing $c. Could allow for use of a controlled vocabulary.
Option 4, expanding field 250. Using a new subfield ($v or another subfield code) is preferable to using 250 $a, which is heavily used for edition statements transcribed from the resource. Instead, this version vocabulary is assigned from a controlled vocabulary. Also, a given article may have an actual edition statement which would need to be coded separately from the version vocabulary. Another possibility would be to repeat the field, using a specific indicator when the field contains the version identification vocabulary.
CCM is not convinced by option 2, using a specific vocabulary in 655, as this information is not about genre or form.
CCM notes that option 1 is impracticable as there are only 3 free codes (1, 7, 8) once former CAN/MARC codes that are now obsolete are accounted for. Thus there are not enough free codes to cover all the needed terms.
Pat Riva
Chair, Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange
and
Associate University Librarian, Collection Services
Concordia University
Vanier Library (VL-301-61)
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC H4B 1R6
Canada
+1-514-848-2424 ext. 5255
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