There used to be a separate MARC field, Field 755 - Added Entry - Physical Characteristics. It was made obsolete in 1995, and the 655 was redefined to include physical characteristics. Here is a link to the proposal to make it obsolete:

http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/1995/95-10.html

And a snippet from the proposal:
In meetings of the Working Group on
Form and Genre Vocabularies, which worked to reconcile the various
form/genre thesauri, members were unable to define the distinction
between field 655 and field 755 in a satisfactory manner.  In the
absence of a logical distinction that holds up in all cases,
members of the group also reached the conclusion that the best
course is to eliminate field 755.  The RBMS Bibliographic Standards
Committee discussed the issue in Miami in June 1994 and also came
to the conclusion that field 755 should be eliminated, as did MARBI
during its discussions in February 1995.

Liz O'Keefe


On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 1:19 PM, J. McRee Elrod <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Simon said:

>In regards to the original issue,  genre and form are logically distinct
>concepts,  and it is not advisable to conflate the two.  Genre is an
>attribute of the content of a work; form is most often an attribute of the
>carrier or medium.

Fine if Bibframe makes this distinction.  I am not sure if most
patrons do.  I assume it is too late in the lifespan of MARC to
propose 652 for form?  And how many ILS would add a form index to
genre?  Not all even have separate subject and genre indexes.

What about genre terms such as "Video recordings for ...", several of
which are in LCGFT. Aren't those form as much as "Electronic books"?
LCGFT does not make the distinction you are making.  Would you
advocate coding LCGFT terms to indicate which they are should Bibframe
have that distinction?


   __       __   J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([log in to unmask])
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