MARC Standards and the Internet

by Young-Hee Queinnec

Network Notes #18
ISSN 1201-4338
Information Technology Services
National Library of Canada

November, 1995

Introduction

Although the history of the Internet goes back more than two decades, it is only in recent years that we began to see explosive use of the Internet. Libraries and librarians were among the first to take full advantage of what the Internet could offer. Amongst many other uses, library personnel currently use the Internet extensively for professional discussions and as an access to the OPACs of other institutions. Librarians have also undertaken to catalogue what is available on the Internet in order to provide bibliographic access for library patrons.

This Network Notes briefly discusses MARC-related discussion lists, MARC documents available online, and the provisions of the CAN/MARC and USMARC formats to accommodate online resources and Internet standards.

MARC-related discussion lists

USMARC, operated by the Library of Congress, is a moderated discussion list open to anyone interested in the implementation, maintenance, changes, and development of the USMARC formats. The list is used extensively by the USMARC Advisory Group to announce meeting agendas, make proposals, and even as a voting mechanism to submit ballots on urgent issues. One can subscribe to the USMARC list by simply sending an e-mail:

TO: listproc@loc.gov

SUBJECT: (leave this line blank)

MESSAGE: subscribe usmarc <your first name> ; <your last name>

The USMARC list is also used to announce documents that the Library of Congress makes available through its WAIS, Gopher, and Web home page.

TSIG-L is an open discussion list for the Technical Services Interest Group of the Canadian Library Association; it is located at Acadia University. Although the scope of the list includes library technical services in general, MARC-related topics are often discussed. This is how you can subscribe to TSIG-L by sending the message

TO: listproc@acadiau.ca

SUBJECT: (leave this line blank)

MESSAGE: subscribe tsig-l <your first name> <your last name>

MARC standards available on the Internet

CAN/MARC: English and French editions of the CAN/MARC bibliographic format field list and the CAN/MARC glossary are available on the NLC Gopher. These files can be accessed by pointing a gopher client at gopher.nlc-bnc.ca using the following menu path:

1. National Library of Canada
   
2. Information about NLC services and collections
   
3. Catalogue and bibliographic services
   
4. MARC
   
5. CAN/MARC Glossary
   
6. CAN/MARC bibliographic format field list
   

http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/

The URL of the NLC Gopher is:

gopher://gopher.nlc-bnc.ca/

The CAN/MARC bibliographic format field list contains only fixed-field codes and content designators (i.e., fields, subfields and indicators) that are valid in the Canadian MARC Communication Format for Bibliographic Data (Canadian MARC Office, 1994). In other words, it contains only that which remains after removing the introductory data, notes, examples, and appendices from the full format.

The Glossary is an internal document that lists terms used in the CAN/MARC formats with a French equivalent for each term. Since the MARC format is a vehicle for bibliographic records, this glossary includes many terms that appear in cataloguing rules such as AACR2.

USMARC: USMARC field lists, code lists, MARBI proposals and discussion papers, minutes of MARBI meetings, and indexes to these documents are available through the Library of Congress WAIS.

These files an be accessed by telnet at:

marvel.loc.gov

marvel

marvel.loc.gov (port 2070)

In October 1995, the Library of Congress announced the MARC home page (http://www.loc.gov/marc/) that provides WWW access to all that is available on the LC MARVEL Gopher plus additional material. The MARC home page is also accessible from the Library of Congress home page(http://www.loc.gov/) by selecting "Services and Publications".

MARC specifications for online resources and Internet standards

The MARC specifications discussed here are applicable to both USMARC and CAN/MARC, as constant efforts are made to make the two national formats as compatible as possible.

The increased use of resources available on the Internet by libraries and librarians made it necessary that the MARC formats should provide descriptive and access information for online resources.

The MARC specifications for machine-readable data files (i.e., computer files) developed in the early 1980s were intended to describe both the data files in machine-readable form and the computer software used. These specifications, however, lacked provisions for access and location information (e.g., information to logon, electronic address, password, etc.) for files available over networks.

Efforts to define specifications for online resources resulted in the addition of field 856 (Electronic Location and Access) to the bibliographic and holdings formats in 1993. Since then, the field has gone through several changes, mainly to add more indicator values and subfields to accommodate additional information. In June 1995, the field was also approved for the classification format to provide a link from a classification record to a related electronic resource, such as visual aids to illustrate a classification number. Field 856 now contains information to identify, locate and retrieve an electronic item. The data in this field provides for the electronic transfer of a file, the subscription to an electronic journal, or the access to a library online catalogue.

As can be seen, field 856 also includes a separate subfield ($u) for the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which is widely used to locate electronic files over the Internet. When other Internet standards such as Uniform Resource Name and Uniform Resource Identification are finalized, they will, no doubt, find their place in the MARC formats.

File transfer label specifications

Many libraries export and import MARC records from one computer to another using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). This fact necessitated the development of the File Transfer Label Specifications. The label, which is a separate file, contains information about and identifies the file that is being transferred electronically.

The FTP label specifications can be found in Appendix B-1 of the Canadian MARC Communications Format for Bibliographic Data, and also form part of the USMARC Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, and Exchange Media (LC Network Development and MARC Standards Office, 1994).