Friday, August 22, 2014

OLCC MARC Format Update 2014, phase 2

OCLC Technical Bulletin 264 describes changes to the MARC 21 formats for bibliographic, authority and holdings data to be implemented in the near future. Things we are most likely to see in our day-to-day cataloging work include:
  • Addition of $q Qualifying information to identifier fields such as 020 (ISBN), 024 (Other standard number) and 027 (Standard Technical Report Number). 
  • Definition of first indicators for field 588 (Source of Description) to provide display constants. First indicator 0 will generate a display constant meaning source of description; first indicator 1 will generate a display constant meaning latest issue consulted. CONSER participants should wait for notification by the Library of Congress and OCLC before using these new indicators.
  • Data recorded in Marc field 265 (Source for Acquisition/Subscription Address) will be converted to field 037 $b (Source of Acquisition/Source of Stock Number/Acquisition). Marc field 265 will be invalidated
  • $c (Location of Meeting) has been re-defined as repeatable for for many fields including 110, 111, 610, 611, 710 and 711)
Changes to the MARC format for authority data include:
  • Addition of $q (Qualifying information) in fields 020 and 024
  • Repeatability of $c (Location of meeting) in fields  110, 111, 410, 411, 510 and 511
Additional MARC fields relating to audience and creator characteristics have also been defined.