| Marc Standards |
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| library cataloging and classification | |
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The record structure of MARC is an implementation of "MARBI, "MARC 21 Formats." page 1. L.O.C.1996 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.MARBI, "MARC 21 Formats." page 2. L.O.C.1996 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 On the one hand, the formats are quite complex and are based on outdated technology.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 .) 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). 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 . 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. MARC VARIANTS There are many national and international variants of MARC, including
MARC 21 is not a new format. The original American version of MARC became known as USMARC in the 1980 s; 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. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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