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I suspect that it's being proposed to make the 590 field private by
default because it contains some of the collection management information
that used to go in the "ARC segment" of manuscript and archival
collections in RLIN. All that collection management info was private by
virtue of being in the ARC segment, and so it remained until the advent
of RLIN21, when the ARC segment was discontinued and the data got put
into 541, 583, and 590 fields. So now there are scads of records out
there with lots of 541s, 583s, and 590s, with no indicators, whose
content was never intended to be seen by the public. Our newly minted
590s typically contain box locations (fortunately, outdated ones). If any
of these fields were to be defined as public by default, it would be
rather disastrous: purchase prices, donors' names and addresses,
deaccessioning plans, box locations, all would be visible to users all
over the world. No, thank you.<br><br>
Best,<br><br>
Margaret<br><br>
<br><br>
At 10:55 AM 12/11/2007, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I understand a group called “The
RLG Union Catalog Advisory Committee” has discussed the issue of private
information in local records with OCLC and has “ratified” the following
decision. I may be totally out of the loop, but I hadn’t heard a whisper
about it and thought maybe you all hadn’t either. I am certain it was not
discussed on this rare cataloging discussion list, at any rate, and it
does affect us.<br>
<br>
It appears that this Committee wanted to ensure that “all possible
private information was protected.” By “private” I assume things like
donors, prices paid, etc., is meant. Four fields were discussed:<br>
<br>
541, 561, 583, and 590<br>
<br>
The Committee decided that in OCLC, the first indicator in any of these
field must be coded “1” for the field to display. In other words,
if the indicator is coded “blank” or “0” the field will <i>not</i>
display. (In the MARC format documentation for 541, 461, and 583, “0”
means private, “1” means not private, “blank” means no information
provided. No such coding is defined for 590.)<br>
<br>
I am particularly concerned about this decision with respect to 590, and
also to some extent about 561. It appears that (nonstandard) indicators 1
and 0 have been available for some time in OCLC for 590, but to my
knowledge they were never so defined in RLIN, and so no 590s coming from
RLIN libraries will be so coded. Therefore by fiat none of the 590s
currently in RLIN-originated records, and probably in most
OCLC-originated records (I’d be interested in hearing from OCLC
catalogers if they used these indicators), will display. Wasn’t that one
of the major points about RLG libraries wanting the institution records,
that the local information would display? This action will defeat that
purpose for the majority of records.<br>
<br>
I am not in favor of “opt in” for 590, in other words, you have to
manually insert an indicator or it will not display. It seems to me that
if anyone has actually put private information in a 590 (something I
would never do in my own cataloging), the burden should be on them to use
this indicator to indicate a desire that the information NOT display, not
the other way around. In my opinion, blank should <i>not</i> trigger
non-display. I also think the same thing about 561. 561 is not used for
the immediate source of acquisition, but for the custodial history of the
item, something that in most cases is not “private” in the sense that we
want to protect donors or hide how much we paid for the item or whatever.
In this case, too, I feel that the burden should be on the cataloger to
say they do NOT want the field displayed, not on the rest of us to say we
DO want the field to display. I feel less strongly about 583 and 541, but
do hold the same opinion about them.<br>
<br>
Anyway, though it may be after the fact, I thought this deserved
discussion here.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Bob<br>
<br>
Robert L. Maxwell<br>
Special Collections and Ancient Languages Catalog Librarian<br>
Genre/Form Authorities Librarian<br>
6728 Harold B. Lee Library<br>
Brigham Young University<br>
Provo, UT 84602<br>
(801)422-5568 </blockquote>
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________________________________<br><br>
Margaret Nichols<br>
Head, Special Collections Materials Unit<br>
Library Technical Services<br>
110 Olin Library<br>
Cornell University<br>
Ithaca, NY. 14853-5302 <br>
mnr1@cornell.edu * Tel. (607) 255-5752 / 255-3530
* Fax (607) 255-9524 <br><br>
<br>
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