[DCRM-L] Comments please: Subfield $5

[Robert Maxwell]

1. For some of our comprehensive author collections we add analytic entries to books containing, e.g., a short story by the author. I think in most such cases we mark our analytic 7XX field with subfield 5 to note that this field is specific to our institution and that others probably are not interested. In those cases we might want to add subject headings specific to the analytic entry but which would not be appropriate to the work as a whole because they are too specific, and therefore no one copying our record would want to use them, so it would be nice to be able to mark the subject headings as "local" by using subfield 5.  At least I can see that might be one reason to allow the subfield. I see this as parallel to marking the 7XX field for the analytic as local.

Weighing in on question 2-3, I don't like the idea of using subfield 5 to mean something else than "local" and I think the proposal is something different. I think the concepts should be kept separate. (I'm not sure I understand why the Germans want this by the way, though if they do want to be able to do this, I think that's fine--but any clue as to their thinking, John? Why stop at subject headings? Why not be able to mark every part of the record you added so you would know exactly who did which iota of the record?)

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu on behalf of John Attig
Sent: Mon 1/8/2007 5:00 PM
To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: [DCRM-L] Comments please: Subfield $5
 

The MARBI agenda for Midwinter contains a very interesting set of preliminary proposals from the German and Austrian national libraries relating to their adoption of the MARC 21 formats:

2007-DP01 <http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2007/2007-dp01.html>  : Changes for the German and Austrian conversion to MARC 21 
http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2007/2007-dp01.html <http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2007/2007-dp01.html> 

There are many interesting things in this document, and I think it would be worth your attentions.

However, there is one item on which I would like your advice, and as I cannot attend the Bibliographic Standards Committee meeting in Seattle, I would like to ask for comments now.

In section 2.10 of the document, they propose to add subfield $5 to the 6XX subject access fields, in order to record the institution assigning the subject headings.

Aside from the question about whether this sort of element-level responsibility should be supported in the MARC formats, I'm interested in whether this slightly different definition of $5 is compatible with the use of this subfield in other fields.

1. Subfield $5 has NOT been defined in the 6XX fields (other than 655).  Has anyone ever encountered a case in which a copy-specific subject heading would be appropriate?  Should we leave open the possibility of using subfield $5 in 6XX fields IN THE SAME WAY IT IS USED IN OTHER FIELDS?

2. If we do allow for the recording of the institution responsible for the data content on a particular field, are there fields in which $5 is already defined (for copy-specific information) for which the recording of the institution responsible for assigning the field  content would be appropriate?

3. In other words, are there good reasons for keeping these two different concepts in separate subfields?

        John Attig
        MARBI Liaison


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