[DCRM-L] Comments please: Subfield $5

[vbartow at nypl.org]

Subject headings often reflect the subject content of a specific library.
My cataloging training involved reviewing the assigned heading in
cataloging copy against the local subject catalog (now an electronic file)
in order to evaluate whether or not the subject heading was useful in the
context of the local catalog (i.e. did it collocate the book in hand with
other books on the same topic in the library's catalog ). Has this
principle fallen by the wayside?

I might think of many occasions when the subject heading chosen (and its
level of specificity) is dependent on the subject index in the catalog of a
particular library. What may be an appropriate subject heading for a
collection with depth in a particular subject, may not be appropriate for a
more general collection, and vice versa.

The subject heading in the cataloging copy may not be copy specific, but it
may be specific to an institution. Is that not what the |5 is meant to
indicate?

Yours

Virginia Bartow
The New York Public Library
http://www.nypl.org/humanities/


                                                                           
             John Attig                                                    
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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 : Changes for the German and Austrian conversion to MARC 21
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