[DCRM-L] Comments please: Subfield $5

[Richard Noble]

At 1/8/2007    11:17 PM, Bob Maxwell wrote:
>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?)

As the examples clipped from Bob's message indicate, he uses $5 
according to its definition in MARC21 app. A:

"Subfield $5 contains the MARC code of the institution or 
organization that holds the copy to which the data in the field 
applies. Data in the field may not apply to the universal description 
of the item or may apply universally to the item but be of interest 
only to the location cited."

Roughly speaking, $5 indicates that the field is either copy-specific 
or catalogue-specific; as a special collections cataloguer I'd 
naturally be very happy to see $5 defined for all 6XX fields for the 
latter. (We once used 69X for catalogue-specific indexing, but that's 
not an option in our present system.) (I also occasionally use 500 $5 
to deal with non-unique/non-universal states, especially in cases 
where I suspect that I'm dealing with such a thing but cannot be 
certain using available resources.)

Bob's last question rightly verges on the horrified rhetorical. My 
guess is that subject indexing has not been a regular feature of 
German catalogues (if I judge rightly from frequent use of the KVK), 
and is therefore less conventionalized than it is in Anglo-American 
practice; and therefore that the proposed use of $5 is really more to 
specify the source of the heading than it is to localize the impulse 
to apply the heading--which is more properly the function of $2. If 
this is so, then perhaps some adaptation of that subfield would be 
more appropriate--e.g. something like "$2local (RPB)", which would 
simply extend a provision in MARC Code List for Relators, Sources, 
Description Conventions, Part IV:

"A special non-specific source code for subject/index terms has been 
assigned for use in fields 654-658, and 755. The code local, meaning 
'locally assigned', should be used whenever a term is a local 
extension of a published list (e.g., a locally established term that 
follows the guidelines for particular thesaurus), or a term comes 
from a local standard."

The necessary tags, indicators, and subfields are already in place to 
do just that.

RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 : RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU