[DCRM-L] Use of the Biographical or Historical Data field (field 545) for bibliographic entries?

[Myers, John]

Dear Colleagues,

I recently ran across a situation where we held a family Bible. There were
enclosures tracing the genealogical journey of provenance through the
family. I have recorded this information in a 545 Biographical or
Historical Data field. While this could have been recorded in a 561 field,
it seemed more family/history in nature, as well as being more complex than
I am accustomed to seeing in field 561.

We have a further use case for fied 545, where we record the campus
speaking engagement of a particular author, as justification for any items
from that author's works to be added into our Special Collections.

My sense is that field 545 was developed primarily for the archival
community. Since archival collections and their associated records tend to
be unique, it would follow that the inputting agency would be the
institution for which such a note would apply. In a bibliographic context
though, if one were recording some biographical or historical context for
the individual item held within a larger manifestation set, then it seems
like the use of a $5 would be helpful, even in the local system. The
presence of $5 can be incorporated into import and synchronization profiles
in order to protect the instance of the field from being overwritten or
scrubbed.

My questions to the assembly:

   - Have others used field 545 in this manner for their bibliographic
   collections?
   - For these use cases, is there a better field to use?
   - If field 545 is a good solution for these use cases, would the
   addition of $5 be perceived as valuable?

Thank you for your input,
John

John Myers, Catalog & Metadata Librarian
Schaffer Library, Union College
Schenectady NY 12308

518-388-6623
myersj at union.edu
pronouns: he/him/his
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