[DCRM-L] Call for volunteers: Help write MARC discussion papers!

[Matthew C. Haugen]

Dear colleagues,

As announced at today's Bibliographic Standards Committee (BSC) meeting, I
am pursuing two MARC Advisory Committee
<https://www.loc.gov/marc/mac/index.html> (MAC) discussion papers to revise
the MARC format, on topics that received the highest interest in the straw
poll conducted at the March BSC meeting:

1. Updates to bibliographic field 340
<https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd340.html> (Physical medium) and
other fields for improved physical description of specific features
associated especially with pre-modern manuscripts.

2. Expansion of the current definition of subfield $3 (Materials specified)
across the MARC bibliographic format (and possibly also the authority and
holdings formats), to represent copies/versions/aspects of the described
resources, not just "parts" of the materials being cataloged (aligning it
more closely with existing practice)


I am now inviting volunteers to join one (or both!) of two ad-hoc writing
groups. These groups would work mostly asynchronously, with some virtual
meetings as needed. I already have drafts in progress, so the goal is to
finalize each of the drafts over the next few months.

If you are interested, please reply directly to me at
matthew.haugen at columbia.edu

Once complete, the drafts will be shared with BSC for review and vote on
possible sponsorship of the papers, hopefully in the early fall. If
approved, the final version of each BSC-sponsored paper would then be
submitted for consideration at the Midwinter meeting of the MARC Advisory
Committee (date TBD, likely January or February 2027).  Pending the outcome
of those votes and meetings, the discussion papers could advance as full
proposals at a future MAC meeting, and I may call for volunteers again at
that point.

And in the meantime: the MAC summer meeting will be held July 22-23, 2026.
BSC is not sponsoring any papers at this meeting, but I will be calling for
rare materials community comments on any/all of the upcoming papers and
proposals on the forthcoming agenda, during a public review period prior to
the meeting itself.

Thank you!

Matthew

-- 
Matthew C. Haugen
Rare Book Cataloger | Columbia University Libraries
matthew.haugen at columbia.edu | 212-851-2451 | he/they
<https://universitylife.columbia.edu/pronouns>
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