To reply to two recent comments concerning this proposal.
On Jan. 5, 2004, Karen Coyle wrote:
"1) Is there a 1xx field in these records? What does it represent?
(Perhaps some full record examples would help those of us who have never
seen this kind of description)
2) Is there some way that we can accomplish the needs of this community
without adding an entire field? Since it appears that only a few subfields
are needed, could they possibly be worked into the 260 field?"
1. Descriptions of philatelic records do, normally, carry a 1XX field.
At collective levels of archival description, the 1XX field carries the
provenance heading for the collection or aggregate part, e.g., file,
described. For the description of discrete items, the 1XX field is used for
the heading of the primary statement of responsibility, as would be the case
for a monograph, sound recording, etc.
As requested, we will post shortly one or two full descriptions of
philatelic records.
2. Inclusion of this information in field 260 would be inappropriate in
that it would combine descriptive information from two separate areas (areas
3 and 4) into a single MARC 21 field. This would establish an undesirable
precedent, as no other MARC 21 field does this, to my knowledge. More to
the point, including the denomination of postage stamps with the imprint
(publication and manufacture details) simply does not make sense and would
be confusing to philatelists, postal historians, and other users of this
class of material.
On Jan. 2, 2004, Gary L. Strawn wrote:
"I would have thought that the 0XX block would provide a better fit for this
kind of information."
The philatelic issue elements - issuing jurisdiction and denomination - are
descriptive elements. They are neither variable control field (00X) nor
control information, number, and code data types, such as standard,
classification, or call numbers, coded cartographic mathematical data (which
has its Area 3 descriptive counterpart in 255), etc. For this reason, the
0XX block is inappropriate.
Gerald Stone
Director, Standards Centre
National Archives of Canada
344 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ont., K1A 0N3
Telephone: (613) 996-7790
Facsimile: (613) 947-1546
E-mail: <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
Web: <http://www.archives.ca/> www.archives.ca
