NAME: Elimination of tag conflicts in the USMARC Bibliographic, Community Information, and Holdings formats
SOURCE: Library of Congress
SUMMARY: This proposal suggests changing the field tag for special coded dates currently recorded in control field 004 in the Community Information format and field tag 551 for the entity and attribute information note in the Bibliographic format to eliminate conflicts in the definition of field 004 in the Holdings and field 551 in the Community Information formats.
KEYWORDS: Budget Note; Coded Dates Fixed Field (CI); Control Number for Related Bibliographic Record (HD); Entity and Attribute Information Note (BD); Field 004 (CI,HD); Field 046 (BD,CI); Field 551 (BD,CI); Special Coded Dates (BD,CI); Type of Date Code, Date 1, Date 2 (B.C. Dates)) (BD)
RELATED: DP50 (June 1991); 92-1 (January 1992); 94-17 (May 1994)
STATUS/COMMENTS:
11/15/97 - Forwarded to USMARC Advisory Group for discussion at the January 1998 MARBI meetings.
1/11/98 - Result of USMARC Advisory Group discussion - Approved. LC will investigate whether defining subfields $a-$e in the Community Information Format and subfields $f-$i in the Bibliographic Format will be problematic for either set of users.
2/11/98 - Result of final LC review - Approved.
PROPOSAL NO.98-4: Elimination of tag conflicts 1. BACKGROUND Recent work to develop an implementation of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) for USMARC has involved scrutiny of all five formats from a data element point of view. The SGML development work resulted in the creation of two USMARC data element supersets; one for the elements shared by the USMARC Bibliographic, Community Information, and Holdings formats, a second for the USMARC Authority and Classification formats. Within these data element supersets some slight variations in data element names and scope were found. In most cases the differences involve similar data elements that are shared between formats and can be remedied by minor editorial name changes. Two significant conflicts were identified in the bibliographic/community information/holdings format superset where the same field tag was used for very different kinds of data. In the Community Information format, field 004 (Coded Dates Fixed Field) differs considerably in content and use from the Holdings format field 004 (Control Number for Related Bibliographic Record). In the Bibliographic format, provisional field 551 (Entity and Attribute Information Note), differs considerably in content and use from the Community Information format field 551 (Budget Note). This proposal suggests changes to the Bibliographic and Community Information formats to eliminate these tag assignment conflicts. 2. DISCUSSION When the project for a USMARC Format for Holdings Data was first discussed it included a design principle that whenever data was the same or similar to that in the Bibliographic format, the same tag as found in the Bibliographic format was to be used. Additionally, for data that could not be accommodated by an existing Bibliographic tag, an unused (in Bibliographic and Holdings) tag or tag group was to be designated in the new format. This principle was extended to indicator values and subfield codes. As the result of a similar basic design principle, the data elements defined in the USMARC Format for Community Information, which was first discussed in 1991 (in Discussion Paper No. 50) and finally approved in 1992 (with Proposal 92-1), carried over a large number of existing USMARC Bibliographic data elements with similar names and definitions. When the Community Information format was developed, however, the need to extend the "no overlap" rule to Holdings was overlooked. Thus it was not observed that field 004 was used in Holdings and unavailable for use in Community Information. Likewise, an oversight in Proposal No. 94-17 (Changes to the USMARC Bibliographic Format to Accommodate the Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)) resulted in field tag 551 being approved for the Bibliographic format although it had been used for a different purpose in Community Information. The development of the USMARC SGML Document Type Definition (DTD), which handles the superset of bibliographic, community, and holdings data elements by a single SGML DTD, has brought attention to these problems in tag assignment. It is technically possible through complex content modelling in the MARC Bibliographic DTD to work around these problems, but that solution would make the use of SGML for USMARC difficult. It also would not alleviate the problems for systems attempting to integrate these 3 formats in one environment, as was intended. Solution for field 004 Field 004 could be changed in either the USMARC Community Information or Holdings formats. Changing the Holdings format to prescribe using a field other than 004 for the control number of a related bibliographic record would be extremely disruptive to current implementations of the Holdings format. The 004 in Holdings is a solution for handling record links between bibliographic and holdings data for many years. Considering the more limited implementation of the USMARC Community Information format, and the fact that the oversight in tag assignment was made during its development, a change to the Community Information format to use a tag other than 004 would probably have lesser impact. The Community Information 004 is currently defined thus: 004 Coded Dates Fixed Field (NR) Character Positions 00-07 Action date These eight character positions (yyyymmdd) contain the date the record needs to be looked at again. 08-15 Purge date These eight character positions (yyyymmdd) contain the date the information should be removed from the system as it is no longer relevant. 16-23 Beginning date of event or program These eight character positions (yyyymmdd) contain the beginning date of an event or program. 24-31 Ending date of event or program These eight character positions (yyyymmdd) contain the ending date of an event or program. The content and structure of the four dates possible in the Community Information field 004 do not require that a control field in the 00X range be used. Other MARC dates and codes are currently recorded in a variety of number fields in the 01X to 04X range, yet the remaining open tags in that range are few. Considering the characteristics of the dates currently prescribed for Community Information format field 004, the scope of the existing USMARC field 046 (Type if Date Code, Date 1, Date 2 (B.C. Dates) could be expanded to include them. Field 046 is currently restricted to use for B.C. dates related to those recorded in the 008. The Community Inforamtion format does not have the 008 dates as found in the Bibliographic format, as the 004 dates -- more of them and given to the day level -- are required for community event inforamtion. Field 046 is not used very much in bibliographic records because there is seldom need to record BC dates. Field 046 in Community Information would be defined as follows: 046 Special Coded Dates (NR) Indicators - Undefined Subfield Codes $f Action date (NR) $g Purge date (NR) $h Beginning date of event or program (NR) $i Ending date of event or program (NR) The Bibliographic format would indicate how to code 008 when this field is used in that format, as it currently does. In the new variable field, the dates would not all be mandatory (even when blank) as they were in the 004. Change to field 004 in the Community Information format would affect the fewest users since the format is not widely implemented. Community Information records including field 004 would need to be changed to prevent problems with the conflicting definition for the field in the other formats. Fortunately, data in the existing field 004 would map cleanly to separate subfields in field 046. Solution for field 551 In the case of field 551, the tag has been defined in the Community Information format since its inception. Budget information is fairly important to programs and services which are often described in Community Information format records. The conflicting field 551 was only recently defined as provisional in the USMARC Bibliographic format. Information gathered about the use of this provisional field (which includes a large number of subfields) revealed that there is not yet wide use of it in bibliographic databases. The Alexandria Digital Library (ADL), which does use bibliographic field 551, reported that they have only used subfield $o (Entity and attribute overview) and that a change to the format would only require them to change their ADL-to-USMARC crosswalk. The tag of the Bibliographic field could be changed to 552 to eliminate this conflict. In this case, changing the field tag in the Bibliographic format would be the choice with least impact since the field has not been widely used. 3. PROPOSED CHANGES The following is presented for consideration: - Change field 004 to 046 in the USMARC Community Information format - Change the name of field 046 to "Special Coded Dates" in both the USMARC Bibliographic and Community Information formats - In the USMARC Community Information format, specify for field 046 (Special Coded Dates) undefined indicators and the following subfields: $f - Action date (NR) $g - Purge date (NR) $h - Beginning date of event or program (NR) $i - Ending date of event or program (NR) - Change provisional field 551 to tag 552 in the USMARC Bibliographic format