Jasmin Nof
Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:30:04 -0800
Cataloging: Asian and African Materials Committee (CC:AAM)
Guidelines for the Nonfiling Control Character Technique in the
MARC 21 Formats
The Guidelines for the Nonfiling Control Character Technique in the MARC
21 Formats were discussed. Following the 2007 ALA Annual Conference (
Washington, D.C.), Lenore Bell of the Association of Jewish Libraries
(AJL) sent a letter to Philip Melzer, LC Liaison to CC:AAM asking the
committee to consider taking necessary steps to see that MARBI 98-16R
(December 1999) is implemented in library systems and used in cataloging
practice.
At the June 1998 MARBI, Proposal No. 98-16 was discussed and the technique for using beginning and ending control characters (Hex “X88” and Hex “X89” from ISO 6630) to block off the non-filing characters was approved. This technique is used to envelope text as non-filing characters in fields that otherwise do not allow for non-filing indicators in the second indicator.
In the examples that follow, the brackets { } represent x88 and x89. For example:
700 1# $a{al-}Sadat, Anwar
710 2# $a{ha-}Universit.ah ha-’Ivrit bi-Yerushalayim
710 1# $a Israel. $b {ha-}Mishmar ha-ezrah.i
The CC:AAM Chair has had several correspondences with Nancy Sack
(University of Hawaii at Manoa Library, and a member of AJL) to discuss
how to get the proposal implemented. It was suggested that CC:AAM
formally solicit letters of support from cataloging communities where
this topic is of interest (AJL, MELA, others), after which CC:AAM can
present a unified letter of recommendation to the following entities:
* OCLC * AVIAC * CSPO * PCCCC:AAM agreed that this was a task worth pursuing and agreed to move forward. The CC:AAM chair will take the lead in obtaining formal support from both MELA and AJL and will communicate these efforts to the aforementioned ALA groups.
CC:AAM requests further direction from CCS-Exec as to suggestions or ideas on how to best shuttle this forward.
2009 Program
In spite of a false start in the time leading up to 2007 Annual, CC:AAM
was able to brainstorm and come up with a potential program a program
idea for 2009 Annual that is both timely, relevant and appropriate.
While still three separate ideas, there is a common theme running that
is best described as “Populating the Non-Roman Cataloging Universe:
(Re)sourcing for the Future.” The program would feature three or four
guest speakers who would discuss the following types of topics:
Adding non-Roman scripts to the Name Authority File (NAF) (the actual mechanics, techniques, technologies: What are the obstacles? What are the realistic expectations that NR-Cataloging Communities (and their patrons) face?
New non-Roman scripts for bibliographic (and authority) data: OCLC has introduced several new non-JACKPHY scripts to WorldCat in recent years: what are the procedures for a script community to request “their script”? What are the technical issues required for WorldCat to handle these new scripts? How are cataloging communities being encouraged to create records using these new scripts?
Sources for non-Roman script data: Vendors, international contributors, national libraries, etc. are now participating in WorldCat. If our own local catalogers are not creating these records, who will?
The largest co-sponsors for such a program would be OCLC, LC, and perhaps others. Likewise, such a program would fall in line with Recommendation 7 of the Task Force for Non-English Access [“CC:AAM, SEES and AAMES work together to plan a join program, preconference, and continuing education on multilingual access, including Unicode implementation”].
-- Jasmin Nof Judaica and Hebraica Cataloger Non-Roman Cataloging Team Leader 2200 McKeldin Library University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 301-405-9337 [EMAIL PROTECTED]