Bernhard said:
>I know of no other purpose. But be that as it may, my point is that
>even for this function, it is no longer technically necessary.
>For all intents and purposes, MARC may live on forever without
>the need to deal with ISO2709. It is technically obsolete, but we
>need not care.
I would agree with Bernhard. SLC sends MARC records to about 50
clients, including twelve electronic publishers and aggregators,
using a variety of mean: loading records to their server, having them
download from our server, sending as a single .mrc file, and sending
as individual named files (often the e-ISBN). Our programmer never
*heard* of ISO2709. Just once we were asked about it by a Chinese
client, and had to look it up to see what they were talking about.
We began in 1979 using UTLASMARC, switched 1990 to USMARC, and 1999
to MARC21, but still keeping a couple of features* we like from
UTLASMARC. We've never even looked at ISO2709.
Is it the basis of Z39.50? The variations we discover in Z39.50
searching are, I assume, features of individual systems, e.g., not all
access keys defined by all systems, and the same key is defined
differently; in some catalogues the title search is exact, and in some
it is keyword, returning a raft of irrelevant hits. Searching is I
assume outside ISO2709, since there is *no* standardization in that
area.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
*Our favourite UTLASMARC retained feature is the single 090 per
library, far easier than MARC21's one 852 per item. For example:
090 0 $aAB/1234.5/C678/2011$bLibrary$ccopies$dvolumes $ebar code or
accession number$fsublocation$rnotes. There are other less used
subfields.
Our print programs produce the correct number of labels and cards
based on the 090, e.g., $c1-2$d1-2 produces four labels. The "/"
produces a line break on a label or card. If one wants a forward slash
in the print product, e.g. a split year, one keys "\".
This 090 is translated into multiple 852s on export for those which
wish them. Several Canadian library clients still use UTLASMARC 090.
All this without aid of any ISO so far as we know.
