Back on June 6, I posted a blog item on "Dewey in MARC 21."
Since then, the MARBI meeting has taken place, and we have a better idea of what should be proposed as changes to the MARC format to meet our needs. We found MARBI very helpful and supportive of our needs. However, in the discussion we found a couple of areas where we need to do more work in developing our proposals.
The first is with the 765 field in the Classification format. We hadn't actually proposed any changes here, but the discussion about using the same format as this field in the proposed 085 field in the Bibliographic format revealed there may be some small issues in how the 765 field is defined. Since the 765 field was defined principally with Dewey in mind, and since it's not used by the Library of Congress Classification, we really need to test the 765 field against a variety of numbers in the DDC database, and propose changes to MARBI where we find problems in it.
The second is an issue with the Bibliographic format. Together with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, we had proposed various changes to the 082 field, including expanding the use of that field to show Dewey numbers (including internal and external table numbers), for subject access as well as for classified arrangement. We also proposed a new 085 field to show the component parts of built numbers: this would be both to explain how the numbers were constructed, and to provide additional subject access through those component parts.
There was some concern expressed before the MARBI meeting that this might make the use of the 082 field more difficult for libraries using it as a source of Dewey numbers for call numbers. We need to take on board those concerns -- after all, the 082 field is indeed one of the more popular fields, and we do want to encourage its use -- and re-examine our proposals to see how those concerns can be dealt with. In doing this, we need to bear in mind how the 082 field is being used now, and how the 082 and 085 fields might be used in the future, both for classified arrangement of library materials and for subject access to materials.
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