OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectivesCommon MARC, or vivent les différences?Ross Bourne

Article information:To cite this document:Ross Bourne, (1996),"Common MARC, or vivent les différences?", OCLC Systems & Services: International digital libraryperspectives, Vol. 12 Iss 2 pp. 35 - 39Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10650759610798529

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Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:Ross Bourne, (1996),"Common MARC, or vivent les différences?", Library Review, Vol. 45 Iss 2 pp. 25-29Ross Bourne, (1992),"UKMARC: A format for the twenty#first century?", New Library World, Vol. 93 Iss 3 pp. -Oh Dong#Geun, (1995),"Comparative analysis of MARC in Korea, Taiwan and Japan", Program, Vol. 29 Iss 2 pp. 123-134

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“Be not deceived. God is not mocked: forwhatsoever a man soweth, that shall he alsoreap.” As someone who does not actuallybelieve in a deity I ought not to be quoting StPaul’s Epistle to the Galatians, certainly not inthis city of John Knox. Perhaps I am moresuperstitious than I thought, as if by propitiat-ing that redoubtable cleric, whose house is justa short walk away, I can escape whatever wraththe Almighty (in whom, of course, I do notbelieve) has in store for me. Perhaps I am justhedging my bets.

The words “sowing” and “reaping” come tomind when recalling the history of machine-readable cataloging (MARC). That history isdescribed in chapter 3 of an indispensable bookby Gredley and Hopkinson (1990), ExchangingBibliographic Records, and the issue that thispaper is to discuss is summarized there in thesewords:

At this early stage in the life of MARC, theconflict created by internal and external demandsand the tension resulting from the desire, on theone hand, for standardization and conformity,and, on the other, for the flexibility essential to atrue exchange format, were all too apparent.

The previous paragraph states also that varia-tions between US and UK practice arosebecause of the differences in the North Ameri-can and British texts of the Anglo-AmericanCataloguing Rules (AACR) and the need forthe US format to accommodate pre-AACRcataloging; on the other hand, the outputrequirements of the British National Bibliogra-phy were a significant factor in the design ofthe UK format.

I do not know if John Knox had anything tosay about hindsight, but I dare say that if hehad he would have made us all feel veryuncomfortable. Be that as it may: for whatseemed like excellent reasons at the time,USMARC and UKMARC were allowed todiverge, although the intention has always beenfor the US and UK communities to make useof one another’s records through the use ofconversion programs. I want now to say something about the differences in approachbetween the two formats, and this will highlightwhat we are going to have to do if the twoformats are to be reconciled.

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Common MARC, or vivent les différences?

Ross Bourne

OCLC Systems & Services

Volume 12 · Number 2 · 1996 · 34–37

OCLC Systems & ServicesVolume 12 · Number 2 · 1996 · pp. 35–39© MCB University Press · ISSN 1065-075X

Common MARC, orvivent les différences?

Ross Bourne

The authorRoss Bourne is based at the British Library NationalBibliographic Service, Boston Spa, Wetherby, UK.

AbstractInvestigates the history of the machine-readable catalog(MARC). Compares US and UK attitudes to MARC and raisesthe fact that US and British Standards are incompatible.Suggests that the two should be able to integrate and givesreasons for this.

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While we have much in common, there are,of course, many differences between theAmericans and ourselves, not least as far as ourlibraries are concerned. In the bibliographicfield, one is struck particularly by the relativeimportance in the scheme of things of ourrespective national libraries.

While the Library of Congress has beenexercising its considerable influence in this fieldfor almost a century, the British Library(together with its predecessors) has been pro-viding bibliographic data for scarcely half thattime, and what it would like to regard as itsdominance has not been unchallenged, certain-ly not in recent years. And yet, whileUSMARC is hospitable to most library situa-tions, and operates now relatively independent-ly of the Library of Congress, UKMARC isstill very much tied to the practices and proce-dures of the British Library’s products andservices.

The real reason for this lies, I think, in ourdifferent approaches to standardization: whileour North American friends are full partici-pants in the maintenance of MARC, AACRand other standards, and regularly pack outmeetings where these are discussed, with thebest will in the world I do not sense the samelevel of interest on this side of the Atlantic.True, we used to have a MARC users’ group,latterly Users of Book Industry Standards (orUBIS), but this finally ran out of steam twoyears ago. (Ironically, UBIS was formallywound up on the very day that preliminarydiscussions on harmonization were taking placein Washington.)

‘…The British Library has not had the timeto develop the community’s whole-hearted support in the way that theLibrary of Congress has…’

It could be claimed that the UK library com-munity has only itself to blame for the BritishLibrary bias of UKMARC, but this would beunjust: the British Library has not had the timeto develop the community’s wholeheartedsupport in the way that the Library of Congresshas, nor have the circumstances of the last 20years been particularly propitious as far as that

is concerned. Indeed, some might say that theBritish Library has at times taken a ratherarrogant approach to the rest of the librarycommunity. But if the library had been morecareful about the way it has handled itsundoubted clout, things might have been dif-ferent. For whatever reason, British librarieshave been perhaps too independent and lessconvinced of the need to co-operate throughstandardization than have the North Ameri-cans.

Because USMARC has been more receptiveto its users than has UKMARC, it can handle agreater variety of data. The encoding of data inUKMARC for materials other than printedmonographs is still very limited: it can handleserials and cartographic materials, and musicto a lesser extent, but that is about it. Forgetfilms and videos, computer software and theresources of the Internet; and, while we areabout it, authorities’ data, community informa-tion and classification.

Up until a few years ago, we could claimthat although certain types of material were notcovered by UKMARC those which were cov-ered were handled through a single format,unlike USMARC which had different formatsfor different media. This is, however, no longertrue. Even if UKMARC continues to be biasedtoward the British Library, our plans to seekextension of legal deposit to non-print materi-als will eventually result in our dispensing withthe old excuse that we only collect printeddocuments and have no expertise in othermedia.

I do not believe for a moment that print isthe medium of the past and not also the medi-um of the present and the future – I have beenhearing about the death of the printed word formy entire professional career, which has lastedlonger than the lives of many of my youngercolleagues – but the library can no longer failto collect other types of recorded information ifit is to remain a major archive of our civiliza-tion.

Because UKMARC has been tied to BritishLibrary output requirements, it has in someways been rather more advanced than hasUSMARC. ISBD punctuation is program-generated rather than inserted by the cataloger.This must save many thousands of key strokes

Common MARC, or vivent les différences?

Ross Bourne

OCLC Systems & Services

Volume 12 · Number 2 · 1996 · 35–39

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each year – “Wow!”, I hear you say – but thereare at least two disadvantages arising from this.First, software has to be written to provide it,not just on our part but yours as well; and,second, we cannot accept North Americanrecords without further software to eliminate it.

Moreover, ISBD punctuation may notalways be appropriate to the bibliographic datawe want to input; I said earlier that USMARCis hospitable to non-AACR data, and this hasled to greater flexibility in USMARC, albeit atthe expense of exploiting various short cuts foroutput purposes.

Then there are chauvinistic considerations. Ibelieve we suffer in this country (or countries,if you prefer) from no longer being sure aboutour identity in relation to the rest of the world.

More than 30 years ago, when I first camehere from the other side of the world, theconcept of the British Commonwealth was avery real one. Britain was at the heart of amajor international community and it waspossible to feel a considerable amount of pridein our shared heritage. This is no longer true in1995. The Commonwealth? What is that? TheUSA? They no longer want to know. Europe?To many people, a bad joke.

‘…What I am trying to say is that we donot have to feel insecure about lackingcertain national attributes – such as aformat, for example…’

Perhaps this seems a long way from discussionof MARC, but the point I want to make is thatin the last 20 or so years we have moved onfrom accepting that a national format is its ownjustification. As the capacity for travel hasincreased and international telecommunica-tions have become easier, so our view of ourprofession has altered. This is a global villageand, although many of our cultural differencesremain, the advantages of at least a measure ofinter-dependency no longer have to be argued.What I am trying to say is that we do not haveto feel insecure about lacking certain nationalattributes – such as a format, for example.

This brings us, and at last, to the matter inhand. During the last few paragraphs I havebeen suggesting, if you have not already

realized it, some of the reasons for consideringa common MARC format. I hope I have triedto explain why our formats have diverged and,as I have suggested, I am sure these reasonswere perfectly good ones at the time. I havealways believed that the introduction of metri-cation has been implemented on too broad andflexible a time-scale, and in the same way Ithink that we should just get on with formatconvergence rather than letting it drift on.

In a letter to UKMARC format users of lastSeptember, Stuart Ede, then director of theBritish Library National Bibliographic Service,gave the following specific reason: “only asingle format would provide adequate and cost-effective support for these developments”(“these developments” being the very close cooperation developing between the BritishLibrary and the Library of Congress – forexample, the forthcoming implementation ofthe Anglo-American Authority File).

Stuart Ede also outlined the background tothis growth in cooperation, although the twoorganizations have always worked closelytogether. This background can be summarizedas follows:• technology is making it easier to share bibli-

ographic data – for example, through theInternet;

• format complexity is now less appropriate;• format conversions can result in loss of

information or precision;• budget restrictions are moving us toward a

greater degree of cooperation, especially asthere are no great national differences in ourpublishing output.

Since that letter went out, a meeting has takenplace in Washington DC between the threenational libraries. At that meeting, we under-took to carry out certain exploratory work: wehave compared the rather different means ofconsultation and format governance; we haveidentified both technical and content differ-ences; and we have conducted some prelimi-nary consultation with our respective users. Inthe USA, this took place at the MARBI meet-ing held during the American Library Associa-tion conference in Chicago. In this country, weconvened an open meeting at Library Associa-tion headquarters on July 21; some of you may

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indeed have attended this meeting, whosebroad aim was to enable format users toexpress views on the principle of format con-vergence.

The narrower aim, however, was to test thewater, to gauge the acceptability or otherwiseof the proposition. The British Library hascommissioned a cost-benefit analysis on theprocess of format convergence, and this willhelp us toward contributing to that decision.That analysis will concentrate on savings andmarket opportunities on the one hand and thecosts to ourselves and to our customers on theother. One or two Scottish libraries are likely tobe invited to provide input to this study.

By coincidence, the British Library had beenplanning a consultative exercise on certainformat amendments, many of them at thesuggestion of the Archives community but alsosome others, including linking fields which maybe used in serials cataloging. The opportunitywas also going to be taken to propose somesignificant changes to UKMARC’s name fieldsas a result of our forthcoming implementationof the Anglo-American Authority File (AAAF).

‘…Although AAAF will be implemented ontime, implementation will be focused onthe headings themselves rather thantheir coding…’

At the time of the July meeting, these proposalshad been given a preliminary airing among theBook Industry Communication’s (BIC) biblio-graphic standards technical sub-group, thesuccessor to the MARC users’ group andUBIS. It had been the original intention toissue a consultative paper shortly after themeeting, and participants at the July meetingwere alerted to this. In the meantime, however,there has been a development on the imple-mentation of the AAAF. While this will still beimplemented internally, new governmentfinancial procedures are constraining us fromapplying format amendments to our servicesand products as quickly as we would haveliked.

In other words, although AAAF will beimplemented on time, implementation will befocused on the headings themselves rather than

their coding, which will remain according tothe existing format provisions. There will be aconsultative paper in the very near future, butthis will be limited largely to the archives andserials proposals.

I want now to mention some of the pointsraised at the July meeting. As I have suggested,that meeting was not intended to result in avote on the part of UKMARC users, but wewere greatly encouraged by what looked likeuniversal support for the proposition. Whatdissent there was concerned the time-scale andwhether changes should be introduced gradual-ly or on a “big-bang” basis:• USMARC is being used, force majeure, by an

increasing number of libraries in Europe.There is therefore an irresistible pressure tobring MARC formats together.

• Inevitably, a common MARC format isgoing to look more like USMARC thanUKMARC. It is to be hoped that certain ofthe more useful features of UKMARC canbe retained.

• The costs of conversion may be difficult tofind during the forthcoming round of localgovernment reorganization.

• The format user community should belooking beyond MARC to SGML (standardgeneralized mark-up language).

• The timing of changes should be givenserious consideration, especially in conjunc-tion with systems suppliers. While it wasimportant that an early decision should betaken, there should be adequate lead-time toenable changes to be introduced.

• The position of the British Library as boththe source and the distributor of records wasan ambiguous one. Consultation should beas wide ranging as possible to help overcomewhat could be regarded as a conflict ofinterests.

• The British Library might consider thepossibility that it issue records in bothUKMARC and USMARC, as a way ofeasing the transition.

• Certain changes should not be delayedmerely to satisfy the big-bang approach. Ifthey are desirable, they should not be heldup any longer than necessary.

• The move toward the AAAF was inextrica-bly linked with Common MARC; indeed, if

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Common MARC, or vivent les différences?

Ross Bourne

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the proposals for change that were shortly tobe announced were to be implemented, theywould constitute a major part of the conver-gence process.

• The national libraries should continue to bethe major players in the process. Whileconsultation was important, the function ofthe national libraries in this respect was tolead.

A report of the July 1995 meeting will shortlybe available. I would expect similar views to

emerge from this meeting and I am lookingforward to discussing these with you and tohearing about any other concerns that youmay have. I certainly regard the prospect of aCommon MARC format as a very excitingone.

Reference

Gredley, E. and Hopkinson, A. (1990), Exchanging Biblio-graphic Records: MARC and Other InternationalFormats, Library Association, London, pp. 81-2.

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Common MARC, or vivent les différences?

Ross Bourne

OCLC Systems & Services

Volume 12 · Number 2 · 1996 · 35–39

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