Wow! A MARC record looks complicated! Lots of numbers,
lines, letters. It appears to be another language used as a complicated way to
catalogue books!
When I read: “Today's computers use hard disks and floppy
disks for storage of information rather than the tape drives used by mainframe
computers. For computers, data is commonly sent and received on floppy disks.
From the floppy disks, bibliographic records are uploaded to the stationary
hard disk” (Library of Congress reading) I began to wonder about the usefulness
of MARC records in today’s technological age. Are MARC records getting old and
dated? Are there new cataloguing systems out there now?
After the task of familiarizing ourselves with MARC records
through this week’s readings, putting together my own MARC record was not as
simple as it appeared it would be. I was able to get most of the frequently
used tags, only forgetting a few indicators here and there with the
corresponding tags. I did notice a discrepancy between the 650/651 tags, as I
used the 650, but the Library of Congress used a 651 tag. When it came to some
of the other tags that are not used as frequently, I certainly missed most of
those!
Some of the MARC records listed in online catalogues provided
a variety of different results for the same book, which left me to wonder about
the standards that are set in place for entering the information into a MARC
record. I was curious, as well, in regards to the use of different symbols in
the indicators (#, _, nothing) the symbols in the field information ($, l,) and
even the use of the symbols AFTER the information in the field ($ used again).
It seems to me that if the desire is to have some uniformity in the MARC
records, I am wondering why they are using different symbols? Also, when
looking at the same book with different catalogues, the MARC record can look
different, with one using more tags than the other. So my best guess is that it
would depend on the person who is entering the information? I have to give
credit to those people who have to enter MARC records - it is challenging to
learn all the different tags and indicators, but I would guess that with time,
they would become more familiar and easier to identify.
After talking to a Teacher Librarian in our school district,
she said the Teacher Librarians do not have to enter the information for MARC
records, as there is a district person who takes care of cataloguing new books
into the system (a little sigh of relief on my part!) I wonder if that is
similar in other districts? Provinces? Having a knowledge of MARC records is
useful, however, to understand how all those books and resources get
catalogued!
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