Cataloging : Introduction to MARC Records

Traditional library catalogs have lent themselves very well to automation. If you think of the information which appears on a typed card, you can see that we have the same categories of information appearing over and over on each card. For example, we have:

Author
Title
Edition
Place of Publication
Publisher
Date of Publication
Subject Headings, Etc.

The Library of Congress needed to develop software which allowed catalogers to enter their descriptive cataloging information in a uniform way. Rather than use the written terms, such as "Author," we use a set of three numbers [called MARC tags] to substitute for the written words. For example, Tag 100 stands for Author: Personal Name, i. e. an individual or individuals are responsible for the work. The MARC tag 100 identifies an author "field."

Fields, such as Tag 100, have been broken down into sub-fields. A MARC tag may look like this [Note: You would not see the ...... characters on the second line, the spaces would be blank. For the life of me, I don't know how to get the computer to space over.]:

100 1_ a________

..........d________
Different author information goes into each of these sub-fields as defined by the MARC format. Sub-field a is for author name...Last name, First name, Middle name. Sub-field d is for dates known (birth and death). Each MARC tag is broken down into sub-fields. You need documentation to identify the tags and sub-fields for each tag. MARC tag 100 actually has several sub-fields. They are:

a Name: Last, first, middle

d Dates: Year of birth-Year o death

b Numeration: Titles of kings, as VIII for Henry VIII

q Fuller form of name: author is Lewis, C. S.; fuller form is (Clive Staples)

c Titles/words associated with names, as II for John Smith, II

With the MARC tag, you will see some numbers coming before the sub-field letters. Example:

100 1_ a____

The 100 is the MARC tag; the a is the sub-field. The numbers, 1_, before the sub-field are called indicators. These are special characters which are defined in MARC. They give special instructions to the computer. Each indicator has a specifically defined meaning. You need the documentation to know what each indicator field means.

You will find some good documentation at Follett MARC. Here each tag, sub-field and indicator is discussed.

The MARC tags are well organized and provide some mnemonic support. The first tags, which have a 0 as the first number, are fields in which we place information such as the ISBN number.

0xx Info as ISBN, LCCN, etc.

1xx Author information

2xx Title information

3xx Physical information about the item, as no. of pages

4xx Series statements

5xx Notes

6xx Subject headings

7xx Added entries, such as illustrator

8xx Series statements added entries

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