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Chapter Four: Formats & Standards for Library

Automation
• Concept of Bibliographic standards
• Introductions to Metadata
• Types of Metadata Dublin Core
• MARC format and its structure
• Z39.50 standard
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What is a Standard?
• Bibliographic standards provide a common, base level of information
necessary to help all library users find the resources they need.
Simultaneously, and standards provide choices for individual libraries to
build upon the base level and improve the quality of the shared data.
• So, standard represents an agreement on how to do something or carry out some
activity to arrive at predictable results.
• The library community, along with the technology community organization,
has set up standards and rules about how to do it.
• All standards published by the National Information Standards Organization
(NISO) are developed by a consensus process that draws on the expertise of
implementers and vendors, product developers, and users of those products;
• International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the standards body that
establishes standards for the international exchange of goods and services.
• The National Information Standards Organization, which deals with all aspects
of information technology and regulates, among other things, how electronic
library catalogs should be created.
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Introductions to Metadata
• Metadata, literally “data about data,” is today a widely used,
yet frequently underspecified term that is understood in
different ways by the diverse professional communities that
design, create, describe, preserve, and use information
systems and resources.
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Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES)

• DC is the result of an international cross disciplinary consensus
achieved through the ongoing efforts of the Dublin Core
Metadata Initiative (DCMI),
• aimed at providing a foundation for standardized bibliographic
description of information resources available via the Internet.
• In 2007, the DCMES was published by the International
Organization for Standardization.
• The DCMES is a set of 15 metadata elements designed to
facilitate the description and recovery of document like resources
in a networked environment.
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Cont..
Element of Metadata Dublin Core :
• Title (name given to the resource)
• Creator (entity primarily responsible for making the content of
the resource)
• Subject (topic of the content of the resource, typically expressed
as keywords, key phrases, or classification codes)
• Description (abstract, table of contents, etc.)
• Publisher (entity responsible for making the resource available)
• Contributor (entity responsible for making contributions to the
content of the resource)
• Date (typically associated with the creation or avail-ability of the
resource)
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Cont..
• Type (nature or genre of the content of the resource)
• Format (physical or digital manifestation of the resource)
• Identifier (an unambiguous reference to the resource within a
given context, such as the URL, ISBN, ISSN, etc.)
• Source (reference to a resource from which the present resource
is derived)
• Language (the language of the intellectual content of the
resource)
• Relation (reference to a related resource)
• Coverage (extent or scope of the content of the resource)
• Rights (information about rights held in and over the resource)
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MARC 21
• MARC (MAchine-Readable Cataloging) standards are a set of digital

formats for the description of items catalogued by libraries, such as

books. The Library of Congress serves as the official depository of
United States publications and is a primary source of cataloging
records for US and international publications. When the Library of
Congress began to use computers in the 1960s, it devised the LC
MARC format, a system of using brief numbers, letters, and symbols
within the cataloging record itself to mark different types of information.
The original LC MARC format evolved into MARC 21 and has become
the standard used by most library computer programs.
• So, This MARC 21 bibliographic format,, is maintained by the Library of

Congress. It is published as MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data.

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• MARC 21 was designed to redefine the original MARC record format for the 21st

century and to make it more accessible

• In general, MARC 21 is an international standard digital format for the description of

bibliographic items, developed at the LC to facilitate the creation and dissemination of

computerized cataloguing from one library to another.

 MARC 21 is the standard for the representation and communication of

bibliographic and related information in machine-readable form.

 It is bibliographic standard

 It is a“Machine readable” means that, a computer, can read and

interpret data in the cataloging record.

 This shows librarians encode information that can be read by a

computer, which translates it into a format that people can read.

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Cont..
What is Cataloging record?
• “Cataloging record” means a bibliographic record, or the information

traditionally shown on a catalog card.

• Every automation system that is MARC compliant, that creates its catalog

records using MARC, will be able to understand the records of any other
MARC compliant system.
• If you are going to have an automated catalog you should create the catalog

records using MARC.

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Cont..
WHAT IS A MARC 21 RECORD?
• A MARC record is bibliographic information about the item.

• MARC formats are standards used for the representation of bibliographic and

related information for books and other library materials in machine-readable

form and their communication to and from other computers.
• Why Is a MARC Record Necessary?

• The information from a catalog card cannot simply be typed into a

computer to produce an automated catalog. The computer needs a

means of interpreting the information found on a cataloging record. The
MARC record contains a guide to its data, or little "signposts," before
each piece of bibliographic information.
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Basic MARC Terms: Fields, Tags and Indicators

• 1. Field: This is the term used to describe the various sections of
cataloging information. Following AACR2 rules, each area of information
from the complete cataloging record is given a field in MARC. These
fields make up the MARC record.
• Each bibliographic MARC record is divided logically into fields. There is a
field for the author, a field for title information, and so on.
• These fields are subdivided into one or more "subfields.“

• Field names are may represented by 3-digit tags.

• example of a MARC record: 245 14$aThe school library media manager

/$cBlanche Woolls.
• In MARC cataloging, each tag and sub-division is preceded by a $ which

alerts the computer that a tag designation is following, then after the tag
designation, the actual information is entered.
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2, A tag: Each field is associated with a 3-digit number called a "tag.“ A tag
identifies the field is the kind of data that follows.
• There are a million rules to MARC cataloging, all designed to create an
electronic catalog record that meets the criteria set up by AACR2 cataloging
rules. The tags used most frequently are:

010 tag marks the Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN)

020 tag marks the International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
100 tag marks a personal name main entry (author)
245 tag
marks the title information (which includes the title, other title information, and the statement of
responsibility)
250 tag marks the edition
260 tag marks the publication information
300 tag marks the physical description (often referred to as the "collation" when describing books)
490 tag marks the series statement
520 tag marks the annotation or summary note
650 tag marks a topical subject heading
700 tag marks a personal name added entry (joint author, editor, or illustrator)
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. 3. Indicators: There are two spaces that follow each field in a MARC record. These spaces are for
the Indicators. These are one-digit codes (numbers 0-9) that are listed right after the tag number.
In the field, a ‘0’ indicates that no title added entry is needed or no information provided, but a ‘1’
indicates that there should be a title added entry generated.

• In the 245 field, this number is used to indicate how many non-filing characters are at the

beginning of the title.

• Example, 245 14$aThe school library media manager /$cBlanche Woolls.

• From the MARC example above, here is the 245 field shown again. In this field, there are two

indicators after the field tag.

• First indicator - tells whether the 245 field is preceded by a 1xx field (whether the book has a

main author or creator)

• Second indicator - tells whether the title includes an initial article, and if so, how many characters

it is.

• Each field has its own indicators, and the same numbers will indicate different things, depending

on what the requirements of each specific field are.

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Cout…

o MARC format uses “260” “$a” “$b” and “$c” to mark the

field that holds imprint data instead of storing the words

“place of publication”, “name of publisher”, and date of

publication in each record.

o This convention makes more efficient use of computer

storage space.
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Some record with MARC tags.

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Author Main Entry (Card catalog Example)

• The author’s name appears on the top line of the card four lines from the top of the
card and indented nine spaces from the left margin to allow for the entry of long
Dewey numbers.
• The surname is given first, followed by a comma, and then the given names of the
author in the usual order.
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Author Main Entry (MARC Example)

• Personal name main entries are placed in the
100 field of the MARC record.
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Z39.50 PROTOCOL
• Z39.50 is the American National Standard Information Retrieval
and Protocol Specification for Open Systems Interconnection.
• Z39.50 is generally defined as the information search and retrieve
protocol standard used primarily by library and information related
systems.
• The standard specifies a client/server-based protocol for searching
and retrieving information from remote databases simultaneously
using a single interface.
• Z39.50 defines a standard way for two computers to communicate
for the purpose of information retrieval, and makes it easier to use
large information databases by standardizing the procedures and
features for searching and retrieving information.
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Cont..

• Z39.50 is used as a protocol to retrieve data from other

catalogues, mostly in MARC-format.
• It allows two computers to talk to each other and exchange
information even if they are running different systems.
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Cont..
The following stages describe communication process below
involving two library/information systems running on Z39.50
platform;
1. The Client handles the user interface
2. The Origin takes information from the client and sends it to the
target across a network
3. The Target receives the information from the origin and
communicates the search to the database server
4. The Server handles the database search and returns retrieved
information to the target
5. The Target sends information to the origin across a network
6. The Client receives information from the origin and displays
results for the user.
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Cont..

Source: (Obuh, 2010) . Z39.50 Information Search and Retrieval Model

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Quiz
1. What are the standards for library automation

2. What is Cataloging record?

3. Write atleast three Element of Metadata Dublin Core
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10Q!