This week balancing work and this course have been a struggle, but after reading some of the discussion from Activity 3 it made me feel like maybe I am not the only one. I tried to do my best in completing Activity 3 by using many of the notes provided for us in our course notes. It was nice to learn more about the Library of Congress Classification which was something that I had never heard of before taking this course. Once I got the hang of it, I felt more confident in using it. But I think I am a visual learner Louise Thomson pointed out on the discussion forum, and I would have had an easier time if I had seen a model of what our responses should look like. I just hope that I completed it correctly. Anyways, I also found Roberta MacQuarrie’s reflection on the discussion forum reassuring since I am also coming from a beginner’s level and sometimes feel overwhelmed with new information that we are learning about in this course. I think that my biggest fear at the moment is completing Assignment #2. As I have been looking through the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules and looking at MARC tags I hope that I will finish this Assignment correctly and on time.
The website provided in week three Understanding MARC Bibliographic: Machine-Readable Cataloging at URL: www.loc.gov/marc/umb/ is a comprehensive guide to understanding what MARC is, why it is important, how to use it. The site also explains MARC terms and their definitions, where MARC records originated and data issues. MARC 21 Reference Materials Parts VII to X provides a summary of commonly used MARC 21 Fields, a list of other fields often seen in MARC records. MARC 21 Reference Materials Parts XI to XII provides a sample record in various formats, AV records from cards to MARC 21, selected Bibliography, and a complete review. Although printing the information from this site took about 40 to 50 pages, I think that the information it provides is very helpful with clear explanations and visual examples of various formats. After reading through selective parts of this document, I feel more informed about terms such as tags, indicators, subfield codes, and so on. At least I know where to look if I need to identify one of these terms or codes in the future. I have spent some time working in an elementary library before, but I have not come across the need to look up MARC records yet. The most cataloguing I have done is creating call numbers using the Dewey Decimal sytem. Creating MARC records seems daunting, but I understand the need for a means of interpreting the information found on a cataloguing record. The process of creating MARC records seems very intricate and complex. After reading through chapter 12 in our text, I learned some history about the origins of MARC. I also learned that there are five MARC formats that have been developed including the one for bibliographic data which would probably concern me the most. The others area for authority data, holdings data, classification data, and community information. Each one of these fields are similar in the fact that they have fields, subfields, and content designators to help identify and manipulate the type of information needed for its type or category. I have also learned that MARC records are not a new type of cataloguing but an encoded version of cataloguing. So, basically it contains all of the information that a catalog record would include plus more for computer processing. The content of the record is the main and added entries, title statements, edition statements, and more. The other information to identify individual records and their parts are the encoding. Encoding catalog records are divided into fields, and each element of the catalog has a corresponding field, and each element has a tag. For example tag 250 means edition statement. This is a lot for me to process. I guess it is kind of like cataloguers speak in a type of code or a tag language or markup language instead of using words to describe the meanings. All of this is very confusing. I hope that this will become clearer in the weeks to come.
The website provided in week three Understanding MARC Bibliographic: Machine-Readable Cataloging at URL: www.loc.gov/marc/umb/ is a comprehensive guide to understanding what MARC is, why it is important, how to use it. The site also explains MARC terms and their definitions, where MARC records originated and data issues. MARC 21 Reference Materials Parts VII to X provides a summary of commonly used MARC 21 Fields, a list of other fields often seen in MARC records. MARC 21 Reference Materials Parts XI to XII provides a sample record in various formats, AV records from cards to MARC 21, selected Bibliography, and a complete review. Although printing the information from this site took about 40 to 50 pages, I think that the information it provides is very helpful with clear explanations and visual examples of various formats. After reading through selective parts of this document, I feel more informed about terms such as tags, indicators, subfield codes, and so on. At least I know where to look if I need to identify one of these terms or codes in the future. I have spent some time working in an elementary library before, but I have not come across the need to look up MARC records yet. The most cataloguing I have done is creating call numbers using the Dewey Decimal sytem. Creating MARC records seems daunting, but I understand the need for a means of interpreting the information found on a cataloguing record. The process of creating MARC records seems very intricate and complex. After reading through chapter 12 in our text, I learned some history about the origins of MARC. I also learned that there are five MARC formats that have been developed including the one for bibliographic data which would probably concern me the most. The others area for authority data, holdings data, classification data, and community information. Each one of these fields are similar in the fact that they have fields, subfields, and content designators to help identify and manipulate the type of information needed for its type or category. I have also learned that MARC records are not a new type of cataloguing but an encoded version of cataloguing. So, basically it contains all of the information that a catalog record would include plus more for computer processing. The content of the record is the main and added entries, title statements, edition statements, and more. The other information to identify individual records and their parts are the encoding. Encoding catalog records are divided into fields, and each element of the catalog has a corresponding field, and each element has a tag. For example tag 250 means edition statement. This is a lot for me to process. I guess it is kind of like cataloguers speak in a type of code or a tag language or markup language instead of using words to describe the meanings. All of this is very confusing. I hope that this will become clearer in the weeks to come.
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