Library Cataloging
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded a National Leadership Grant of $233,115 to the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge (TxCDK) at the University of North Texas for a project investigating the coding of information and metadata utilization in one million MARC records from the OCLC WorldCat database. TxCDK Fellows Dr. William E. Moen and Dr. Shawne D. Miksa, both from the UNT School of Library and Information Sciences (SLIS), are the Principal Investigators of the project entitled "Examining Present Practices to Inform Future Metadata Use: An Empirical Analysis of MARC Content Designation Utilization".During the 2-year project the extent of catalogers' use of MARC 21, the mark-up language used by catalogers worldwide to create electronic catalog records, will be investigated. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) will provide a sample of 1 million MARC bibliographic records. The records will be pulled from OCLC's WorldCat database.Current MARC 21 specifications define nearly 2000 fields and subfields available to library catalogers. In a previous project, Z-Interoperability Testbed Project, strong indications were discovered that only 36 of the available MARC subfields accounted for 80% of all subfield utilization.More information about the project is available on-line.Interesting research at my alma mater. If only 36 subfields account for 80% of usage, how much of MARC is really necessary? Should Dublin Core be expanded to these 36 fields? When was the last time fields were tossed out of MARC because they were not being used? Should some fields be valid only for a community of users, not everybody? How are the fields chosen for the Core record? Should they be changed? Of the fields not being used are any critical for user access? How could we populate those missing fields? So many interesting questions. I'm proud my school is investigating these questions.
- Marc @ Ala
Announcement for a presentation at ALA that sounds very interesting.Did you know that catalogers use only 10-20% of available MARC fields/subfields? Given evolving search behaviors and the amazoogle effects do our bibliographic records provide information...
- Marc Content Designation Utilization Project
The MARC Content Designation Utilization (MCDU) Project is now making available the first set of results from analyses of the MCDU dataset of more than 56 million MARC bibliographic records from OCLC's WorldCat database. Separate data reports containing...
- Marc Content Designation Utilization
Seymour Lubetzky asked "Is This Rule Necessary?". Now a study is being done asking "Is this field necessary?" The MARC Content Designation Utilization study is examing just what fields are being used. This could inform decisions on what fields to include...
- Marc Content Designation Utilization
The MARC Content Designation Utilization (MCDU) project has posted 2 documents.MCDU Project MARC Records Dataset: Decomposition Specification, Database Design, and Parser Software This document provides information about the MARC dataset, the specifications...
- Research
Some interesting research being done. Can hardly wait for the results. I'm particularly interested in the first project. It is being done at my alma mater and I know some catalogers in that part of the state. Seen on the OCLC Web site.OCLC Research...
Library Cataloging
MARC
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded a National Leadership Grant of $233,115 to the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge (TxCDK) at the University of North Texas for a project investigating the coding of information and metadata utilization in one million MARC records from the OCLC WorldCat database. TxCDK Fellows Dr. William E. Moen and Dr. Shawne D. Miksa, both from the UNT School of Library and Information Sciences (SLIS), are the Principal Investigators of the project entitled "Examining Present Practices to Inform Future Metadata Use: An Empirical Analysis of MARC Content Designation Utilization".During the 2-year project the extent of catalogers' use of MARC 21, the mark-up language used by catalogers worldwide to create electronic catalog records, will be investigated. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) will provide a sample of 1 million MARC bibliographic records. The records will be pulled from OCLC's WorldCat database.Current MARC 21 specifications define nearly 2000 fields and subfields available to library catalogers. In a previous project, Z-Interoperability Testbed Project, strong indications were discovered that only 36 of the available MARC subfields accounted for 80% of all subfield utilization.More information about the project is available on-line.Interesting research at my alma mater. If only 36 subfields account for 80% of usage, how much of MARC is really necessary? Should Dublin Core be expanded to these 36 fields? When was the last time fields were tossed out of MARC because they were not being used? Should some fields be valid only for a community of users, not everybody? How are the fields chosen for the Core record? Should they be changed? Of the fields not being used are any critical for user access? How could we populate those missing fields? So many interesting questions. I'm proud my school is investigating these questions.
- Marc @ Ala
Announcement for a presentation at ALA that sounds very interesting.Did you know that catalogers use only 10-20% of available MARC fields/subfields? Given evolving search behaviors and the amazoogle effects do our bibliographic records provide information...
- Marc Content Designation Utilization Project
The MARC Content Designation Utilization (MCDU) Project is now making available the first set of results from analyses of the MCDU dataset of more than 56 million MARC bibliographic records from OCLC's WorldCat database. Separate data reports containing...
- Marc Content Designation Utilization
Seymour Lubetzky asked "Is This Rule Necessary?". Now a study is being done asking "Is this field necessary?" The MARC Content Designation Utilization study is examing just what fields are being used. This could inform decisions on what fields to include...
- Marc Content Designation Utilization
The MARC Content Designation Utilization (MCDU) project has posted 2 documents.MCDU Project MARC Records Dataset: Decomposition Specification, Database Design, and Parser Software This document provides information about the MARC dataset, the specifications...
- Research
Some interesting research being done. Can hardly wait for the results. I'm particularly interested in the first project. It is being done at my alma mater and I know some catalogers in that part of the state. Seen on the OCLC Web site.OCLC Research...