PROPOSAL NO.: 2004-07

DATE: May 25, 2004
REVISED:

NAME: Applying Field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name) for Different Purposes in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

SOURCE: ALA MAGERT Cataloging and Classification Committee

SUMMARY: This paper discusses the variety of current usage of MARC 21 field 752, Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name, for place of publication, production, or geographic subject areas. Institutions need to index information in this field in different ways. This paper proposes a way to facilitate different indexing by either adding indicators to the 752 field to show whether the place name designates place of publication or subject, or by defining a new field (field 652) for subject use. It also proposes a subfield to identify a thesaurus and a technique for extending the place hierarchies if needed.

KEYWORDS: Field 752 (BD); Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name (BD); Hierarchical Place Name (BD); Field 652 (BD)

RELATED: 2004-DP02 (January 2004)

STATUS/COMMENTS:

05/25/04 - Made available to the MARC 21 community for discussion.

06/26/04 - Results of the MARC Advisory Committee discussion - Option 2 (Define a new 6XX field) was approved in part. Field 662 was agreed to be an appropriate field to record hierarchical approaches to geographic coverage of items. The remainder of the proposal concerning the definition of subfield $2 and the expansion of the definition and change to the repeatability of subfields should be covered in a new proposal.

08/26/04 - Results of LC/LAC/BL review - Agreed with the MARBI decisions.


Proposal 2004-07: Applying Field 752 for Different Purposes

1. BACKGROUND

Purpose. In MARC 21 documentation, field 752 added entry "is assigned ... to give access to a bibliographic record through a hierarchical form of a place name related to a particular attribute (e.g. for newspapers, the name of the community served; for rare books, the place of publication or printing)." For rare books and likewise for early cartographic materials, it is desirable for research purposes to have access to these resources by a controlled-vocabulary form of place of printing or publication, and by the hierarchical form of the place that collocates, for example, cities in France that were early centers of printing. In the card catalog era, imprint catalogs were useful tools for users of rare book collections, with card entries by place of imprint. (See New York Public Library. Rare Book Division. The imprint catalog in the Rare Book Division. Boston : G. K. Hall, 1979.) Field 752 offered the potential for an online substitute for access to hierarchical place names similar to the imprint card file. Other applications, such as online catalogs of graphic images, have used the hierarchical geographic name structure of field 752 for a subject approach.

Some users have wanted to distinguish between these two uses of field 752 for indexing purposes. Thus, there is a need to either add an element ( e.g., an indicator) to allow users to indicate whether the field includes place of production type information or subject information, or to define a new field.

Discussion Paper 2004-DP02 was presented in January 2004 for review and discussion. A straw poll of the participants indicated that reviewers were split between either adding an indicator to show the distinction or defining a new field in the subject range. If the latter solution is chosen, field 652 could be defined. It was decided that a formal proposal needed to be written that presented the two options.

Two other issues have surfaced related to hierarchical place names, They are also treated in this proposal, although the primary focus is on the purpose.

Thesaurus. In some cases, the hierarchical name may be thesaurus-controlled. A subfield is needed to record the thesaurus' name.

Extended hierarchies. Extending the field definition more clearly to subjects brings up the possible need to record more levels in the geographic hierarchy. The current subfields can be expanded to include more levels.

2. DISCUSSION

2.1 Current use of the field

Not many institutions have taken full advantage of the capability offered by the existence of the 752 field. In October 2003, OCLC's WorldCat contained approximately 612,842 records with at least one occurrence of the 752 field. There were approximately 382,829 records coded as monographic language material (Type a/BLvl m), 191,537 coded serials (Type a/BLvl s); and 18,991 coded monographic cartographic material (Type e/BLvl m).

In the study of printing history, there is research value in an indexed 752 field providing access to place of printing or publication for early printed materials. Interest of rare book librarians in use of the field is evidenced on the ACRL/RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee's web site, with its Guide to Rare Book Records in Online Systems.

For manuscript and archival materials, the 752 field can be used for place of production. The "Content Designator History" in the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data shows that the field definition was explicitly expanded for this purpose in the mid-1980s.

In newspaper cataloging, the 752 field has been used to provide access to "the name of the community served," as described by the MARC 21 Format, though the CONSER Cataloging Manual, 2002 edition, indicates that the newspaper's place of publication (in many cases the same as the name of the community served) is input in the 752 field. In this case, the 752 field has a dual function; it records information about the place of production and provides geographic subject access. The field is widely used in the U.S. Newspaper Program (USNP).

Since digitizing maps for its American Memory project, the Library of Congress Geography & Map Division (LC G&M) has added 752 fields to map records to provide browsable geographic subject access in hierarchical form to the area of coverage of maps on its web site As of September 2003, there were 4,612 LC G&M records with one or more of these occurrences of the 752 field. The 752 field in G&M records has become a key indexing point; its content is directly tied to the geographic hierarchy in field 052 (Geographic Classification). The MARC 21 Format explicitly states, in the definition and scope for added entry fields 70X-75X, that "Fields 752-754 provide for access to an item through other aspects of its content or description," therefore not precluding this content-related use.

The Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress has also used the 752 field extensively when cataloging large archives of photographs. More than 150,000 MARC records contain field 752, but the bulk are inventory-level or preliminary cataloging of photographs. In describing photographs the goal of using field 752 is to both convey geographic coverage information and to provide information about where the item was produced. Currently, these records are not distributed outside of LC. However, if the field was expanded, P&P would add this field to distributed records when appropriate.

In the cataloging of 3-D artifacts, the 752 can be used to record the place of production and the place of use of the artifacts.

2.2 Current definition

Field 752 is defined as follows:

Field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)
  First indicator    
      # Undefined    
  Second indicator    
      # Undefined    
  Subfield codes    
      $a Country (NR)
      $b State, province, territory (NR
      $c County, region, islands area (NR)
      $d City (NR)
      $6 Linkage (NR)
      $8 Field link and sequence number (R)

2.3 Examples of current indexing

For those institutions that use 752 fields for any of the above reasons, the field may or may not be indexed by the local system. In some systems it is indexed only in the big pool of keywords. Brown University's JOSIAH catalog indexes the 752 field as part of its keyword index, and labels it as "Other info." While rare books in Harvard's HOLLIS catalog often have 752 fields for place of publication and the field is displayed in the MARC format record, the field is not displayed in the "Full View;" nonetheless, it is indexed in a command search, as "ypn" for "hierarchical place." The New York Public Library's local system, CATNYP, indexes 752 as a subject as well as keyword and labels it as a subject. In the Library of Congress' Voyager database, the field has two left anchored indexes as well as a keyword index. The display in the online catalog labels the field as a subject. The RLG Union Catalog via Eureka indexes it as an author, and labels it "Other entries". OCLC's FirstSearch does not display the field in its "Detailed record" display, but it does index it as a publisher location. The Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs Division online catalog indexes the field as a subject and labels it as a subject.

2.4 Problem

There is a desire to have local online systems create special imprint indexes for 752 fields at institutions that have such a research need. However, the effectiveness would be questionable because the 752 field is not limited to use as an entry for place of printing or publication, or compatibly, the place of production. There are no defined indicators or display constants to distinguish different uses. To create an index now for the 752 field, with the intent of providing access to place of printing, publication, or production, would mean the possibility of retrieving some records having 752 fields related to geographical subject content of the item described, as opposed to the imprint location. Indexing country of publication via use of the fixed field 008/15-17 or subentities via field 044 would not suffice for those researching printing history in particular cities.

2.5 Possible solutions

The ALA MAGERT Cataloging and Classification Committee suggests that MARC 21 introduce a method to be able to distinguish between use as subject and use for access to publication, printing, and production.

Option 1. Redefine field 752. One possible solution is to define an indicator for field 752 to convey how the field is being used. Since neither indicator has been used, it would be possible to define a first indicator position to distinguish the purpose of the field. If defined, value "blank" could mean "no information provided"; value "0" could designate that the field is being used as an access point for place of publication, printing, or production, value "1" could designate that the field is being used as an access point related to the geographic content or coverage of the item being described, and value "2" could be used if the field had a dual function. Such indicators would enable local systems to create indexes for controlled vocabulary searches by place of publication, printing, or production, and minimize the retrieval of records in which the content of the 752 field is unrelated to that attribute. Note that it is not desirable to redefine value blank as either place of publication or subject, since that would invalidate existing records. However, if an institution wanted to make full use of this new content designation, existing records with 752 fields would need to be corrected to values "0" or "1" or "2."

Option 2. Define a new 6XX field. An alternate solution would be to introduce a 6xx field for a hierarchical approach to geographic coverage of an item being described. This would keep subject-access related fields together in the same block. Field 752 could be more narrowly defined and no longer used for content-related data. If its uses related exclusively to place of production or publication, indexing could be more straightforward for these uses.

Field 652 is currently available in the MARC 21 bibliographic format, but it was defined previously as Subject Added Entry-Reversed Geographic. This field was used in the late 1970s for a few years at the Library of Congress for maps and atlases classed in LCC G1000-G9999 for reversing the subject heading in field 650 (for each heading Topic-Place a reverse heading Place-Topic was added). The field was made obsolete when LC discontinued this practice in 1980. At LC, maps records were corrected to delete the field. OCLC converted all their 652 fields to 752 fields. RLG's database does have some records with 652 fields. However, the database is being migrated to a new platform later on this year and the 652 fields could either be converted or deleted during that process.

It is rare that a field is reused for another purpose; in this case, the field was defined differently than the current 752 hierarchical approach (subfields were $a, $x, $y, and $z as defined in other 6XX fields). If field 752 was more narrowly defined and its uses related exclusively to place of production or publication, this would require institutions that have used the field as an access point related to geographic content or coverage to change records containing this field and move data in the 752 field to the new field. If the hierarchical string had a dual function (indicating both place of publication and subject) that information would need to be recorded in two fields, resulting in redundant data.

Since there are no remaining 65X fields available, a 662 field could be an alternative to reusing field 652. However, there are no 66X subject fields currently defined in the bibliographic format.

2.6. Additional changes under both options

It is quite possible that at some point there would be interest in developing a thesaurus for hierarchical place names. It would also be desirable to add a $2 (Source of heading in term) to this field to allow a thesaurus to be specified.

As the subfields are currently defined, there is no subfield for geographic areas on earth larger than countries, or for extraterrestrial bodies, although institutions are putting terms for these geographic terms in field 752. Existing subfields could be broadened to remedy this situation. It might also be desirable to add an additional subfield to allow for the creation of hierarchical place names for areas such as neighborhoods or parks in a city.

3. PROPOSED CHANGES

3.1. Option 1: Redefine field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)

• Redefine field 752 with the first indicator distinguishing whether the hierarchical geographic name provides information about the place of publication, subject content or both.

• Expand the definition of the subfields to accommodate additional hierarchies and add a subfield $e for City subsection.

• Define a new subfield $2 to allow citing the thesaurus used.

Field 752 (Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)
  First indicator  
      # No information provided  
      0 Place of production - This value is used if the field is an access point for place of publication, printing, or production of the item being described
      1 Geographic content coverage - This value is used if the field is an access point related to the geographic content or coverage of the item being described
      2 Production and coverage - This value is used if the field is an access point related to both the place of publication, printing, or production and the geographic content or coverage of the item being described
  Second indicator  
      # Undefined  
  Subfield codes  
      $a Country or larger area (NR)
          Subfield $a contains the name of a planet, a hemisphere, a continent, a region larger than a country, or a country.
      $b State, province or territory (NR)  
      $c County, region, administrative district or islands area (NR)
      $d City (NR)  
      $e City subsection (NR)  
          Subfield $e contains the name of a section of a city, including neighborhoods and streets.
      $2 Source of heading or term (NR)  
      $6 Linkage (NR)  
      $8 Field link and sequence number (R)  
             

  Examples  
    752 ## $aUnited States $bKansas $cButler $dAugusta.
      No information is provided as to whether the geographic place name refers to place of production or geographic coverage.
    752 0# $aCanada $bBritish Columbia $dVancouver.
    The field is an access point for the place of production of the item being described.
    752 1# $aAntarctica.
      The field is an access point related to the the geographic content or coverage of the item being described.
    752 2# $aUnited States $bNew York (State) $dNew York $eBrooklyn.
            The field is an access point related to both the place of publication, printing, or production and the geographic content or coverage of the item being described.
       

3.2 Option 2: Redefine Field 652 or define Field 662

• Redefine field 652 for subject content parallel with field 752 (as amended below).

• Expand the definition of the subfields in field 752 to accommodate additional hierarchies and add a subfield $e for City subsection.

• Include a subfield $2 to allow citing the thesaurus used.

Field 652 (Subject Added Entry - Hierarchical Place Name)
  First indicator  
      # Undefined  
  Second indicator  
      # Undefined  
  Subfield codes  
      $a Country or larger area (NR)
          Subfield $a contains the name of a planet, a hemisphere, a continent, a region larger than a country, or a country.
      $b State, province or territory (NR)  
      $c County, region, administrative district or islands area (NR)
      $d City (NR)  
      $e City subsection (NR)  
          Subfield $e contains the name of a section of a city, including neighborhoods and streets.
      $2 Source of heading or term (NR)  
      $6 Linkage (NR)  
      $8 Field link and sequence number (R)  
             

  Examples  
    652 ## $aUnited States $bArizona $cGrand Canyon.
      The field is an access point related to the geographic content or coverage of the item being described.
    652 ## $aAntarctica.
      The field is an access point related to the the geographic content or coverage of the item being described.
             

Alternatively, field 662 could be defined as above if it is not desirable to redefine field 652.

It may be desirable to define a field in the Authority format for the control of a hierarchical geographic name, particularly if the option to use field field 652 is selected. This would require an additional proposal.


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