MODS User Guidelines Version 3

Definition: A word, phrase, character, or group of characters, normally appearing in a resource, that names it or the work contained in it.

Application: "titleInfo" is a wrapper element that contains all subelements related to title information. Data content is contained in subelements. <titleInfo> is repeated for each type attribute value. If multiple titles are recorded, repeat <titleInfo><title> for each. The language of the title may be indicated if desired using the xml:lang (RFC3066) or lang (3-character ISO 639-2 code) attributes.

Definition: A word, phrase, character, or group of characters that constitutes the chief title of a resource (i.e. the title normally used when citing the resource).

Application: "title" without the <titleInfo> type attribute is roughly equivalent to MARC 21 field 245, except that it includes only the data that make up the title and does not include the entire title area dictated by AACR2. The statement of responsibility in MARC 21 field 245 is included in the <note> element with type="statement of responsibility," not in <title>.

Elements considered part of the title that are separately subfielded in MARC 21 are included here unless they have a separate subelement. For instance, the General Material Designator (MARC 21 field 245 subfield $h) and form (MARC 21 field 245 subfield $k) may be included as part of the title, but a part name or number is included in the subelements below.

When there is a subtitle, additional elements should follow the subelement for which it is appropriate (e.g., a part name or number may follow the title or the subtitle depending upon the situation).

Dates may be recorded here only if considered part of the title (e.g., a date in a uniform title). (Publication dates are included under <originInfo>.)

For parallel titles (i.e., equivalent titles in different languages), use separate <titleInfo><title> elements with type attribute="translated" for each parallel title.

For non-collective titles by the same author (i.e. separate titles with no inclusive title for the collection), use separate <titleInfo><title> elements with no type attribute.

Definition: A word, phrase, character, or group of characters that contains the remainder of the title information after the title proper

Application: "subTitle" includes a subtitle when it is desired to include it as a separate element. Alternatively, it may be included as part of a title. It is equivalent to MARC 21 fields 242, 245, 246 subfield $b.

"partNumber" is used for a part or section number of a title. This is equivalent to MARC 21 fields 130, 240, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 730, 740 subfield $n.

"partName" is used for a part or section name of a title. This is equivalent to MARC 21 fields 130, 240, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 730, 740 subfield $p.

"nonSort" begin and end tags surround the nonfiling text which should not be regarded in sorting. It is equivalent to the new technique in MARC 21 that uses control characters to surround data disregarded for sorting. It is used for the same purpose as the nonfiling indicator value that indicates the number of characters disregarded for sorting. Punctuation may or may not be included within the non-sort value depending upon whether it is part of the sorting or non-sorting data.

Definition: The name of a person, organization, or event (conference, meeting, etc.) associated in some way with the resource.

Application: "name" is a wrapper element that contains all subelements related to name information. It is equivalent to the MARC 21 1XX and 7XX fields or Creator and Contributor in Dublin Core. If it is desired to indicate the concept of main entry, the <role> subelement may be used with the value "creator" (e.g. <role><roleTerm type="text">creator</roleTerm></role>. Other role values may be used to indicate the particular relationship between the name and the resource. The type of name (personal, corporate, conference) may be indicated, although this is not required.

"namePart" includes each part of the name that is parsed. Parsing is used to indicate a date associated with the name, to parse the parts of a corporate name (MARC 21 fields X10 subfields $a and $b), or to parse parts of a personal name if desired (into family and given name). The latter is not done in MARC 21. Names are expected to be in a structured form (e.g. surname, forename).

Attribute

• type - The following values may be used with the type attribute:
  
  • date
    
  • family
    
  • given
    
  • termsOfAddress
    
  The attribute "date" is used to parse dates that are not integral parts of a name. Dates that are part of a name, e.g. dates within a conference name, do not use this attribute to separate the date, since it is an integral part of the name string. The birthdate associated with a personal name, however, is not an integral part of the name but added to distinguish the name from others, so it does include a separate namePart with type="date". This attribute is not used when parsing the components of a corporate name.

  "termsOfAddress" is used to record titles and enumeration associated with a name, such as Jr., II, etc. It is roughly equivalent to MARC X00 fields, subfields $b and $c.

  Note that "family" and "given" are not used in MARC 21.

"displayForm" is used to indicate the unstructured form of the name. It includes a name as given on the resource. For some applications, contractual agreements require that the form of the name provided on the resource be provided. This data is usually carried in MARC 21 field 245 subfield $c, although the latter may include other information in addition to the display form of the name. If part of an entire statement of responsibility, it may be indicated in a note (with type="statement of responsibility") along with any other text in the statement of responsibility and also repeated here if desired.

"affiliation" contains the name of an organization, institution, etc. with which the entity recorded in <name> was associated at the time that the resource was created. It may also contain other elements that are part of the affiliation, such as email address, street address, job title, etc.

Definition: A term(s) that designates the relationship (role) of the entity recorded in name in relation to the resource.

Application: "role" is a wrapper element that may contain a value in coded or textual form. <role> is equivalent to a MARC relator code or its textual form.

Subelement

<roleTerm>
"roleTerm" contains the textual or coded form of a relator/role. An authority should be indicated if using a coded form for role. If the textual form is from a controlled list (e.g., the MARC relators list), an authority attribute may be indicated (but is not mandatory). If both a code and a term are given that represent the same role, use one <role> and multiple occurrences of <roleTerm>. If different roles, repeat <role><roleTerm>.

• type - This attribute may be used with the following values:
  • text - This value is used to express role in a textual form.
  • code - This value is used to express place in a coded form. The authority attribute may be used to indicate the source of the code.
• authority - The name of the authoritative list for a controlled value is recorded here. A list of codes for authorities is maintained at: www.loc.gov/marc/sourcecode/relator/relatorsource.html. To indicate the MARC relators list, use authority= "marcrelator."

"description" may be used to give a textual description for a name when necessary, for example, to distinguish from other names. This element does not have a MARC 21 equivalent.

Definition: A term that specifies the characteristics and general type of content of the resource.

Application: "typeOfResource" is generally equivalent to the type of record codes in MARC 21 Leader/06 in that it differentiates the resource being described as to content type. A controlled list of textual values are used. Attributes are used to further indicate whether the resource is a collection (i.e. an aggregation of items, designated in MARC 21 in Leader/07 Bibliographic level) or manuscript in nature (designated in MARC 21 as a separate Leader/06 code that combines the manuscript property with a resource type). This element includes a high-level type that categorizes the material in a general way. More specific typing is done in the <genre> element.

The attributes "collection" and "manuscript" are associated with a specific value used in <typeOfResource>. For example, a MODS object which consists of a collection of maps with associated text would be represented by two instances of <typeOfResource>. The first would be "cartographic" with attribute collection="yes," and the second would be "text" (with no attribute).

There may be no value given for "typeOfResource" if the "collection" or "manuscript" attribute is used and none of the enumerated values is appropriate. For example <typeOfResource collection="yes"></typeOfResource> to indicate that a resource is a collection with no specified value for typeOfResource.

Definition: A term(s) that designates a category characterizing a particular style, form, or content, such as artistic, musical, literary composition, etc.

Application: "genre" contains terms that give more specificity than the broad terms used in <typeOfResource>. The terms may be from a controlled list with a designation of the authoritative list used in the authority attribute, or it may be an uncontrolled term. If no authority is specified, it is assumed that the term is uncontrolled.

Definition: Information about the origin of the resource, including place of origin or publication, publisher/originator, and dates associated with the resource

Application: "originInfo" is a wrapper element that contains all subelements related to publication and origination information. It includes all dates associated with the resource (except for temporal coverage, which goes under <subject> and dates of the metadata, which go in <recordInfo>), and issuance information. Data is input only within each subelement.

<place>
<publisher>
<dateIssued>
<dateCreated>
<dateCaptured>
<dateValid>
<dateModified>
<copyrightDate>
<dateOther>
<edition>
<issuance>
<frequency>

Definition: Name of a place associated with the issuing, publication, release, distribution, manufacture, production, or origin of a resource.

Application: "place" is a wrapper element for placeTerm to indicate place of publication/origin. Places as subjects are included under <subject><geographic> or <subject><hierarchicalGeographic>. <place> is used in connection with the origin of a resource, i.e., publication, issuance, etc.

Subelement

<placeTerm>
"placeTerm" is used to express place in a textual or coded form. If both a code and a term are given that represent the same place, use one <place> and multiple occurrences of <placeTerm>. If different places, repeat <place><placeTerm>.

Attributes:

• type - This attribute may be used with the following values:
  • text - This value is used to express place in a textual form (may be place of publication as expressed in MARC 21 field 260 subfield $a).
  • code- This value is used to express place in a coded form. The authority attribute may be used to indicate the source of the code.
• authority - This attribute may be used with the following values:
  • marccountry - This value is used with the MARC country codes (as used in field 008/15-17). A listing of the MARC country codes is online at: www.loc.gov/marc/countries/
  • iso3166 - This value is used with country codes from ISO 3166. A listing of the ISO 3166 country codes is online at: www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html

<publisher>
Definition: The name of the entity that published, printed, distributed, released, issued, or produced the resource.

Application: "publisher" includes the name of a publisher/originator or a statement about publication/origin. It is equivalent to MARC 21 field 260 subfield $b.

<dateIssued>
Definition: the date that the resource was published, released or issued.

Application: "dateIssued" is equivalent to dates in MARC 21 field 260 subfield $c. It may be in textual or structured form. <dateIssued> may be recorded according to the MARC 21 rules for field 008/07-14 with encoding="marc."

Attributes

• encoding - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• point - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• keyDate - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• qualifier - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.

<dateCreated>
Definition: the date of creation of the resource.

Application: "dateCreated" may be in textual or structured form. This type of date is recorded in various places in MARC 21: field 260 subfield $g, for some types of material in field 260 subfield $c, date of original in field 534 subfield $c and date of reproduction in field 533 subfield $d. If creation date is also the origination date as used in MARC 21 field 260 subfield $c, use the <dateIssued> element or repeat both <dateCreated and <dateIssued>.

Attributes

• encoding - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• point - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• keyDate - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• qualifier - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.

<dateCaptured>
Definition: the date on which the resource was digitized or a subsequent snapshot was taken.

Application: "dateCaptured" is particularly useful for Web resources because of their changeability. This could be a date that the resource was captured or could also be the date of creation. This is roughly equivalent to MARC field 033.

Attributes

• encoding - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• point - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• keyDate - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• qualifier - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.

<dateValid>
Definition: a date in which the content of a resource is valid.

Application: "dateValid" is roughly equivalent to MARC 21 field 046 subfields $m and $n.

Attributes

• encoding - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• point - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• keyDate - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• qualifier - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.

<dateModified>
Definition: a date in which a resource is modified or changed.

Application: Note that dateModified is used for modification of the resource, not of the metadata. In many cases a modified resource may be considered a new resource and described as such."dateModified" is roughly equivalent to MARC 21 field 046 subfield $j.

Attributes

• encoding - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• point - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• keyDate - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• qualifier - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.

<copyrightDate>
Definition: a date in which a resource is copyrighted.

Application: "dateCopyright" does not have a single MARC 21 equivalent. A copyright date may be used in 260$c preceded by the letter "c" if it appears that way on the resource.

Attributes

• encoding - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• point - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• keyDate - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• qualifier - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.

<dateOther>
Definition: a date that does not fall into another category but is important to record.

Application: "dateOther" may be used with the "type" attribute to designate a specific kind of date which was not deemed of sufficient general use to have its own date element.

Attributes

• type - This attribute allows for extensibility of date types so that other specific date types may be designated if not given a separate element in MODS.
• encoding - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• point - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• keyDate - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• qualifier - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description

<edition>
Definition: information identifying the edition or version to which the resource belongs.

Application: Resources that constitute the same "edition" generally embody essentially the same content. "edition" is equivalent to MARC 21 field 250.

<issuance>
Definition: a term that designates how the resource is issued.

Application: "issuance" is equivalent to those values in MARC 21 Leader/07 that designate issuance characteristics. "Collection, which designates an aggregation level is included in the collection attribute in the <typeOfResource> element. <issuance> may be used with the following values:

• continuing - A resource that is issued over time with no predetermined conclusion. Continuing resources include serials and ongoing integrating resources, i.e. those that are continuously updated. The value is equivalent to codes "b," "i" and "s" in Leader/07.
• monographic - A resource that is either complete in one part or intended to be completed in a finite number of separate parts. The value is equivalent to codes "a," "c," "d" and "m" in Leader/07.

<frequency>
Definition: a statement of publication frequency in a textual form.

Attributes

• authority - The name of the authoritative list for a controlled value is recorded here. The source of the vocabulary is listed in http://www.loc.gov/marc/sourcecode/frequency/frequencysource.html. A list corresponding to the controlled list used in MARC frequency elements is designated as marcfrequency and is online at: http://www.loc.gov/marc/sourcecode/frequency/frequencylist.html

Definition: a designation of the language in which the content of a resource is expressed.

Application: "language" may also be expressed in conjunction with each element in a MODS encoding by means of the xml:lang and/or lang attributes to designate the language used in the metadata value; see section on language for more information.

<languageOfCataloging> under <recordInfo> is used to give the language of the metadata in the record as a whole. This is not the language of a resource, but of the record metadata.

"languageTerm" contains the language(s) of the content of the resource. It may be expressed in textual or coded form. If in coded form, the source of the code is contained in the value of the authority attribute. If no authority is given, it is assumed that the content is textual. (Alternatively, instead of using a textual form, the content may be in coded form with an authority attribute, and an XSLT stylesheet may be used to translate the code into a textual form.) If there is more than one representation of the same language, e.g. using different forms of the same language (code or text) or from different authorities, <languageTerm> is repeated within the <language> container. If the content of the resource is in more than one language, <language> is repeated.

Attributes:

• type - This attribute may be used with the following values:
  • text - This value is used to express language in a textual form.
  • code- This value is used to express language in a coded form.
• authority - This attribute may contain the following values:
  • iso639-2b - A bibliographic language code from ISO 639-2 (Codes for the representation of names of languages: alpha-3 code). The bibliographic language codes are identical to both NISO Z39.53 and the MARC Code List for Languages.
  • rfc3066 - A language identifier as specified by the Internet Best Current Practice specification RFC3066. This value includes an ISO 639-1 (alpha-2) or ISO 639-2 (alpha-3) language code with optional secondary subtags.
  • iso639-3 - A language code from ISO 639-3 (Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages).
  • rfc4646 - A language identifier as specified by the Internet Best Current Practice specification RFC4646. This document gives guidance on the use of ISO 639-1, ISO 639-2, and ISO 639-3 language identifiers with optional secondary subtags and extensions.

<form>
Definition: a designation of a particular physical presentation of a resource.

Application: "form" includes information that specifies the physical form or medium of material for a resource. Either a controlled list of values or free text may be used.

Attribute

• type - This attribute is used if desired to specify whether the form concerns materials or techniques, e.g. type="material": oil paint; type="technique": painting
• authority - The name of the authoritative list for a controlled value is recorded here. A list of authorities is maintained at: www.loc.gov/marc/sourcecode/form/formsource.html. The MARC 21 form list contains most of the values defined in fields 008/23 (BK, MU, CR, MX) and 008/29 (MP, VM). Use authority="marcform" to indicate its use.

<reformattingQuality>
Definition: a term that indicates an overall assessment of the physical quality of an electronic resource in relation to its intended use.

Application: "reformattingQuality" is roughly equivalent to MARC 21 field 007/13 (ER). The following values may be used:

• access - The electronic resource is intended to support current electronic access to the original item (i.e., reference use), but is not sufficient to serve as a preservation copy.
• preservation - The electronic resource was created via reformatting to help preserve the original item. The capture and storage techniques ensure high-quality, long-term protection.
• replacement - The electronic resource is of high enough quality to serve as a replacement if the original is lost, damaged, or destroyed.
  If serving more than one purpose, the element may be repeated.

<internetMediaType>
Definition: an identification of the electronic format type, or the data representation of the resource.

Application: "internetMediaType" specifies the electronic format type, such as text/html, ASCII, Postscript file, executable application or JPEG image. It is roughly equivalent to MARC 21 field 856 subfield $q, although subfield $q may also contain other designations of electronic format.. The <internetMediaType> value is generally taken from a controlled list, especially from the Internet Media types (MIME types) (see: www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/index.html for a complete list).

The element may also include local x-types.

<extent>
Definition: a statement of the number and specific material of the units of the resource that express physical extent.

Application: "extent" may be used with electronic resources, e.g. digitized collection of slides, to show how many slides constitute the resource. It is roughly equivalent to MARC 21 fields 300 subfields $a, $b, $c, and $e and 306 subfield $a.

<digitalOrigin>
Definition: a designation of the source of a digital file important to its creation, use and management.

Application: "digitalOrigin" may indicate the source of a digital file important to its creation, use and managementl. It is roughly equivalent to MARC 007/11 (Antecedent/source) for electronic resources. The following values may be used:

• born digital - A resource was created and is intended to remain in digital form. (No MARC equivalent, but includes value "c")
• reformatted digital - A resource was created by digitization of the original non-digital form. (MARC 007/11 value "a")
• digitized microfilm - A resource was created by digitizing a microform (MARC 007/11 value "b")
• digitized other analog - A resource was created by digitizing another form of the resource not covered by the other values, e.g. an intermediate form such as photocopy, transparency, clide, etc. (MARC 007/11 value "d")
  

<note>
Definition: general textual information about the physical description of a resource.

Application: "note" is roughly equivalent to the types of notes that may be contained in MARC 21 fields 340, 351 or general 500 notes concerning physical condition, characteristics, etc. A link may be supplied in lieu of or in addition to the content. Each note should be entered in a separate <note> subelement. A list of note types used by MODS implementors has been compiled.

Attributes

• type - This attribute is not controlled by a list and thus is open-ended.
  
• displayLabel - This attribute is intended to be used when additional text associated with the note is necessary for display.
• xlink - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• lang - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• xml:lang - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• script - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.
• transliteration - See the Attributes used throughout the schema for description.

Definition: a summary of the content of the resource.

Application: "abstract" is roughly equivalent to MARC 21 field 520. A link may be supplied in lieu of or in addition to the content.