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DATE: December 18, 2024
REVISED:
NAME: Adding a Code for Remote Sensing Image to Fields 008/25 and 006/08 (Maps) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
SOURCE: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus Library - Cataloging Committee for Cartographic Materials
SUMMARY: This paper proposes adding an additional code for "Remote sensing images" to fields 008/25 and 006/08 (Maps, Type of cartographic material) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format in order to provide enough granularity for useful faceting and statistical reporting in library OPACs.
KEYWORDS: Maps (BD); Remote sensing images (BD); Field 008/25 (Maps) (BD); Field 006/08 (Maps) (BD); Type of cartographic material (BD); Aerial photographs (BD)
STATUS/COMMENTS:
12/18/24 – Made available to the MARC community for discussion.
01/29/25 – Results of MARC Advisory Committee discussion: MAC was generally sympathetic to the use case, with broad agreement that using the value of "z" for "Other" is inadequate. Comments conveyed a wide variety of operational and implementation concerns with the proposed solution, including the existence of code values for this content in other control fields and the possibility of leveraging genre terminology. There was also general agreement that there should be clarification of the definitions in terms of defining remote images, maps, aerial photographs, etc. There are complex dynamics regarding aerial photographs in the context of remote sensing images and regarding remote sensing images in the context of cartographic resources, and these should be taken into consideration. There was strong support in the committee and agreement by the authors to collaborate with the cartographic cataloging community to develop any future paper. The paper may return as a proposal or as a revised discussion paper.
AACR2 defines a wide array of materials as cartographic materials, all defined as "e" in LDR position 6: "Any material representing the whole or part of the earth or any celestial body at any scale. Cartographic materials include two- and three-dimensional maps and plans (including maps of imaginary places); aeronautical, navigational, and celestial charts; atlases; globes; block diagrams; sections; aerial photographs with a cartographic purpose; bird's-eye views (map views), etc."
Those cartographic materials can be distinguished into different types of cartographic material in two control fields: field 008 (Fixed-Length Data Elements - General Information) and field 006 (Fixed-Length Data Elements - Additional Material Characteristics) . In both fields the existing types of cartographic materials that can be coded are:
a - Single map
b - Map series
c - Map serial
d - Globe
e - Atlas
f - Separate supplement to another work
g - Bound as part of another work
u - Unknown
z - Other
| - No attempt to code
In the past, our library catalog did not contain aerial photographs. Our collection mainly consisted of map sheets and atlases. The distinctions that are made in the above list of types of cartographic materials were adequate for our needs. In recent years, however, a large number of historical aerial photographs has been added to the library's collection of cartographic materials. They have been scanned, and uploaded to our catalog. Whereas we added a specific 655 field to the cataloging records of our aerial photographs, and can distinguish them in that way in our OPAC search, we feel that the treatment and search for aerial photographs in our catalog and especially in our back office would be more manageable if they were also represented in coded form as a distinct cartographic type. In our day and age, where machine readable coded information becomes increasingly important and finds more and more uses, such a distinction is elementary for the optimal use of our resources.