tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post2141115430721074569..comments2023-09-29T08:51:56.163-07:00Comments on Coyle's InFormation: MarcXchangeKaren Coylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-81484420191042992792007-09-01T08:25:00.000-07:002007-09-01T08:25:00.000-07:00Mike, as to mnemonics, I understand why they work ...Mike, as to mnemonics, I understand why they work for humans (easier to remember), and I understand (and have seen) how they box you into a corner if you use them in your data structure. If there's a solution it is to not show your underlying data structure to the humans who are using it, but have a visible display that makes things easy for inputters. It always amazes me that most input to MARC records works directly with the tags and subfield codes, and not something friendlier.Karen Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-74741562419944379072007-09-01T06:52:00.000-07:002007-09-01T06:52:00.000-07:00Karen, I'm getting mixed messages about where you ...Karen, I'm getting mixed messages about where you stand on mnemonics, but that's another question (I'm ambivalent, myself). I don't have any hands-on experience with schemas, but as far as I can tell with marcXchange, (1) the leader is optional, (2) if it's there, there are data typing constraints consistent with traditional usage, but no function or meaning is assigned to the values as in ISO-2709. So even if you have a leader with "22" for bytes 10 and 11 it seems you could have more or less than two indicators and subfield codes of different lengths. On the whole, it looks OK for Next Gen MARC. Now somebody has to get busy defining those multi-character subfield codes and generating some useful data!Mike Kreychehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16218353783211075787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-73176288983423476722007-08-31T07:39:00.000-07:002007-08-31T07:39:00.000-07:00Mike, Yeah, based on ISO 2709 you could define a r...Mike, <BR/><BR/>Yeah, based on ISO 2709 you could define a record with up to 9 characters for subfield codes -- unfortunately, the MARC instance uses only one. But I wonder if subfield codes could vary in an instance of MarcXchange. That seems to offer possibilities, but it also could lead us down the trap of trying to use words or mnemonics for our tags. We humans don't work well with codes that we can't remember, and mnemonics (like having the URL be in the $u in MARC fields) are very helpful.Karen Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-53100133076191611682007-08-31T04:34:00.000-07:002007-08-31T04:34:00.000-07:00It seems pretty clear to me that subfield codes ca...It seems pretty clear to me that subfield codes can be more than one character in length. The only restriction is that the subfield code can't be 0 characters in length (which is permitted in ISO-2709).Mike Kreychehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16218353783211075787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-43635039391013870812007-08-22T19:13:00.000-07:002007-08-22T19:13:00.000-07:00Ed, thanks, I'll look for that.Alexander, the vend...Ed, thanks, I'll look for that.<BR/><BR/>Alexander, the vendors use MARC21 because the library world has declared it "THE standard." So I guess we could consider them enablers of our folly, but we can't blame them for it.Karen Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-73861977852170320112007-08-22T17:07:00.000-07:002007-08-22T17:07:00.000-07:00Isn't this - as usual - a question vendors should ...Isn't this - as usual - a question vendors should answer? Most, if not all limitations of MARC21 are there because most if not all library systems are based on MARC21 (including data models, API's and user interfaces).Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10613480150660825848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-9290049408518654162007-08-14T10:16:00.000-07:002007-08-14T10:16:00.000-07:00The text of ISO 2709 is available in Information T...The text of ISO 2709 is available in Information Transfer, an ISO standards handbook published in 1977 and available in many libraries (OCLC #4189589)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08028312439583771512noreply@blogger.com