# Preservation Activities at the Library of Congress

Appendix C: Recommendations on the 583 field in MARC 21

## 

**Prepared by Tom Delsey**

**Revised Draft**

**January 5, 2001**

Appendix C

Recommendations on the 583 field in MARC 21

A review of the "Action Note" field in MARC 21, in the context of the
process model and information model developed for the Preservation
Directorate at the Library Congress, suggests that the field requires
some fairly fundamental re-assessment as to its use for recording
information relating to preservation activities.

It is proposed that further discussion and analysis within the
preservation community be conducted on six key issues:

-   the value of the information recorded in the "Action Note" field to
    external organizations

-   the appropriateness of recording "Action Note" information at the
    bibliographic level

-   the level of specificity required for information relating to
    "action" and "method"

-   the potential for deriving "action" information directly from local
    processing systems

-   the intelligibility of the data recorded in the field read simply as
    a "note"

-   the functional requirements for retrieval and processing of data
    recorded in the "Action Note" field

# Value of action information to external organizations

The process model developed for the Library of Congress identifies five
processes that we might consider to be at the centre of the preservation
activity: housing, binding, treatment, reformatting, and replacement.
Those central processes, however, are bracketed, as it were, by another
eleven in which preservation information is also recorded that is
specific to an item or group of items: assessing, scheduling,
preparation, shipping, receiving, quality review, storing, disposition,
delivery, routing, and tracking.

Any library managing its own preservation activities obviously requires
detailed item-specific information related to all sixteen of those
processes. The question to be asked in re-assessing the use of the
"Action Note" field in the MARC 21 format, however, is what subset of
that information is of value to organizations external to the one that
is actually managing the processing of the item. When that question was
put to participants in the focus group reviewing the LC model, it
appeared that the only one of the central processes in which there is
unqualified interest from an external perspective is reformatting. The
only other of the five central processes that appeared to be of
significant interest is treatment, specifically mass deacidification.

When the participants in the focus session were asked which of the
processes that precede or follow the reformatting or treatment processes
might be of interest, they indicated that there would be some interest
in the scheduling of the reformatting or treatment process, and that
they would want to be able to assume, at least, that quality review had
been conducted prior to a library reporting that reformatting or
treatment had been completed.

Participants in the focus session also noted that they would be
interested in having access to information relating to the condition of
an item (particularly lacunae) identified as part of a condition
assessment. They also indicated that it would be useful to have access
to information relating to copyright owners and reproduction rights
gathered as part of the *preparation* process for *reformatting*. In
addition, it was noted that information relating to access restrictions
placed on a specific copy for preservation purposes would be useful.

Given those responses, it would appear that current and future
development of guidelines for the use of the MARC 21 "Action Note" field
and standard lists of terminology should be re-focused.

*Recommendation:*

The task force that has been set up to review the 583 field should
endeavour to determine whether the views expressed in the focus session
are representative of the broader community. Once a core set of
processes of interest to external organizations has been identified,
future development of guidelines and standard terminology for use in
field 583 should be focussed on those processes.

# Applicability of preservation action information

The "Action Note" field has been defined in the MARC 21 formats for both
bibliographic and holdings records. From a logical perspective, however,
virtually all preservation actions are copy specific (i.e., they apply
to an individual copy held by a particular library, not to the "title"
as described in the bibliographic record, or to use the terminology of
the LC preservation information model, they apply to the "item," not to
the "manifestation"). The only process that might be considered to apply
to the "title" or "manifestation" is reformatting, but even there the
fact remains that what is reformatted or reproduced is a specific copy
that may or may not be the same in all details as other copies of the
original "title" or "manifestation." The only other case where the
information logically applies at the bibliographic level is where the
"manifestation" and the "item" are one and the same thing (e.g., in the
case of a manuscript, an unpublished photograph, an unprocessed sound
recording).

## Recommendation

While the practice of recording preservation action at the bibliographic
level may serve as an expedient for external communication of that
information, it should be recognized that logically preservation action
information in most cases applies only to a specific copy and should
properly be recorded at the holdings level. Full implementation of the
holdings format for communication purposes should be encouraged.

# Level of specificity 

The lists of "standard terminology" for use in the "Action Note" field
that have been in use since 1988 and the proposal for their revision
that is currently under consideration cover a wide range of actions and
methods, some expressed in very broad terms and others in very specific
terms. A comparison of the terms pertaining to the two processes
(reformatting and treatment) identified by the focus group reviewing the
process model developed for LC reveals significant disparities in the
level of specificity with which each of those processes is represented.
The proposed list of terms for use in ‡a (action) includes only two
terms relevant to reformatting (i.e., "reformatted" and "will
reformat"), while it includes several terms for actions relevant to
treatment (i.e., "conserved," "fixed," "mass deacidified," "rehoused,"
"repaired," "will conserve," and "will mass deacidify"). The list of
terms proposed for use in ‡i (method) includes five terms, again fairly
generic, to be used in association with "reformatted" (i.e.,
"digitized," "microfilmed," "photocopied," "reproduced analog," and
"reproduced digital"). The list of terms for use in ‡i includes five
terms to be used in association with "mass deacidified" (i.e., "DEZ,"
"MgO," "Mg3/MBG," "METE," and "MMMC"), each of which represents the
active chemical compound used in a specific mass deacidification
process.

## Recommendation

The lists of terms proposed for use in ‡a (action) and ‡i (method)
should be re-assessed to determine whether the level of specificity is
appropriate to the needs of organizations viewing the information from
an external perspective. It might be helpful to structure the discussion
of the specificity question around the process entities (housing,
binding, treatment, reformatting, and replacement) and the "tools"
entities (procedure, material, equipment, system, and facility) defined
in the information model developed for LC, and the attributes associated
with each of those entities (e.g. name of procedure, procedure
specifications, type of material, manufacturer, type of equipment,
equipment specifications), not for the purpose of matching the level of
detail recorded in field 583 with what is reflected in the model, but
simply as a means of looking at the candidate information in a more
structured way.

# Derivation from local processing data

As local systems are developed to support preservation processes and to
manage the information associated with those processes, it is feasible
that most if not all of the data that is required for the "Action Note"
field in the communications format could be derived directly from those
systems. The amount of human intervention required to transfer data from
local processing systems to bibliographic and/or holdings records for
communications purposes will depend on the level of synchronization
between the "Action Note" field as defined in the MARC 21 and the
corresponding data fields defined in the local processing systems.
Although it is impossible to predict in detail the design of local
processing systems, a comparison of the structure and terminology
proposed for the "Action Note" field in MARC 21 with the information
model developed for LC could prove useful as a means of assessing the
potential for synchronization, at least at a conceptual or logical
level.

## Recommendation

Proposals for the "Action Note" field in MARC 21 should be analyzed on a
subfield-by-subfield basis to determine how they correspond with the
entities and attributes defined in the information model developed for
LC. The terminology proposed for ‡a, ‡i, and ‡ℓ should be re-assessed to
determine whether a different form of wording (e.g., "mass
deacidification completed" rather than "mass deacidified") would serve
to facilitate the transfer of data directly from local processing
systems to MARC 21.

**Intelligibility of the data**

The "Action Note" field, as currently defined in MARC 21 is highly
structured, incorporating twenty subfields that are discrete but
inter-related. When displayed as a "note," however, the data in the
field must be intelligible without the benefit of the semantics embodied
in subfield codes and their associated definitions. Reading just the
textual content of the examples included in the format specifications
and in the proposed guidelines for standard preservation terminology
gives a sense of how intelligible data in the field is when read as a
simple note. In many cases the sequencing of the data, the nature of the
intervening punctuation, and the lack of logical connectors make it
difficult to interpret the significance of a particular data string or
to determine the relationship between individual segments of data in the
field.

Part of the problem also lies in the way subfields are defined and in
the guidelines that have been developed for their use. For example, ‡c
is defined as time/date of action, but at least one of the examples in
the format---‡aQueued for preservation;‡c19861010---could be interpreted
either as the date the action represented in ‡a (i.e., the queuing) was
taken or as the date at which a subsequent action (i.e., the preserving)
is projected to take place.

## Recommendation

The content of individual subfields within the "Action Note" field
should be defined and used so as to minimize as far as possible any
ambiguity of meaning. Consideration should also be given to using
punctuation or logical connectors to express more directly the
relationship between individual data elements in the field.

# Retrieval and processing of the data

Underlying the high degree of structuring within the "Action Note" field
and the standardization of terminology for use within specific subfields
there appears to be an assumption that the data recorded in the field
will be used to support specialized information retrieval and perhaps
other forms of automated processing as well. If that is the case, the
functions the data is intended to support need to be clearly articulated
and the standardization of terms used in the field needs to be
consistent with the functional requirements defined for the field.

## Recommendation

The purpose of the "Action Note" field should be clearly articulated and
the field's structure, the definition of subfields, and the
standardization of terminology should all be re-assessed in the context
of an agreed statement of functionality. An appropriate balance needs to
be struck between the field's use as a means of conveying useful
information in an intelligible form to an external audience and its use
as a control field to support local processing transactions.