Meeting MARC: the 50-year-old data format for library records
Channel: Ruth Tillman
Date: 2022-07-26

Some links used in the presentation:

Library of Congress's documentation for Bibliographic MARC, the kind being discussed here: https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/

Documentation for the 856 field: https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd856.html

The most recent format change list: https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bdapndxg.html 

This link is to a different MARC record than the one used, it's from the Library of Congress, the link at least temporarily works. https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/staffView?&bibId=18353822

Text of many questions from the chat and when they were answered in the Q&A:

"I saw cau for calfornia. Which all places get a code? Is there some entity that assigns name codes?" answered: 20:58. 

"I wonder if the people studying library science are usually expected to get famiiiar with MARC when they are still students? Or do they work with it only after they start working as librarians?" answered: 22:30

"I get the feeling the spec for this must be huge. Does it take very complex software to parse and process all this stuff?" answered: 24:30

"Right, I'm thinking of museums now. I wonder if museums have their own MARC-like thing to cataloge inter-museum stuff?" answered: 28:32

"Do libraries keep MARC records for journals for which the library has revokable subscriptions" answered: 32:44

"So does marc have any problems with Unicode? Or is it something that the format does not worry too much about?" answered: 34:04

"Any easter eggs or fun tricks in MARC?" answered: 44:23

"I heard of something called maybe WorldCat, some sort of free catalogue. Is this MARC or something else?" answered: 45:40

"What software is being used for library management at pennstate? Doesn't look like koha." answered: 48:55 

"What make koha difficult for larger libraries? What are the missing feature compared to Sirsi." answered: 52:20

"Would QR codes been more convenient to scan compared to barcodes? I mean is there a reason to stick with barcodes?" answered: 54:55