Definition of a MARC record

Definition of a MARC Record

MARC Record is a MAchine Readable Catalog record that describes content and physical attributes of the book, cassette, disc, or other item in numbered fields that contain specific information using specific indicators and punctuation. It is also referred to as a Bibliographic Record or a Catalog Record.

Who creates MARC Records?

A Cataloger devises the catalog record based on professionally recognized cataloging and classification standards and practices. Standards are established by the Library of Congress and OCLC. OCLC (Online Catalog Library Center) is a national cataloging database that supplies MARC records to libraries for a fee. The MARC records in OCLC are contributed by selected libraries that meet strict cataloging standards. PLSHQ cataloging staff use OCLC for most of the MARC records in OWWL. More unique or local items that cannot be found in OCLC are cataloged by PLSHQ cataloging staff, these are first added to OCLC and then into OWWL.

What is the Purpose of MARC records?

MARC record fields are set up to facilitate searching in an Integrated Library System (ILS) such as ours (Evergreen) and in a Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). Specific information is entered in specific fields in standardized ways. Coding, spacing, punctuation, terminology, and formating dictate how a field will be read by the ILS search process. If information in a field is not correctly entered, it may result in an unsuccessful search. Just as one would not bring up a title if one of the search words was mispelled, it is possible that specific information not entered in the correct field, or entered incorrectly would also cause a search to fail. A book may be in the catalog, but an incorrect MARC record could cause it to not be included in the search results.

Whose Record is It?

MARC records in OWWL are not specific to any one library. Each record describes an item that may be held by many libraries. The information in the Bibliographic Record cannot be specific to any one library.

Important MARC fields

• 020 ISBN - there can be multiple 020 fields
• 022 ISSN - used for serial records (mostly magazines)
• 024 UPC - there can be multiple 024 fields
• 1XX Name of Author
  • 100 Personal name
  • 110 Corporate name
• 245 Title Statement
  • Title of the work and Statement of Responsibility
    • Names of authors, editors, illustrators, directors, actors, or other people responsible for the work
    • Media type in subfield h as h[videorecording] or h[sound recording] (Replaced by 33X fields in RDA catalog records)
• 250 Edition
  • Abridged or Unabridged audio, Large Print, Edition number (e.g. fourth), Widescreen, Full screen, and many other Catalog Edition Format Terms.
• 264 Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, Copyright Notice
  • Place of publication, publisher/distributor name, copyright date
• 300 Physical Description
  • Size in centimeters, number of pages, running time, number of discs or cassettes, any additional items
• 33X RDA Content/Media/Carrier descriptions
  • 336 RDA content (text, still image, spoken word, two-dimensional moving image, etc.)
  • 337 RDA media (unmediated, audio, video, etc.)
  • 338 RDA carrier (volume, audio disc, videodisc, etc.)
• 490 Series title
• 5XX Notes about the work
  • 500 General notes (additional publishers and dates of publication, other identifying information)
  • 505 Contents
  • 511 Participant or Performer (narrator, cast members)
  • 520 Summary
• 6XX Subject Access Entries (subject headings)
  • 650 Topical term
  • 651 Geographic Name
  • 655 Genre/Form
• 7XX Added authors, personal names