Records What Is a Marc

¶ … Records

What is a MARC Record?

MARC Record stands for MAchine Readable Cataloging. MARC Records have become a standard format for bibliographic records. For instance, a catalog card is an example of a bibliographic record. It is a standardized format that stores the information about an items such as books so that computers can understand the record. Any system that is compatible to MARC can read and understand the information. Computers are able to read and interpret MARC Records extremely effectively and efficiently. MARC tags can be used by the computer software to find pieces of information in the bibliographic record. This system allows computers to work with the information more efficiently. MARC records have pieces of information "tagged," or labeled in such a way that the software reading them knows exactly what kind of information it's looking for.

What fields are used for the 8 areas of description (information)?

Each bibliographic record is divided logically into fields. Commonly used fields are tags, indicators and subfield codes. There is a field for the author, a field for title information, ISBN, LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number), publication, physical description, etc...

Keywords or concepts:

MARC

MARC Record stands for MAchine Readable Cataloging. MARC Records have become a standard format for bibliographic records.

Fields

A field is a piece of information about a book or other item you are cataloging. The title is a field for example, as is a subject heading or the publication information. These fields are designated with tags, or numbers that indicate the type of information in the field.

Subfields

A subfield is a small bit of information that is apart of another piece of information. In essence, a subfield is a piece of information.

Indicators

Indicators are used in some fields to give special information about what appears in that field. Most fields contain up to 2 indicators.

Format integration

Format integration is the term that refers to "signposts" used to mark the data in records. Data is marked in records for different publications to avoid having to have varying sign posts for each type of publication. A group of tags is assigned a record instead having tag sets assigned for each type of record. Format integration is used to for simplification purposes.