I am proud to announce that our own Lisa Rowlison de Ortiz is a co-author of the newly published report Implications of MARC Tag Usage on Library Metadata Practices.
MARC fields are the foundation on which we’ve built modern library systems. Much of what you may like or dislike in any given system will be related to the quality of the MARC records found in that system, as well as decisions on how they are indexed and displayed.
This report is filled with information on the occurrence of MARC tags and how they are used. Of particular note, it examines the use of MARC tags from multiple important perspectives. For example, how tags are indexed for searching and how they are used in automated record matching algorithms.
If you have any interest in MARC, I would recommend that you to read the Executive Summary that discuses the implications of MARC tag use, and the authors’ key findings and views on the future of MARC.
If you work with MARC in any capacity (e.g. indexing records, cataloging, record matching) you will be interested in reviewing the full report.
Our congratulations to Lisa and the other authors on a job very well done!
Best regards, Bernie
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Citation: Smith-Yoshimura, Karen, Catherine Argus, Timothy J. Dickey, Chew Chiat Naun, Lisa Rowlinson de Ortiz, and Hugh Taylor. 2010. Implications of MARC Tag Usage on Library Metadata Practices. Report produced by OCLC Research in support of the RLG Partnership. Published online at: www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2010/2010-06.pdf.