As of 22 April 2009 this website is 'frozen' in time — see the current IFLA websites
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As of 22 April 2009 this website is 'frozen' in time — see the current IFLA websites
This old website and all of its content will stay on as archive – http://archive.ifla.org
Update 2 of the 2nd edition published in March 1998 contains redefinition of the provisional fields to assure conformity to the 1997 edition of the ISBD(ER) in terminology and description of fields for the use of electronic resources. There are, however, certain issues that have remained open and that need further action.
A new character position (135$a/1) Special Material Designation has been added. The PUC* received a proposal for additional coding of electronic resources and digital masters. Approval of the proposal was postponed for additional review and information particularly in regard to the development of respective codes in USMARC.
2-- DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION BLOCK
230 Material Specific Area: Electronic Resource Characteristics
This field is equivalent to the ISBD(ER) Area 3.
This field is equivalent to the ISBD(ER) Notes relating to type and extent of resource area and other resource characteristics (7.3).
This field is equivalent to the ISBD(ER) Notes on system requirements (7.5.1).
The PUC* agreed that the field 337 as defined in Update 2 satisfies ISBD(ER) and thus renders provisional field 626 Technical Details Access (Computer Files) - 6-- SUBJECT ANALYSIS BLOCK field, superfluous. Field 337 can be usefully indexed for access provided a structured vocabulary is used.
Information required to locate and access electronic item, which corresponds to ISBD(ER) Notes relating to mode of access (7.5.2) is recorded in field.
This field corresponds to USMARC 856 field except for the definition of the 2nd indicator and additional subfield $e.
In UNIMARC the 2nd indicator is defined blank while in USMARC it is used to describe the relationship of the field to the rest of bibliographic description. Value 0 of the USMARC 2nd indicator which indicates that the "electronic location in field 856 is for the same resource described by the record as a whole" is mapped to the use of the same field in UNIMARC (the item represented by the bibliographic record is an ER). Value 1 indicates that the location in the field 856 is for an "electronic version of the resource described by the record" and Value 2 is for " an electronic resource that is related to the item described by the record". (In both cases the item represented by the bibliographic record is not the ER itself.)
UNIMARC defines fields in block 4-- LINKING ENTRY BLOCK for describing various kinds of relationships. The embedded technique, and newly adopted standard subfielding technique that are used in 4-- fields allow different levels of bibliographic description to be recorded to express mentioned relationships. Update 2 shows such a use in field 488 Other Related Work, Example 4. In this example, field 488 contains Title proper (200$a, i.e. $t) of the UNIMARC concise bibliographic format with URLs in repeatable 856$u i.e. $u (http://archive.ifla.org/VI/3/p1996-1/concise.htm). The field is used in a record for the print publication UNIMARC Manual: Bibliographic Format.
However, the complex problem of description of versions and relations of items of 'traditional' material to electronic resources either in related bibliographic records or embedded fields, as required for expressing a particular bibliographic condition (e.g. bibliographic history of the item, 7.2.2 i.e. 305 or 4--), is still to be investigated and duly implemented in the UNIMARC format. The PUC is looking up to the presentations of this Workshop for more background information in this evolving field, and, especially in respect of the mentioned problem, to Eeva Murtomaa's talk on the Implications of the Functional Requirements Recommendations for ISBD(ER).
New subfield $e Date and hour of the consultation of the access was approved.*
RECORD LABEL, Type of Record
Another issue that was discussed within the PUC* was the use of Record Label, Type of Record codes (character position 6). According to the present use "the code should be in accordance with the actual type of material being catalogued rather than with its secondary physical format." This code use was agreed to be explicitly extended to electronic resources. Thus, the use of code 'l' (computer media) will indicates that the content of the record is for particular types of electronic resources i.e. computer software, numeric data, online systems etc., while other types of electronic resources will be coded for their most significant aspect i.e. language material, printed ('a'), music scores, printed ('c') etc. The PUC will consider the alignment of such a use with the change announced by LC in Update no. 3 to USMARC Format for Bibliographic Data (July 1977).
UNIMARC Guideline No. 6: UNIMARC Guidelines for Electronic Resources is in preparation.*
*IFLA Permanent UNIMARC Committee (PUC) held its 9th meeting in Moscow, 26-27 March 1998. All decisions made during the meeting are marked with asterisk.