ugh homework
Mar. 1st, 2011 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaebilityMARC 21 is my nemesis.
Ok, so back in the days of yore, libraries used card catalogs. As computers took on more of the responsibility for creating these records, MARC language came into use. It was designed by a computer programmer - not a librarian - and even as records went digital, this outdated language was hauled along.
It's awful. Unlike some computer languages - like my buddy HTML and its offshoots - MARC gives no clues as to what the codes mean. It used arbitrary numbers, letters, and symbols with no pattern. So _ 1 in one field means something completely different than that same thing elsewhere. The rules are complex and convoluted and impossible to read, let alone memorize.
Type a ELvl I Source d Audn Ctrl Lang eng
BLvl m Form Conf 0 Biog MRec Ctry nyu
Cont GPub 0 LitF 0 Indx 0
Desc a Ills a Fest 0 DtSt s Dates 1910
010
020
050
100 1 _ $a Fernald, James C.
245 _ 4 $a The concise standard dictionary of the English language / $b Designed to give the orthography, pronunciation, and meaning of about 28,000 words and phrases in the speech and literature of the English-speaking peoples / $c James C. Fernald, editor.
250 $a
260 $a New York, $b Funk & Wagnalls, $c 1905.
300 $a vi, 479, [1] p. $b illus. $c 17 cm.
500 $a Abridged.
6XX $a
7XX
It's like a foreign language. And I hate it.
Why can't the field tags give hints as to the content? Like [author]James C. Fernald[/author]. Or [pub_city]New York[/pub_city]. BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE.
Ok, so back in the days of yore, libraries used card catalogs. As computers took on more of the responsibility for creating these records, MARC language came into use. It was designed by a computer programmer - not a librarian - and even as records went digital, this outdated language was hauled along.
It's awful. Unlike some computer languages - like my buddy HTML and its offshoots - MARC gives no clues as to what the codes mean. It used arbitrary numbers, letters, and symbols with no pattern. So _ 1 in one field means something completely different than that same thing elsewhere. The rules are complex and convoluted and impossible to read, let alone memorize.
Type a ELvl I Source d Audn Ctrl Lang eng
BLvl m Form Conf 0 Biog MRec Ctry nyu
Cont GPub 0 LitF 0 Indx 0
Desc a Ills a Fest 0 DtSt s Dates 1910
010
020
050
100 1 _ $a Fernald, James C.
245 _ 4 $a The concise standard dictionary of the English language / $b Designed to give the orthography, pronunciation, and meaning of about 28,000 words and phrases in the speech and literature of the English-speaking peoples / $c James C. Fernald, editor.
250 $a
260 $a New York, $b Funk & Wagnalls, $c 1905.
300 $a vi, 479, [1] p. $b illus. $c 17 cm.
500 $a Abridged.
6XX $a
7XX
It's like a foreign language. And I hate it.
Why can't the field tags give hints as to the content? Like [author]James C. Fernald[/author]. Or [pub_city]New York[/pub_city]. BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE.
