Main Page

From MARC must die!

Disclaimer

Apologies to anyone and everyone called Marc. This site is not about you. It's about a bunch of library metadata standards collectively known as MARC. About the name

MARC is dead

• Transforming our Bibliographic Framework: A Statement from the Library of Congress (May 13, 2011)
• A Bibliographic Framework for the Digital Age (October 31, 2011)

Comments

• Ed Chamberlain: Common sense at at last? 2011-11-08
• Richard Wallis Library of Congress To Boldly Voyage To Linked Data Worlds 2011-11-02
• Karen Coyle: Future Format: Goals and Measures 2011-11-01
• Roy Tennant: LOC: MARC’s Days are Numbered 2011-10-31
• Karen Coyle: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative 2011-08-25

Discussions

• BIBFRAME - Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum

Goals

The goals of this site are four-fold:

1. To discuss the objectives of bibliographic metadata in the current environment
2. To collect views, links, literature etc on why MARC doesn't meet the requirements of todays need for bibliographic metadata
3. To discuss alternatives that might replace MARC
4. To encourage activities that undermine MARC

Alternatives to MARC

• What we want

As Jonathan Rochkind, Bill Dueber and others have pointed out, MARC is not a format or a model, but a crude mixture of ideas. Therefore any serious alternative should not be one silver bullet but a well-choosen set of apropriate tools for each particular task. Possible tools include:

• Semantic Web including Linked Data and RDF
• Ontologies expressed in first-order logic (OWL etc.)
• Data Models
• Any open, standard being publically available and following at least RFC 2119
• ...

Getting there from here

• Enhancing the ILS with semantic data

Examples

• Examples of converting library data to RDF

See also

• futurelib - Designing the future -- Library Systems and Data Formats

About

Consult the MediaWiki User's Guide and the Semantic MediaWiki User Manual for information on using the wiki software. Site technicalities

This site is hosted by Libriotech. It is provided as a free service to the library community, in the hope that it will generate some momentum away from the MARC standards. Please feel free to add your point of view!

This is a wiki that anyone can edit, after registering. All opinions are the repsonsibilities of their authors. Spam and any other content not relevant to the topic at hand will be removed, and spammers blocked forever.

Why MARC was inadequate

MARC is not one standard, but rather a family of standards, and some related formats:

• The MARC standard
• MARC dialects
• MARC issues
• ISO2709
• MARCXML
• AACR2 and RDA might also be relevant.
• MARC stands in the way of innovation