[Web4lib] Role of the OPAC (was: library automation vendors)

[Karen Coyle]

David Walker wrote:

> (It's amazing to me that the word "books" doesn't appear
>on many library home pages.  If it's not easy to find books in a
>library, you know you're in trouble!)
>
>  
>
Well, we are in trouble, because there is no way  to create a  MARC21 
record that is coded as "book." I complained about this at one MARC 
standards meeting, but no one else seemed to care. For a long time, if 
your Leader had the codes "a" and "m" in 06/07, the record was assumed 
to be about a book. The "a" means language material, the "m" means 
monographic. But in fact, the closest we can get is "monographic 
language material" which can be a single sheet of paper, a pamplet, an 
e-document, ... any of a number of different things. As more and more of 
our textual material comes out in formats that are not traditional 
books, I think we are going to want to code the fact that some items are 
bound, published, paper-based, language-based items that most people 
coming into the library would call "a book."

kc

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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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