Creating MARC records...

This code is complicated... all the more obvious when you compare MARC records for the same book at two different libraries.

I looked at Adrienne Gear's Reading Power: Teaching Students to Think While They Read. I first looked at the MARC record at my elementary school and this is what I saw.

In order to access this MARC record, I  had to be signed in as an administrator. The MARC record was easy to understand, as textual signposts were used. When I looked at the MARC record for the same book at the Vancouver Public Library, this is what I saw. I was able to access the record as a guest.

 

As you can see, no textual signposts were used and symbols were used in place of spaces. I believe that this is because this is the actual code that the computer will read. The call numbers are different for each record and they are recorded in different tags. My school library's MARC record includes a summary, while VPL's does not. I wonder why that is, when there is clearly a summary in the catalogue record for this book in VPL. In fact, the description on the VPL catalogue record is much more detailed than the one at my school, giving a better idea of what the book is about.

There has been much talk in the discussion forum about how involved writing MARC records really is. I was overwhelmed at first (and still am a little...) by all the different tags, indicators and subtags. It seems that the position and choice of symbol for all of these is very important. The more that I write, the more that I understand what I am doing... it is a lot like learning a second language!

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Some of my classmates have noticed big discrepancies between the hard copy of the book and the MARC record for that same book. I have not noticed any problems in the books that I have chosen to look at in my own library for this course, but in the past I have noticed that call numbers might not match, or there might be typos in the summaries. One thing that I have come across in my two years in the library is that many books do not come up when doing a keyword search for a certain topic when it is obvious that that certain book fits that topic. I am wondering if adding subject headings to the MARC record could correct this problem.