MARC Fields (Essay Sample)

MARC Fields Student Name Institutional Affiliation MARC Fields MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) is a format of describing items such as books in libraries. Henriette Avram created MARC in the 1960s to help design records that were computer-readable and could be shared across libraries (Librarianship Studies & Information Technology, 2015). Today, the format has been recognized as an international standard for disseminating bibliographical data. The field tag 504 contains bibliographic information on the materials cataloged in the library that describes the data present in the resource (Joudrey & Taylor, 2018). The field indicates the presence of notes on filmographies, bibliographies, and other bibliographic materials such as discographies for the items cataloged. Besides, the field may also show the presence of bibliographic information of accompanying materials other than the one described in the record. The field is also used with items with multiple parts. In such instances, the field may relate all parts or just a single, an issue, or a serial of the entire item. However, the field does not record tables that pertain to statutes, cases, and regulations. The tables are recorded under the general note in field 500 (Library of Congress, 1999). Where the presence of an index is declared in a bibliography note, the field 504 is invoked for the record. Consequently, where the note mentions additional content of the bibliography and the field is insufficiently incapable of handling it in a separate table, then the record is done in the general note. Similarly, when one is uncertain of whether to record a bibliographic note or not, the instances should be done on the field 504 instead of 500. However, the requirement of the national level record is optional in this f...