 Library & Information Technology Association |
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Date = June 23, 2007 Group = MARC Formats Interest Group Chair = Eugene Dickerson Reporter = Eugene Dickerson Email = DickersonEH@state.gov Conference = Annual Meeting = Interest Group business meeting Attendees = 20 Current Activities: Helen E. Gbala did a presentation about the MARC 21 Format for Community Information. The format has not been adopted widely, but Ms. Gbala identified two libraries that have made some use of the format. She described the uses that the Gale Borden Public Library District in Elgin, Illinois found for the Community Information Format. One use was a directory of local organizations and officials. The other use was as an index to the local newspaper, with emphasis on obituaries and other data that would be useful to persons doing genealogical research. The Gale Borden Library uses an Innovative Interfaces system. Although the use of the MARC 21 Format for Community Information at the Gale Borden Library reflects some non-standard applications of the format, it illustrated the potential use of the format in a library setting. Ms. Gbala alo described the use of the MARC 21 Format for Community Information at the Pasadena Public Library in California. The Pasadena Public Library uses the MARC 21 Format for Community Information to provide a community directory of organizations in the Pasadena area. Pasadena Public Library uses a Horizon system from SirsiDynix. The community directory offers both a labeled display and a MARC display of the data in the community organization records. Some discussion followed Ms. Gbala's presentation, reflecting on why the MARC 21 Format for Community Information had not been adopted more widely. Some of the reasons offered by participants in the discussion included: the amount of labor needed to establish and maintain entries in a community information database, and that the World Wide Web has made it fairly easy for users to find information about an organization just by searching the Web via Google, or other similar search interface. Discussion participants thought that the application would be more viable if there were ways for community organizations to play a role in creating and maintain their entry in the community information database, or for the library to ingest data about community organizations that could create or update records in the MARC 21 community information database more seamlessly and efficiently. There were also comments suggesting that if there were authority control for the names in the community information database, this would provide a valuable service. How can we get systems to take advantage of both the MARC 21 Format Authority Data and the MARC 21 Format for Community Information? |
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