[uf-discuss] Re: [Structuredblogging-discuss] microformat for books in a library catalog

[Benjamin Carlyle]

On Tue, 2005-12-20 at 16:32 +1300, Phillip Pearson wrote:
> This would probably make more sense over on the microformats-discuss 
> list.  Edward - visit 
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss/ to join.  
> Edward Vielmetti wrote:
> >I'm looking for suggestions for a microformat
> >suitable to recommend to my library which
> >produces an RSS feed as a result set for
> >a search through its library catalog.
> >hReview isn't quite right, and there's a lot
> >of potentially useful book metadata that
> >comes from a standard format (US-MARC)
> >and should be straightforward to map in.

MARC is also the name of what we use in Australia, especially in
academic libraries. My spouse works in this field, but isn't sure if the
encoding is the same as US MARC or not. According to wikipedia[1], it is
US MARC.

In the primary school library where she currently works, she makes
extensive use of the scis[2] database. This is a subscriber-only system
that allows users to search for already-catalogued works so that they
can avoid doing the original cataloguing over again. The user enters
ISBNs for those works that have them, and SCIS numbers that need to be
searched for when items do not have an ISBN. The list of ISBN and SCIS
numbers is entered into a dialogue, and a usmarc.dat file is produced
for download. This file is imported into the local library system, and
bob's your uncle.

Interestingly, this isn't an XML MARC. It is still the original system,
which looks something like this:
00741nam  2200265 a
4500001000800000005001700008007000300025008004100028020001500069040000900084082002000093100001600113245004100129260003900170300002300209440002500232440003800257500004100295500001400336650002200350650002200372650002700394650002700421650002700448105068920010622154425.0ta010622s2000    at           |000 0 eng d  a1862830517  aW.A.14a796.5bGRA2a131 aGrant, Jim.10aEveryone likes ....

It seems likely that any microformatted MARC would have to be able to be
translated back to this version for import to local tools in order to be
useful.

-- 
Benjamin Carlyle <benjamincarlyle at optusnet.com.au>
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARC_21
[2] http://www.curriculum.edu.au/scis/