Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 16:31:24 -0500
From: "Law, John" <john.law@BELLHOWELL.INFOLEARNING.COM>
Subject: Re: New 856 subfields (John Law -- ProQuest)

Hello:

As the product manager for ProQuest MARC Records, I would like to respond to
the concerns expressed about inclusion of the 856 subfield y and inform the
list of the action taken.

Thanks to Helen Cahill for raising this issue and to J. Shore for the
excellent piece of research. I was not familiar with the "implemented no
earlier than 90 days" requirement. In addition, a customer recently reported
difficulty load records into their OPAC with the new subfield y included.

For these reasons, the 856 subfield y has been removed from ProQuest MARC
Records until it is more widely accepted. A new set of sample records will
be posted to our website on Monday December 4th. You can download these
records and find more information about ProQuest MARC Records at
http://proquest.com/hp/Features/Marc/.

Again, thanks for raising this issue. Please feel free to contact me with
any further questions or concerns.

Regards,
John
_____________________________________________
John M. Law
Director, ProQuest Delivery Systems Product Management
734-761-4700 ext 3729

Bell & Howell Information and Learning
300 North Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.bellhowell.infolearning.com
_____________________________________

>
> Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 11:11:59 -0500
> From: "J. Shore" <shorej@THPL.ORG>
> Subject: Re: New 856 subfields (Helen Cahill)
>
> Helen Cahill wrote:
>
> > ...While assessing the test records, I queried their use of the
> > subfield $y in MARC tag 856 and was told that it's a new code which
> > has been recently adopted.
> >
> > After checking our paper copy of MARC 21, and also the web version,
> > I couldn't find that subfield listed. I eventually found my way to
> > the MARBI discussion paper at:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2000/2000-07.html
> > which appears to have been approved by the MARC Advisory Committee
> > meeting in July.
> >
> > If the subfield has been approved, does that mean that it's fine

>
> > to use it now on our own systems, or do we need to wait for them to
> > appear as a revision in MARC 21?
>
> Helen,
>
> After lots of searching, I finally found the web page which lists
> links to the "official documentation" of MARC:
> http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/status.html
>
> From that page I followed the link for "changes since last update"
> under Bibliographic Data:
> http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/changes.bibliographic.html
>
> That page reads (in part): "The following changes have been
> approved for implementation by the MARC Advisory Committee and the
> Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information committee (MARBI). They
> will be implemented no earlier than 90 days after the official
> release of the next update for the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic
> Data (scheduled for the Fourth Quarter 2000)"
> --- snip ---
> Field 856 (Electronic Location and Access):
>           Make $g obsolete and rename $u to Uniform Resource Identifier

>           (Proposal No.2000-02)
>           Define subfield $y (Link Text). (Proposal No. 2000-07)
>
> Now I'm not a lawyer, but I read that to mean that you (and ProQuest)
> shouldn't be using that code until March or April 2001 (90 days past
> the official update).
>
> HTH,
> J.
> --
> J. Shore
> Serials Librarian / Cataloger
> Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library
> shorej@thpl.org
>
>