DATE: December 15, 2000
REVISED:
NAME: Non-MARC Country Codes in Fields 043 (Geographic Area Code) and 044 (Country of Publishing/Producing Entity Code)
SOURCE: Library of Congress; OCLC CORC
SUMMARY: This paper proposes that subfield $c (ISO code) in field 043 (Geographic Area Code) be defined to allow for the use of an ISO 3166 country code. Likewise, it also proposes that subfield $c (ISO subentity code) in field 044 (Country of publishing/producing entity code) be redefined as ISO code to allow for the use of an ISO 3166 country code as well as an ISO subentity code.
KEYWORDS: Field 044 (BD); Field 043 (AD) (BD) (CI) ; Subfield $c, in field 043 (AD) (BD) (CI); Subfield $c, in field 044 (BD); ISO 3166 country codes; ISO code (AD) (BD) (CI)
RELATED: DP 98 (December 1996); 97-11 (May 1997)
STATUS/COMMENTS:
12/15/00 - Forwarded to the MARC Advisory Committee for discussion at the January 2001 MARBI meetings.
01/13/01 - Results of the MARC Advisory Committee discussion - Approved.
02/01/01 - Results of LC/NLC review - Approved.
PROPOSAL NO. 2001-02: Non-MARC Country Codes in Fields 043 and 044
Field 043 (Geographic Area Code) contains MARC geographic area codes (GAC) for geographic areas associated with a bibliographic record. The choice of geographic area codes is usually based on the geographic names and/or subdivisions in 6XX subject added entry and index term fields. The source of the codes is the MARC Code List for Geographic Areas.
Field 044 (Country of publishing/producing entity code) contains a two- or three-character MARC code for the country of the publishing or producing entity when field 008/15-17 (Place of publication, production, or execution) is insufficient to convey full information for an item published or produced in more than one country. The source of the country codes is the MARC Code List for Countries.
In Proposal No. 97-11 (Definition of Subfields in Fields 044 and 043), subfields $b (Local subentity code), $c (ISO subentity code) and $2 (Source of local subentity code) were defined for field 044 to allow users to code for subentities under the country level when the MARC Code List for Countries does not specify them. These subfields became necessary because the use of the MARC 21 formats is internationally expanding to include countries whose subentity codes are not defined in the MARC country code list, although they use MARC codes for countries themselves. It also allowed for the use of a subentity code from ISO 3166-2, Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions. Part 2: Country subdivision codes.
Proposal 97-11 also defined subfield $b (Local GAC code) in field 043 (Geographic Area Code) to allow users to use local GAC codes as subjects of items in MARC 21 records. The code is formulated by attaching a local subentity code to an already established MARC geographic area code.
ISO 3166-1, Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 1: Country codes gives coded representations of more than 230 names of countries or areas dependent on a country. It contains a two-letter code (Alpha-2-code), a three-letter code (Alpha-3-code) and a three-digit numeric code (Numeric-3-code) for every entry in its list of country names. ISO 3166-1 is widely employed in several metadata schemes, such as the ONIX International Guidelines for Publishers scheme that uses it to identify territorial rights data. Likewise, it is used in the Coverage element of the Dublin Core Metadata standard. The ISO 3166 country codes are also used as part of domain names on the Internet. Because of the widespread use of this code list, it is desirable to provide a place in MARC 21 to encode it.
OCLC's Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) includes descriptions of Web resources which may be created or displayed in either a MARC or Dublin Core view. A crosswalk between MARC and Dublin Core elements was developed by OCLC and LC's Network Development MARC Standards Office, which allows for the data transformations in either format. Because of the possibility of the use of an ISO 3166 country code, a place is needed in MARC to contain a non-MARC country code so that data is not lost in conversions.
Defining subfield $c in field 043 for use of ISO 3166 country codes to code for country as subject and redefining subfield $c in field 044 to include ISO 3166-1 country codes in addition to ISO subentity codes would facilitate the ease of mapping and the subsequent conversion from various metadata standards to the MARC 21 format. It would also enhance libraries' participation in the organization of online Web products, e-books and other media that use metadata standards. For example, field 043 subfield $c would map to the Dublin Core's Coverage element to describe the coverage of the resource. These changes would also assist in the increasing internationalization of the MARC 21 formats by allowing for the recording of a code from another, widely used international country code list in MARC 21 records.
2.2. Redefinition of Subfield $c
Subfield $c (ISO subentity code) in field 044 is currently used with the ISO 3166-2 subentity country codes. This subfield was defined in field 044 to allow users to qualify searches by more specific geographic entities than those allowed for in the MARC country code list. Subfield $c may be broadened to include both ISO 3166-1 and ISO 3166-2 codes. The ISO subentity code always includes the ISO country code as its initial element.
This subfield could be defined as follows (< > indicates addition; [ ] indicates deletion):
$c - ISO [subentity] code
Subfield $c contains a [subentity] code taken from the
International Organization for Standardization's Codes
for the representation of names of countries and their
subdivisions - Part 1: Country codes or Part 2 : Country
subdivision codes.
The use of subfield $c does not affect the country code in 008/15-17, which is always a MARC code. If the MARC code is unknown, the non-MARC codes goes in field 044 and 008/15-17 contains 3 fill characters ("| | |"). If only a non-MARC code is included, only subfield $c need be recorded.
2.3. Definition of subfield $c (ISO code) in field 043
To allow for the use of ISO 3166 country codes to express the subject of the resource, subfield $c in field 043 could be defined as follows:
$c - ISO code
Subfield $c contains a code taken from the
International Organization for Standardization's Codes
for the representation of names of countries and their
subdivisions - Part 1: Country codes or Part 2 : Country
subdivision codes. If only a non-MARC code is included,
only subfield $c need be recorded.
2.4. Examples
| 043 | ##$cUS |
| [Example contains an ISO 3166-1 code for the United States with no corresponding MARC GAC code] | |
| 008/15-17 | ||| |
| 044 | ##$cGB |
|
[Example contains an ISO 3166-1 code for the United Kingdom when the
MARC code is unknown]
|
|
| 008/15-17 | it# |
| 044 | ## $ait$cIT$afr$cFR$asp$cES |
| [Example contains multiple ISO 3166-1 codes with corresponding MARC codes] | |
In the MARC 21 Authority, Bibliographic and Community Information formats:
Library of Congress