Jim Agenbroad said:
> Bravo! I agree with most of what you say, but not the 600/650 example
>If an item is a biography a more general 650 (Arichitects--Great
>Britain--Biography for Christopher Wren) is not what should be first.
No argument there. I want MARC fields in tag number order so I can
find them. Of course 600 should be first for a biography. But if the
LCC or DDC corresponds with a 650 (as opposed to a 600), I *still*
want 600, 610, and 630 in tag number order to speed data entry and
revision. If the class number reflects a 650, it would be the first
650, not the first 6XX. (If the class number reflects a 651, tough
cookie.) What I'm asking for would never have a 650 before a 600; the
reverse is the case. Sorry if I was not clear.
Fortunately, Ms Avrom numbered MARC fields in ISBD order, and in time
tested unit card order for fields outside ISBD. Unfortunately, we've
since departed from her clear vision with later additions to MARC.
For us, one function of MARC field tags is to place fields (including
5XX, 6XX, and 7XX) in the order they are to appear. We still use 503
for that reason.
Apart from the loss of language and script neutrality if words
replaced numbers for encoding, words have no natural order. If you
have the information in the order you wish to transcribe, encode, and
display it, that order would not be alphabetical by tag name. You
would be reduced to programming the order, and using a search engine
to find a particular field in a long record.
I would also like the "guidance" module (aka RDA) to give instructions
in that order! Usually I shouldn't have to use an index to find an
instruction, just as I don't need an index for MARC21.
Mac
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
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