It's true that as a standard it is intended for cross-system
communciation. The standard was not intended to be for internal system
representation. So James is kind of right, right?
It's also true that most ILS's and other library bibliographic systems
(say, cooperative cataloging stores :) ) use it's _data model_ as
internal storage (and this is why we care about MARC -- both pro and
con, way more than one would expect of something that was _really_ just
an interchange format).
It's also true, according to Kevin, that at least ILS also uses the
actual ISO2709 serialization as an internal serialized representation.
This probably doesn't matter one way or the other, in my opinion, it's
the fact that the system uses the basic data model of MARC that ends up
forcing a lot of hands in various directions, how this data using the
MARC data model is actually serialized internally doesn't matter too
much to anyone but the designer's of the system, really.
On 8/4/2011 11:32 AM, Kevin M Randall wrote:
James Weinheimer wrote:
I keep repeating that ISO2709 is
used for *transfer* of records and not storage. When I download a record
from another library catalog, it compiles the ISO2709 on the fly. My catalog
then parses and reworks it for the structures of my catalog, probably
something completely different from the remote catalog. At this point, the
ISO2709 format vanishes, and if somebody later wants to download the
record from my catalog, my catalog recompiles the ISO2709 record along with
any updates I have made and sends it to the other catalog, etc. etc. This
works *only* in library catalogs. Therefore, ISO2709/MARC21 is a standard
for library record *communication* and not for library catalog storage.
While you keep repeating it, that doesn't necessarily make it so. As I have
written several times now, the Ex Libris Voyager system most certainly DOES
store records essentially in the ISO2709 format. Whether or not that is a good
thing, I'm not going to comment on. But I just want to point out that what you
are asserting is most definitely untrue.
Kevin M. Randall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Bibliographic Services Dept.
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208-2300
email: k...@northwestern.edu
phone: (847) 491-2939
fax: (847) 491-4345
