A brief history of MARC

A presentation done for my first library science class (Fall 2008) on a history of MARC coding.

2. Card Cataloging: A History
France 1789, earliest card catalog
Library Bureau formed 1876, Melvil Dewey
Library of Congress cards beginning 1901
Typewriters emerging from 1890s
"Library Hand" in wide use until approx. 1930s
1960s is beginning of change for the future

3. Machine Readable Cataloging
discussed
Council on Library Resources (CLR) issues a
grant to study feasibility of automating library
systems at the Library of Congress (LC) (1963)
A second study on methods of converting LC
cards to machine-readable format is discussed
at a conference January 1965.
Three members of LC staff analyse catalog
data from a machine point of view (June 1965)
Funds granted for a pilot project Dec. 1965,
project is dubbed MARC (Machine Readable
Cataloging)

4. MARC Pilot Project: 1966-1968
Planning begun in early January 1966
A total of sixteen libraries chosen for pilot:
Argonne National Laboratory, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Harvard University, Indiana University,
Mongomery County Public Schools, Nassau
County Library System, National Agricultural
Library, Redstone Scientific Information Center,
Rice University, University of California Institute of
Library Research, University of Chicago, University
of Florida, University of Missouri, University of
Toronto, Washington State Library, and Yale
University.

5. MARC Pilot Project: 1966-1968
Conference held in February 1966, the official
opening of the pilot project
LC set a goal of 8 months for completing
procedures and programs
MARC I format needed to be stabilized by April '66
First distribution set for September 1966
First test tape mailed in October 1966
Weekly distribution service actually begun in
November 1966
Pilot program initially set to end in June 1967

6. MARC Pilot Project: 1966-1968
Pilot project extended to June 1968 and four
participants added:
California State Library, Illinois State Library,
Cornell University, and the State University of New
York Biomedical Communications Network.
June 1967: Announced that operational MARC
Distribution Service was in planning stages and
MARC II design had begun
At the end of the pilot project, approximately
50,000 MARC format records had been distributed
and a report was issued in 1968 on the experience.

7. MARC Distribution Service
After termination of pilot project in June 1968,
LC began testing the new procedures and
programs for the distribution service from July
1968 through March 1969.
MARC Institutes, to inform librarians about
MARC, held beginning July 1968
Subscribers Guide to the MARC Distribution
Service (later Books: A MARC Format)
published August 1968, and a test tape in fall
1968 to allow users to check programs.

8. MARC Distribution Service
Operational System launched March 1969
Approximately 1,000 records per tape, with a
weekly distribution cycle
The new MARC system designed as a batch
tape system composed of four subsystems
Input
File Maintenance
Retrieval
Output

9. MARC Distribution Service
In 1969 LC issued through ALA the first edition
of MARC Manuals
Data Preparation Manual: MARC Editors
Transcription Manual: MARC Typists
Subscriber's Guide to the MARC Distribution
Service
Computer and Magnetic Tape Unit Usability Study
Other material formats added to MARC
Serials & Maps added in 1970
Films added in 1971
Manuscripts added in 1973

10. Retrospective Conversion
A Retrospective Conversion (RECON) begun
1968, with report issued 1969
August 1969, RECON Pilot Project initiated,
continuing through August 1971
Various technologies for automatic conversion
studied, including Optical Character
Recognition (OCR)
Format Recognition development was most
important achievement of pilot project
Approximately 58,000 records converted

11. MARC moves into the 21st century
MARC is constantly changing
USMARC and CANMARC (United States and
Canadian versions of MARC) were harmonized in
1997 to create MARC 21, the current standard
British Library plans to drop UKMARC in favour of
using MARC 21
New tags and fields are always being added to
accommodate new media
For example, Field 856 "Electronic Location and Access"
added in 1993 to make web-based records accessible
from MARC records

12. Metadata and MARC
Metadata is simply data about data
Metadata can be added to web pages to make
indexing more automatic and comprehensive
LC's Network Development and MARC Standards
Office (NDMSO) has developed Document Type
Definitions to support MARC data in a web
environment
DTD for Standard General Markup Language (SGML)
developed in 1997
DTD for XML (eXtensible Markup Language) in 2000
2002, MARCXML released, for working with MARC data
in an XML (web) environment

13. Metadata and MARC
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative conceived in 1994
by Stuart Weibel, OCLC research scientist
Consists of fifteen elements:
Content, Title, Subject, Description, Source,
Language, Relation, Coverage, Intellectual
Property, Creator, Publisher, Contributor, Rights,
Instantiation, Date, Type, Format, Identifier
Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) is
sponsored by OCLC and uses both MARC and
Dublin Core to create a database of quality Internet
resources

14. Conclusion