"Tangible" problems encountered when working with REICAT and MARC 21. Recording General and Specific Material Designations

Abstract

Problems in recording generic and specific designations of REICAT in some of the fields of MARC21 are analyzed through mappings highlighting some difficulties of the two tools. The first mapping compares GMD (General Material Designation) with Leader/06 (Type of record); it shows that some records in MARC21 have no correspondence in REICAT. From the mapping GMD/ Leader/06 it derives the mapping with materials of the field 8. The main differences in this case appear for GMD "Electronic resources", since a textual electronic resource receives as recording (Leader/06) the a code, "Textual document". The third mapping is related to GMD as well with relation to MARC21 Leader/07: Tactile material, Kit, and Remote-sensing image lack of correspondence. MARC21 has been recently updated to meet the needs of RDA (Resource Description and Access), however the elements correspondence is not univocal, with shifts between MARC21, RDA and REICAT. At the end, the author analyzes the relationship between MARC21 and SMD (Specific Material Designation), that can be mapped as "Specific material designation" of the "Physical Description Fixed Field - General Information", even though presenting some problems related to the different idea of "text" in REICAT and MARC21.