MARC Advisory Committee (MAC)
Want a say in the latest developments to the MARC standard we all know and, er, love? In a new initiative, ACORD and NLA are coordinating Australian practitioner feedback on the latest MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) proposals and discussion papers. The agenda, four proposals and four discussion papers are now available and are listed below:
Proposal No. 2026-01: Addition of Codes “q” (Serial podcast), “a” (Activity report), and “i” (Serial zine) to Field 008/21 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
Proposal No. 2026-02: Additions and Revisions to Accessibility Fields 341 and 532 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
Proposal No. 2026-03: Adding Indicators for Preferred Variant Headings in 4XX Fields in the MARC 21 Authority Format
Proposal No. 2026-04: Modernization of Field 041 and Field 008/35-37 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
Discussion Paper No. 2026-DP01: Renaming of Subfield $a in Field 041 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
Discussion Paper No. 2026-DP02: Sign Language and English Alphabetical Order Instructions in Fields 008/35-37 and 041 in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
Discussion Paper No. 2026-DP03: Recording Container Designation in the 87X Fields of the MARC 21 Holdings Format
Discussion Paper No. 2026-DP04: Recording Notated Movement Characteristics in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
The four proposals can be voted on by MAC members, of which NLA is one, while the four discussion papers are soliciting input before potentially returning as refined proposals. Your feedback will be collated by ACORD and incorporated into the NLA’s formal responses. You can provide feedback on as many or as few agenda items as you like, stating for each item what you support or oppose and how it would impact your cataloguing practice.
The MAC elist archives are searchable and contain responses by other MAC members. The minutes of the previous MAC meeting in June 2025 are also available.
Feedback is due by 12:00pm AEDT Friday 6 February by email to a.mcculloch@deakin.edu.au (please use the subject line ‘MAC Feedback’). The (northern) Midwinter MAC meeting will be held 18-19 February.
IFLA
The December issue of the IFLA Metadata Newsletter has been published. A joint initiative of the Bibliography, Cataloguing and Subject Analysis & Access sections, this issue includes an interesting write up of ISKO’s Subject Metadata Access project, to enhance the use and usability of subject headings in discovery systems (pages 34-37).
Library of Congress
After a prolonged pause, LC have recommenced maintenance of LCSH. The latest Tentative List of proposed subjects has been published. All feedback is due by (American) Tuesday 27 January to listcomments@loc.gov.
LC will also cease using form subdivisions (650 $v) in LCSH from 2 February, in favour of expanded use of LCGFT and LCDGT. In practice, this means longer, post-coordinated subject strings will be broken up into individual, pre-coordinated fields, to simplify cataloguing and better support faceted searching.
The ALA SAC Working Group on $v Retention will shortly publish a report outlining their concerns about the change. There is also an FAQ from LC about the change, featuring questions posed by the Working Group.
Other
An interesting article on using personal notetaking and knowledge management software Obsidian for cataloguing purposes has been published in the latest issue of Code4Lib journal. The software has a low barrier to entry and is more accessible to non-professionals.
Long, K., & Yunes, E. (2025). From Notes to Networks: Using Obsidian to Teach Metadata and Linked Data. The Code4Lib Journal, 61. https://journal.code4lib.org/articles/18535