New perspectives on the shared cataloging environment and a MARC 21 shopping list

Abstract

This paper surveys the cataloging literature to collect problems that have been identified with the MARC 21 format. The problems are sorted into (1) problems that are not the fault of MARC 21; (2) problems that perhaps are not problems at all; (3) problems that are connected with the current shared cataloging environment; and 4) other problems with MARC 21 and vendor implementation of it. The author makes recommendations to deal with the true MARC 21 problems that remain after this analysis.