Monday, April 29, 2002
Electronic Resources
One of my pet peeves is how useless Area 3 (field 256 in MARC) is for computer files. Our AACR options are to use the terms: Electronic data or Electronic program(s) or a combination of the two. That does not give our users much information. They already know it is an electronic resource from the GMD. This only adds the fact it is a program or data. The list from ISBD(ER) is much more descriptive and informative. This list lets the user know if it is a map, journal, image, font, sound, CAD program or whatever. Something a user can understand and base a decision on. I'd be happy with either doing away with Area 3 or adopting the useful terms from IFLA.


