The Application/MARC Content-type

This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

This memorandum provides a mechanism for representing objects which are files of Machine-Readable Cataloging records (MARC). The MARC formats are standards for the representation and communication of bibliographic and related information. A MARC record contains metadata for an information resource following MARC format specifications.

1. Introduction
2. Definition
3. Registration Information
4. Security Considerations
5. Interoperability Considerations
6. Published Specification
7. References (BOILERPLATE)
8. Author's Address (BOILERPLATE)
9. Full Copyright Statement (BOILERPLATE)
§ Author's Address
§ Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements

1. Introduction

The MARC formats are sets of codes and content designators defined for encoding metadata for five types of data: bibliographic, holdings, authority, classification, and community information. The structure of MARC records is an implementation of national and international standards, ANSI Z39.2 (Information Interchange Format) and ISO 2709 (Format for Information Interchange). Codes and conventions in the formats identify and characterize data elements within a record and support the manipulation of those data.

MARC formats are communication formats, primarily designed to provide specification for the exchange of bibliographic and related information between systems. They are widely used in a variety of exchange and processing environments. They do not mandate internal storage or display formats to be used by different systems.

2. Definition

Since there are different flavors of MARC which would be processed by different applications, this content-type/subtype refers to the harmonized USMARC/CANMARC specification. Additional content- types/subtypes may be defined in the future (e.g. application/unimarc).

MARC records involve three elements: the record structure, content designation, and data content. Only those records that contain all three elements according to the standard would use this content- type/subtype, i.e. content extracted from the structure would not. Since MARC does not mandate an internal storage format, parameters have not been assigned to specific implementations (e.g. OCLC-MARC, LC-MARC, etc.). In addition, parameters have not been defined for the specific type of MARC format (e.g. bibliographic, authority, holdings), since the information is contained in the Leader portion of the record.

3. Registration Information

Encoding considerations: MARC records may contain long lines and/or arbitrary octet values. The base64 content-transfer-encoding is recommended for transmission of MARC over electronic mail.

4. Security Considerations

There are no known security risks associated with the use or viewing of MARC data. A MARC record may have security classification associated with the document it describes or metadata in that record. Although this does not present any security risk to the user of MARC data, it may provide an opportunity for a security breach for the source of classified MARC data.

5. Interoperability Considerations

MARC is a communication format and is designed for interoperability between different systems that may store data in local formats internally.

6. Published Specification

"USMARC Format for Bibliographic Data"; "USMARC Format for Authority Data"; "USMARC Format for Holdings Data"; "USMARC Format for Classification Data"; "USMARC Format for Community Information".

      File extension: .mrc
      OID: 1.2.840.10003.5.10

      Network Development & MARC Standards Office <ndmso@loc.gov>
      101 Independence Ave. SE
      Library of Congress
      Washington, DC 20540-4102 U.S.A.

7. References (BOILERPLATE)

This RFC contained boilerplate in this section which has been moved to the RFC2223-compliant unnumbered section "References."

8. Author's Address (BOILERPLATE)

This RFC contained boilerplate in this section which has been moved to the RFC2223-compliant unnumbered section "Author's Address."

9. Full Copyright Statement (BOILERPLATE)

This RFC contained boilerplate in this section which has been moved to the RFC2223-compliant unnumbered section "Full Copyright Statement."

Author's Address

Full Copyright Statement

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This document and the information contained herein are provided on an “AS IS” basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org.

Acknowledgment

Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA).

	Rebecca Guenther
	Network Development & MARC Standards Office
	Library of Congress
	101 Independence Ave.
	Washington
	DC 20540-4102 U.S.A.
	SE
Phone:	+1 (202) 707-5092
Fax:	+1 (202) 707-0115
Email:	rgue@loc.gov