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The MARC metadata is
converted, repurposed, transformed—take your pick—into a wide variety of
different metadata schemes, depending on the particular system in question.
It takes some planning to put these transformations into place. First,
librarians determine how to map one metadata scheme into another. As
I’ve said, the mapping for one scheme is often different from that for
another. For example, the HEARTH project dealt with materials that had been
cataloged according to pre-AACR and AACR cataloging rules. As a result, some
descriptive metadata records recorded the edition statement in the field
(MARC 250) established for that and some in another, more generic notes field
(5XX). Librarians worked with the IT person to ensure that edition statements
would be pulled from the most appropriate field. In the Samuel J. May
Anti-Slavery collection, information for the date of publication for the
pamphlets was recorded in the MARC 008/07-10 field because the MARC records
used for the May Collection cataloged the original source documents, not the
digital versions. These characters were mapped to the publication date in the
metadata record in the digital system. On the other hand, for the Historical
Math Monograph Collection, catalogers had created catalog records for the
digital versions of the original print monographs. The 008/07-10 field
contained the date for the original print monograph, and the 008/11-14 field
contained the date for the digital version, so information for this field
was mapped to the publication date in the metadata record in the digital
system. All this is just planning for how metadata transformations
will be done.
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