Language code use and PCC
Jennifer Baxmeyer
[cross-posted to various lists; please excuse duplication]
Hi everyone!
It gives me great pleasure to share with you the final report of the PCC BIBFRAME and MARC Bibliographic Encoding for Languages (BABEL) Task Group. PCC charged this group in response to growing community interest in enabling our catalogs to reflect the true linguistic diversity of our collections. I would like to thank the Task Group members for their excellent work on this report.
The Task Group was charged on March 1, 2020 to make recommendations on language vocabularies for use in both BIBFRAME and MARC standards while taking into consideration the various language communities and their needs. After identifying and reviewing the various language coding standards, the Task Group has recommended several options for coding languages to support the cataloging community as it transitions from MARC to BIBFRAME and a linked data environment, while also providing a broader choice of languages.
The final report can be found on the PCC website: https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/taskgroup/BABEL-Final-Report.docx and is now available for comments. While the PCC understands there are outstanding implementation issues, we would like interested parties to read the report and provide comments with an eye toward implementation.
The PCC is looking for volunteers to test use of the codes in both MARC and BIBFRAME.
For MARC cataloging, test:
Use of ISO 639-3 codes in MARC bibliographic and authority records in 041 and 377 fields in OCLC and local systems
For BIBFRAME cataloging, test:
- Use of ISO 639-3 to replace MARC language codes in other areas (for example for language of cataloging)
- Use of ISO 15924 for script of the resource
- Use of BCP 47 to tag literals with language and script and potentially romanization
We hope that the testers can bring any questions/issues that come up in implementation to the PCC, as well as provide any best practices they would recommend. If you are interested in participating in this feasibility testing, please contact Ed Jones, Co-chair, PCC Standing Committee on Standards (ejo...@nu.edu) by Friday, July 31. Preliminary expressions of interest are welcome; detailed testing plans can follow at a later date.
With kind regards,
Jennifer
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Jennifer Baxmeyer (she/her)
Chair, Program for Cooperative Cataloging
Interim Assistant University Librarian for Metadata Services
Princeton University Library
693 Alexander Road
Princeton NJ 08540
b...@princeton.edu | 609.258.3631