Future machine-readable cataloguing format for South African libraries

A South African Machine-Readable Cataloguing (SAMARC) format based on UNIMARC was developed in the late 1970s. Since its inception SAMARC has been used extensively as national exchange format within the South African information community. However, due to various factors a need has arisen to clarify the future of SAMARC. Initiated by the Interim Committee for Bibliographic Organisation (ICBO), an investigation was undertaken to determine whether UNIMARC or USMARC should replace SAMARC, or whether the latter should be retained. SAMARC, UNIMARC and USMARC were compared regarding scope, purpose, updating, technical aspects, current status, strengths and weaknesses. Various scenarios were drawn up and the implications of each scenario for the various stakeholders were investigated. A cost benefit study was also included to evaluate the cost of conversion as well as the cost-effectiveness over the long term. Based on the information obtained, various recommendations were made regarding a future MARC format for South Africa. The report of the investigation was submitted to ICBO and all delegates attending a seminar on a future MARC format for South Africa, which was held in Pretoria on 24 and 25 April 1997. The decisions and conclusions of the seminar are also included in the article.


Background information
In the 1960s the Library of Congress decided to computerize its own cataloguing procedures and to supply a computerized cataloguing service to other libraries.In doing so the Library of Congress created a Machine-Readable Cataloguing (MARC) format for catalogue records that could be interpreted by a computer.The format, known as LCMARC (later as USMARC) had considerable impact on the development of computerized library and information services, co-operative cataloguing and library networks.
It was now possible to exchange bibliographic descriptions in a machine-readable form between various computerized library systems, because the MARC format served as a common format, which is a prerequisite for such exchanges.The MARC format as used in the United States, served as a basis for the development of similar formats in other countries.For various reasons each country saw fit to adapt the LCMARC format to local conditions and needs.Examples are BNBMARC which developed into UKMARC, CANMARC and AUSMARC.Thirty national MARC formats exist throughout the world, many of which are based on either USMARC or UKMARC (Kokabi 1995:22).
With the proliferation of national formats and increasing record exchange activities with growing conversion diffi-culties, the International Association of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) appointed a working group to develop a comprehensive universal exchange format that encompassed universal format requirements, and that provided a high level of compatibility with existing national formats.The result was the development of an international version of MARC (called UNIMARC) in 1977, nine years after the creation of LCMARC.Countries could use UNIMARC as a standard on which they could base their own format.Regrettably it was too late to have it adopted as the only exchange format, as too many applications were already using LC-MARC or one of the other formats.
A South African MARC format, known as SAMARC and based on UNIMARC, was developed in the late 1970s by order of the National Library Advisory Committee.Since its inception SAMARC has been used extensively as exchange format within the South African library community.The format was also implemented as the base format for various commercial and in-house library systems.
After 17 years a need has arisen to clarify the future of SAMARC.The political transformation in South Africa has led to the re-establishment of normal relations with just about every country in the world.This presents opportunities for access to the world's information sources as well as the http://sajlis.journals.ac.za/ exchange of bibliographic records.Dwindling resources and the spiraUing costs forced libraries to find ways of cooperating in the most effective way.Cost-effective cooperation requires the use of a common exchange format to support common understanding and the processing of the records received.Libraries realize that the more they conform to an international standard, the cheaper and more efficient the downloading of records wiU be.The rapid improvement of information technology also has implications for a MARC format for South Africa.South African libraries realize that they have to capitalize on the advances in information technology to bring more information, to more people, in a shorter time.Other factors which have led to the questioning of the suitability of SAMARC, include, among others, the cost of maintaining it and the inability of SAMARC to keep pace with the new requirements of the South African information community.The possible unification of the library and information associations of South Africa could also have an impact on the maintenance and further development of SA-MARC.Presently the editor of SAM ARC is assisted by the SAMARC Subcommittee of the South African Institute for Librarianship and Information Science (SAlLIS).
For these and several other reasons, an investigation, initiated by the Interim Committee for Bibliographic Organisation (lCBO), was undertaken to determine whether UNIMARC or US MARC should replace SAMARC, or whether the latter should be retained.The report of the investigation was submitted to ICBO and aU delegates attending a seminar on a future MARC format for South African libraries held in Pretoria on 24 and 25 April 1997.This article is an abstract of the results of the investigation.It also includes the decisions taken and conclusions reached during the seminar.

Methodology
Various stakeholders who could be influenced by the change of the MARC format, were identified.These include: -South African libraries and information centres with computerized catalogues based on SAMARC; that utilize the facilities of Sabinet Online; and that are interested in co-operative acquisition and cataloguing, online searching, resource sharing and the downloading of records.
-Sabinet Online, of which the main databases are standardized according to SAMARC.
-South African-based system vendors who supply and support various library and information management systems based on a MARC format.
Data was col1ected by means of -The study of relevant documentation (inter alia recent subject literature pertaining to the three MARC formats, correspondence about the subject, minutes of meetings of relevant bodies, et cetera) and details obtained by means of written responses to questions stated in letters to various officials, system vendors and persons involved in the various South African consortia.
-Face-to-face and telephonic interviews with system vendors, librarians, staff members of Sabinet Online and the editor of SAMARC.
-A questionnaire distributed via Sabilist and LibraryNet to determine inter alia the country from which most of the information sources in South African libraries are currently obtained.
SAMARC, UNIMARC and USMARC were compared regarding scope, purpose, updating, technical aspects, current status, strengths and weaknesses.Three scenarios were drawn up.
-SAMARC is retained as national exchange format.
-US MARC replaces SAMARC as exchange format.
The implications of each scenario for the various stakeholders were investigated, as wel1 as the processes that should be foUowed for the effective use of the format.A cost benefit study was also included to evaluate the cost of conversion as weU as the cost-effectiveness over the long term.Based on the information obtained, various recommendations were made regarding a future MARC format for South African libraries.

Comparison: SAMARC, UNIMARC and US MARC
Comparing SAMARC, UNIMARC and USMARC regarding scope, purpose, updating, technical aspects, current status, strengths and weaknesses, the fol1owing conclusions were reached:

Scope and purpose
SAMARC is the accepted South African standard record format for the exchange of bibliographic data in machinereadable form between libraries and information centres in South and Southern Africa.It is not intended to be used for the exchange of authority records.A SAMARC authority format stiU has to be developed to cater for the effective exchange of authority records.
UNIMARC is the format IFLA developed and approved for the international exchange of bibliographic and authority data in machine-readable form.Formats exist for bibliographic and authority records.UNIMARC, although adopted as a national format in many countries, was designed primarily as an exchange format to accommodate different standards for bibliographic input and to cater for al1 the idiosyncrasies of existing national formats.The UN/MARC/Authorities also enables the international exchange of authority data in machine-readable form.
USMARC is the coUective name for the various MARC communication formats in the United States.US MARC formats are defined for bibliographic, authority and holdings/ locations data as weU as community information and classification data.The USMARCformatfor bibliographic data is designed to hold bibliographic records for books, serials, archival and manuscripts materials, computer files, maps, http://sajlis.journals.ac.za/ music and visual materials (including artefacts, kits and audiovisual items).It represents an integrated format for the identification and description of different forms of bibliographic materials (Gredley & Hopkinson 1990: 153).The USMARC format for authority data has been created to allow specific data in an authority record to be identified for machine manipulation.The authority format allows authority records to be exchanged without the need to also exchange bibliographic records.It therefore facilitates the independent exchange of authority data (Gredley & Hopkinson 1990: 158).
The USMARC format for holdings data contains the specification for encoding data elements pertinent to holdings and location of all forms of materia!.The format is designed to be used independently (Gredley & Hopkinson 1990:160).
The USMARC format for community information allows the description of programmes, services, organizations, individuals, et cetera about which people in a community might want information (Bruns 1992:387).The USMARC format for classification data contains specifications for the conversion of classification data in machine-readable form.It allows the communication of classification records between systems and provides for the storage of classification data in the computer.Both the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) and the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) are accommodated in the format (Guenther 1994: 199-202).
From the description above it is quite clear that SAMARC is a format for the exchange of bibliographic data, while UNIMARC and USMARC also provide for the exchange of other types of data.Both UNIMARC and USMARC have developed an exchange format for authority data.USMARC has gone even further by developing formats for holdings/ locations data, community information and classification data.

Updating
In March 1980 the first edition of SAMARC: South African national format for the exchange of machine-readable bibliographic descriptions was published by the National Library Advisory Council of South Africa.The first edition (corrected) was published in 1982.Since 1.982, the revision of the SAM ARC format has become the responsibility of the Committee for Bibliographic Control of SALLIS.The second, revised edition was made available in draft form by the State Library in 1993 under the title SAMARC manual and was distributed to a number of cataloguers during a SAMARC Workshop.The SAMARC manual has been further revised and published in 1995.
There is no proper infrastructure for the regular updating of SAMARC.Updating is done on a part-time basis with the assistance of the SAMARC Working Group appointed by the Subcommittee for Bibliographic Standards of the Committee for Bibliographic Control of SALLIS.
Both UNIMARC and USMARC are subject to continuous revision and they both have a proper infrastructure for the updating and maintenance of their formats.The Permanent UNIMARC Committee (PUC), established in 1991, is in charge of the maintenance, revISIon and promotion of the UNIMARC format.PUC accepts ideas for review and/or updating from any source.After careful examination and discussion, those proposals considered as consistent and of priority are approved at PUC meetings, held once a year.Approved changes, updates and specifications are usually published within six to nine months after the PUC meeting at which approval took place.These eventually take the form of 'UNIMARC documentation updates' and are distributed through the IFLA UBCIM programme and advertised in International cataloguing & bibliographic control (lCBC), a quarterly journal of the IFLA UBCIM programme (Permanent UNIMARC Committee 1992:51-52).
The responsibility for reviewing and revising the US-MARC formats rests jointly with the Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) and the US-MARC Advisory Group.MARBI is a committee of the American Library Association (ALA), and is composed of three representatives from each of the three functionorientated divisions of ALA, namely the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) and the Reference and Adult Services Division (RASD).The US-MARC Advisory Committee is composed of representatives from the national libraries, bibliographic utilities, vendor groups and other library and scholarly associations.Proposals for changes in formats and other matters for discussion are submitted to joint meetings of MARBI and the US MARC Advisory Group at each ALA conference (annual and midwinter).The USMARC is updated twice a year and amendments and changes are regularly reported in the Library of Congress information bulletins and in USMARC format: proposed changes, available on subscription from the Library of Congress (Furrie 1994: 10).

Technical aspects
The formats (SAMARC, UNIMARC, UNIMARC/Authorities and the various US MARC formats) consist of three elements, namely record structure, content designation and data content of the record.
Due to the connection of all three formats with ISO 2709, there is a similarity between the formats with regard to structure and content designation.Regarding content, it was clear from the comparison of the bibliographic formats that SAMARC and UNIMARC are closely related in technical terms and that there are considerable technical differences between SAMARC and UNIMARC on the one side, and US-MARC on the other side.Some of the differences in the functional blocks are reflected in Table 1.
SAMARC and UNIMARC on the one hand and US MARC on the other hand, use a number of identical tags for different purposes, for example field 300 in SAMARC and UNIMARC is defined for notes, while in USMARC it is used for physical description.
SAMARC, UNIMARC and USMARC classify 'access points' into two groups, namely main entries and added  In contrast to UNIMARC and USMARC, SAMARC does not have an authority format.From the comparison of the basic record structure of UN/MARC/Authorities and the USMARC format for authority data, it was clear that they are closely related regarding structure.This is illustrated in the following example: As mentioned previously, USMARC has additional formats, namely for holdings data, community information and classification data, which do not apply to SAMARC and UNIMARC.
There are differences in the number of functional blocks as well as the meaning of some of the tags.These differences can clearly be seen in Table 2 .
In the UNIMARC format forenames are separately subfielded while this is not the case with USMARC, for example:  UNIMARC enjoys widespread support in Europe, Asia and parts of Latin America (McKercher & Chang 1995:21).From a study conducted by Campos, Lopes and Galvao (1995:445-459) it became clear that, at the level of national bibliographic services, UNIMARC is achieving significant use in Europe as a national and exchange format.As far as library networks in Europe are concerned, UNIMARC is the most used exchange format, followed by USMARC.Library systems currently used or available in Europe also show a good level of support for UNIMARC, along with US MARC and UKMARC.UNIMARC is also the preferred format for projects funded by the European Commission.In the USEMarcon project, a software package capable of converting bibliographic records from any MARC format into any other MARC format, UNIMARC serves as the central conversion format (Campos, Lopes & Galvao 1995:447).
The USMARC format is in use worldwide and it is still gaining ground.Just recently Australia and Thailand have changed to US MARC.Regarding library systems in Europe, support is in favour of US MARC followed by UKMARC and UNIMARC (Campos, Lopes & Galvao 1995:455-458).USMARC is also the base format for North American commercial systems; national bibliographic utilities such as the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and Research Library Information Network (RUN) and the prescribed core bibliographic records for different types of library materials.US MARC plays an important role in the harmonization of US MARC, CANMARC and UKMARC, as well as in the Name Authority Co-operative (NACO) and the Subject Authority Co-operative (SACO) which facilitate the standard form of headings and which results in the consistent use of authority headings in bibliographic records by cataloguers worldwide.OCLC is also in the midst of developing a conversion facility between UNIMARC and USMARC and vice versa.The aim is to batchload UNIMARC records into World Cat, the OCLC online union catalogue.
In contrast to UNIMARC, various utilities are available for USMARC, many of which are available as freeware.US-MARC has a field for Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and the concise versions of the various USMARC formats are available on the Internet.UNIMARC is still behind regarding the recording of materials on the Internet.

Strengths and weaknesses
As a national exchange format, SAMARC satisfies the specific needs of the South African community, for example it provides for the cataloguing of multi-lingual material.However, SAMARC does not keep pace with the new requirements of the South African libraries.Although a need was expressed at various occasions for an authority and holdings format, these formats do not exist in SAMARC.It also does not cater for the description of electronic resources and the accommodation of the International Standard Music Number.
UNIMARC has been developed by representatives from organizations and national cataloguing committees of 16 countries.Most of the representatives involved in developing UNIMARC are experts on their national MARC formats.
McCallum (Majumder 1992: 19) of the Library of Congress rightly observed that 'UNIMARC was not simply an adoption of one group's format but a true international effort'.UNIMARC appears to be a good standard, providing both a bibliographic and an authority format that are totalIy compatible and linkable.An important aspect of UNIMARC is its stability and flexibility.The existing UNIMARC structure should remain relatively stable.The structure is more flexible than that of the other MARC formats, especialIy in the encoding of access points and the interrelation between separate records of various categories (Varniene 1995:9).UNIMARC is specificalIy designed to handle multi-lingual materials and this feature is particularly useful in countries where different languages are not unusual (Kokabi 1995: 10).
However, as an international format, UNIMARC has to cater for all the idiosyncrasies of existing national formats.For this reason, the UNIMARC format contains some redundancy.A certain amount of overlap exists between uniform titles, collective uniform titles, uniform conventional headings and topical names used as subjects (Gredley & Hopkinson 1990: 193).
USMARC cataloguing records are available worldwide.This facilitates shared cataloguing and eliminates duplication of effort.USMARC includes more detailed information and covers a more comprehensive data environment.It also keeps pace with the needs and demands of the library community.As mentioned previously, USMARC has a field for URLs in order to record material on the Internet.
On the negative side the USMARC formats have a large degree of redundancy.The redundancy is uneconomical and leads to unnecessary complexity.According to Leazar (1992: 202) the redundancy is in many cases a pure repetition of data present elsewhere.As the integration of the bibliographic formats only occurred in the past few years, it may happen that problems might occur for which there is no immediate solution.Many of the valuable links that UNIMARC seeks to establish are not presently coded in the USMARC records.In contrast to UNIMARC and SAMARC, USMARC does not cater for the multi-lingual nature of library and information communities.

Scenarios
For each of the three proposed scenarios the implications for the various stakeholders were spelled out, as well as the processes that should be folIowed for the effective use of the format.The financial implications were also investigated.Should SAMARC be retained, libraries wilI continue with their activities as usual.However, for SAMARC to keep pace with international developments and the requirements of South African libraries, additional formats will have to be developed and provision wilI have to be made for the recording of electronic materials.The updating wilI have to take place on a regular basis, and for this purpose a SA-MARC office wilI be required with a fulI-time qualified staff member, supported by a group of experts.The main databases of Sabinet Online continue to be standardized according to SAMARC, and Sabinet Online continues to convert US-MARC records to SAMARC for inclusion in SACAT.SA-MARC continues to be the base format for South African library systems.However, the system vendors wilI be expected to keep track of alI the new developments and changes which inevitably have to take place should SAMARC be retained as national exchange format.
If UNIMARC or USMARC should replace SAMARC as national exchange format, conversion programs (SAMARC to UNIMARC and vice versa, or SAMARC to US MARC) wilI have to be created.Although hardware wilI not have to be replaced, library and information systems wilI have to be adapted to accommodate either UNIMARC or US MARC.Retrospective conversion of records wilI have to take place regardless of whether libraries continue with SAMARC in the interim or changeover to UNIMARC or US MARC immediately.Very close co-operation between Sabinet Online and its users wilI be required to ensure consistency of applying the UNIMARC/Authorities or the various US-MARC formats on previous SAMARC records.Sabinet Online will have to make provision for an interim period in which their member libraries can add or download records in either the alternative MARC formats or SAMARC, as not all libraries wilI be able to switch to UNIMARC or USMARC immediately.A South African-based MARC office wilI have to be established to serve, inter alia, as central co-ordinating point for receiving and distributing information on changes and amendments to UNIMARC or US MARC, for training in the new format and for receiving and relaying of proposals from the South African library community to the Permanent UNIMARC Committee (PUC) or the Network Development and MARC Standard Office for incorporation in either UNIMARC or US MARC.One qualified staffmember should be appointed on a part-time basis.South African system vendors may experience competition seeing that UNIMARC or USMARC-based systems can be bought directly from overseas suppliers.This may have financial implications for South African companies.
Comparing the cost of the three scenarios it was found that both UNIMARC and US MARC implementation would be more costly than the retention of SAMARC.However, the http://sajlis.journals.ac.za/ operating cost of SAMARC will be substantially higher than the case would be for UNIMARC and USMARC.Calculating the total cost over the longer term for each scenario it was found that the total cost of running SAMARC will overtake the total cost of either scenario 2 or 3 already in the second year, and viewed over a period of ten years, SAMARC will be two and half times more costly than either of the other two formats (Snyman 1997:44).

Recommendations
After a thorough analysis of the information obtained during the investigation, it was recommended that, through a careful transition process SAMARC should be replaced by an international exchange format, preferably US MARC.The reasons for this recommendation were: -The general movement away from the development of customized national formats.Libraries tend to use UNI-MARC and US MARC as they are.-The lack of an infrastructure for the maintenance and development of SAMARC and the cost involved in the creation of such an infrastructure.-The markedly higher total cost of maintaining SAMARC in comparison with the alternative solution (UNIMARC or USMARC).Although UNIMARC appeared to be the option with the lowest cost, the benefits in favour of USMARC would outweigh the slight cost advantage of UNIMARC.The reasons are: -South African libraries are experiencing a decline in funding and have to cut back on original cataloguing.UNIMARC enjoys widespread support in Europe, Asia and parts of Latin America.However, the results of the questionnaire showed that the United States and United Kingdom are the countries from which South African libraries mostly obtained their information sources.Conversion programs also exist between UKMARC and USMARC and vice versa.When both the USEMarcon and OCLC projects have taken root, records in any MARC format may be available in USMARC format.It will be more cost-effective for South African libraries to copy records in USMARC format rather than to convert them to another format.Ultimately, original cataloguing will only be needed for some foreign publications and items published in South Africa.
Although both UNIMARC and USMARC endeavour to keep pace with developments and requirements of the information community, US MARC is a more dynamic format.The concise versions of the US MARC formats are available on the Internet.USMARC also has a field for URLs to locate material on the Internet.UNIMARC is still far behind in this respect.
Both UNIMARC and USMARC have a proper infrastructure for the revision and updating of their formats.However, the Permanent UNIMARC Committee in charge of the maintenance, revision and updating of the UNIMARC format meets only once a year.Proposals for changes to USMARC formats are submitted to joint meetings of MARBI and the USMARC Advisory Group at each ALA conference which takes place twice a year.Delays in the updating of SAMARC have created a sensitivity among South African librarians for regular updating of an exchange format.
-A need for the exchangeability of all the parts of the record, in other words the bibliographic record, authority record and holdings data, exists in South Africa.Although both UNIMARC and US MARC have bibliographic and authority formats, UNIMARC still lacks a format for holdings data.
-USMARC-based library and information systems are moving into the South African market.Some South African libraries and consortia are currently investigating (or have already decided on) an American system.Even in Europe support is in favour of USMARC-based systems.
-A need exists in South Africa for a core bibliographic record.US MARC serves as the basis for the development of prescribed bibliographic records for different types of library materials.
There is lack of interest in Library of Congress records available in UNIMARC.The Library of Congress was involved in the development of UNIMARC in the early 1980s and provided records for customers in UNIMARC.There were never more than three customers for this service.After a while only one remained and now there is none (Barry 1997).
South African libraries experience problems with authority files and quality control.In order to upgrade the quality of records on SACat, Sabinet Online has to take several actions, for example the matching of the interim records on SACat with the Library of Congress database to upgrade the records.Records available in USMARC will facilitate the outsourcing of the authority files cleanup operation, as fewer clean-up operations will be needed.
-Although the majority of the respondents to the questionnaire are using SAMARC, most favoured the adoption of US MARC.
The conversion to USMARC will not be without problems and difficulties.Problems which may be experienced include, among others: -The adjustments regarding the authority and holdings files.Data in bibliographic files in SAMARC has to be placed in authority and holding files.
-Both SAMARC and USMARC follow the ISO 2709 standard.Thus the conversion of records from SAMARC to USMARC should not substantially affect the leader, directory or record identifier.With regard to the rest of the tagged fields, identifiers and indicators there are nevertheless important differences between SAMARC and US MARC which may cause problems during conversion.
-The investment in time and money for the retrospective conversion of records and the purchase of USMARC manuals may be quite substantial.
-Format traInIng will be required for which limited expertise exists in South Africa.
-In contrast to SAM ARC and UNIMARC, which are specifically designed to handle multi-lingual materials, USMARC does not cater for the multi-lingual nature of the South African communities.
Various recommendations were made for the implementation of USMARC.These include among others the following: -A steering committee should be established, consisting of representatives of all the stakeholders to give guidance during the transition period.A representative of a national library should chair the committee.
-A transition programme which will accommodate stakeholders' interests should be compiled by the steering committee.All the subsets of the transition process should be identitied and entered in a guide-plan document for distribution.
A MARC office should be established from where the transition and future MARC activities should be administered.The staff member of the MARC office should be co-opted on the steering committee to act as secretariat and administrative officer.The MARC office should also distribute a progress report on a regular basis to all concerned.For that purpose all stakeholders should provide the MARC office with feedback on progress on a regular basis.A help desk should also be established at the MARC office to provide information as well as channelling enquiries for expert advice.
-A ListServer should be established and hosted by Sabinet Online so that problems and progress could be discussed by all concerned.
-A conversion program for the conversion of SAMARC records to US MARC should be created.Sabinet Online should be responsible for the creation of the program, and the cost should be shared by Sabinet Online and all those utilizing the program.
-The conversion of local systems and databases to USMARC will have to take place.This should be the responsibility of the individual libraries and the system vendors.Cost should be borne by the libraries.It is also important that every library which utilizes SAMARC should plan to convert to US MARC with the guideplan mentioned above as directive.
-Sabinet Online should continue to exchange records in SAMARC format for an agreed-upon interim period while USMARC is being established.Sabinet Online, should in collaboration with its member libraries, define the interim period. -

Seminar conclusion and decisions
The recommendations of the research report for the adoption of USMARC as national exchange format has been accepted by the delegates of the seminar.The final conclusions were voted upon, and 76% of the delegates favour US MARC.While most delegates sensed the value of US MARC as the future exchange format for South Africa, some delegates were uneasy about change for no fundamental reason other than the uncertainty and cost of change.
In addition to the recommended implementation processes indicated in the research report, the delegates also felt that: -The MARC office should be the only liaison office with the Network Development and MARC Standard Office of the Library of Congress.
-A national policy regarding USMARC fields which should be included or excluded in South African records, should be formulated.
Although some delegates felt that more time is needed to prepare the South African library and information community for a new format, the general feeling was that implementation should take place as soon as possible, as further delays will aggravate the existing gap between the South African and international information exchange possibilities.The longer the delay, the more the South African information community will find itself in turmoil as technology moves on.

Conclusion
The SAMARC format was originally developed in the light of the circumstances of the time and in the best interest of South Africa.However, circumstances have changed.The political transformation has led to the re-establishment of normal relations internationally.Participation internationally necessitates the utilization of an international exchange format.
The replacement of SAM ARC with USMARC will take time and money, and will not be without difficulties.This, however, is only a matter of concern over the short term.Over the long term the benefits of opting for USMARC will outweigh the short-term concerns by far.
In USMARC the main entries are in I xx, for example 100 (Personal name), 110 (Corporate name), III (Meeting name) and 130 (Uniform title).The added entries are mostly in the xOO,x I0, x II, x30, x40, x50 areas, for example: 600 (Subject added entry -Personal name) 610 (Subject added entry -Corporate name) 611 (Subject added entry -Meeting name) 630 (Subject added entry -Uniform title) 650 (Subject added entry -Topical name) 700 (Added entry -Personal name) 710 (Added entry -Corporate name) 711 (Added entry -Meeting name) 730 (Added entry -Uniform title) , as seen in the following example, is that USMARC defines two separate field types for headings for corporate bodies and conferences (meetings) (tags xlO and xii).UNIMARC collapses these into a single field (x 10) whose character is then specified by the first indicator.The first indicator (0 = Corporate name, I = Meeting name) specifies whether it is a corporate name or conference (meeting).The second indicator specities the entry order of the elements in a name and is analogous to the first indicator of USMARC's x 10 and x II, for example: /sajlis.journals.ac.za/ A training programme for US MARC should be organized to ensure that as wide as possible a base of cataloguers become familiar with the new format.It was suggested that a representative group should firstly be trained by a USMARC expert, be it a person from the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress or a competent local person trained in the United States.

Table 1
Comparison of the functional blocks of the SAMARC, UNIMARC and USMARC bibliographic formats entries.However, the way SAMARC and UNIMARC handle these 'access points' differs from the way it is dealt with by USMARC.In SAMARC and UNIMARC the main entries are supplied by primary (intellectual) responsibility fields in the 7xx area, plus the title and uniform title statement fields in the 200 and 500 fields.Added entries are: variant/related title block area (5xx), series area (4xx), subject heading area (6xx) and alternative/secondary intellectual responsibility fields in the 7xx area.

Table 2
Comparison between the functional blocks of UN/MARC/Authorities and the USMARC format for authority data