Why Create a MARC Data DTD?
Assumptions I want to state three assumptions as a basis for the following discussion. The assumptions indicate continuing need for catalogs of bibliographic records, even though new, non-catalog uses for cataloging data may have given rise to this MARC Data DTD effort. First, in the future there will continue to be both electronic publications and items in other media, including an enormous number of print materials. I say this because when working in the SGML environment, it is easy to begin to focus on electronic items as if everything is or will soon be available to end users electronically. That is not the case, although the number of important (and unimportant) electronic documents certainly will increase. SGML markup is used to create documents to be disseminated electronically as well as those that will be distributed only in print form. The second assumption is that in the future catalogs that bring together data about items, i.e., cataloging or metadata, will continue to be e
