MARC 300 Physical Description

Revision as of 21:50, 14 June 2017 by DeborahLeslie (talk | contribs) (building page)
Ambox notice.png This article is known to be incomplete.


MARC field 300 in the bibliographic format contains physical description of the described item, including its extent, dimensions, and other physical details, such as the presence and type of illustrations, description of any accompanying materials, and unit type and size. This field is repeatable.

Basic use and searching

Basic use

  • [Brief instructions]

Searching

  • [indicate whether the field is searchable in Hamnet drop-downs, or only in the staff module and Command Line search]

Commonly-used tags

Indicators

Undefined

Subfield delimiters

ǂa Extent

ǂb Other physical details

ǂc Dimensions and bibliographic format

  • Give height of binding or container in centimeters, rounding up to the next centimeter
  • Also give width, if
    • item is a single-sheet item
    • item is wider than it is high
    • item's height is at least twice its width
  • Give bibliographic format in parentheses after the dimensions , if
    • it is a printed textual item from the hand-press period (before 1830 or so)
    • it is a printed textual item from the machine-press period (after 1830 or so), and format can be confirmed by visible sewing at the center of gatherings
      • presence of signatures without confirmation of sewn gatherings does not bestow sufficient confidence for identification of format
      • beware publisher's identification of format, which is usually based on size rather than being an expression of how the original sheet was imposed and folded
  • Note: bibliographic format is defined as the proportion of a leaf to the original sheet of paper; therefore, a single sheet that is 1/2 (or 1/4, &c.) the size of the original sheet is still a folio (4to, &c.)
  • Common bibliographic format abbreviations (see DCRM(B) / RDA for a more complete list)
    • (full-sheet)
    • (fol.) [RDA = (folio)]
    • (4to)
    • (oblong 4to) [common in scores]
    • (8vo)
    • (12mo)
    • (long 12mo)
    • (16mo)
    • (18mo)
    • (24mo)
    • (long 24mo)
  • Make a note about anomalous characteristics of format, for example
    • for hand-press items, if chainlines run in the opposite direction because the paper came from a head-to-tail double mold
    • for machine-press items, if signatures and actual gatherings (as determined by visible sewing) do not correspond

ǂe Accompanying material

ǂ3 Materials specified

Examples

300 __ |a [8], 137, [5], 138-214, 216-244, 244-273 leaves ; |c 29 cm (fol.)


External links