Shortly after G.K. Hall purchased the Professional Librarian Series from Knowledge Industry, the series editor asked me whether the time was ripe for a revised version of MARC for Library Use, which was still selling reasonably well. I responded that the completion of format integration (moving from a group of format-specific MARC formats to one integrated USMARC format) would be a good time to do that.
To some extent, a secondary motivation for the original book was to promote the idea of format integration. RLG staff began preparing proposals for such integration in 1984 and worked with others (at OCLC, LC and elsewhere) to refine those proposals over the years. The proposals were turned into reality during the MARBI sessions at Midwinter and Annual 1988—but, after having worked on the proposals for years, I was not at those two MARBI sessions. Because of changes in my position at RLG and other factors, I declined reappointment to MARBI for 1987-89 and moved from being an active participant to an interested observer.
Thus the subtitle of the second edition: Understanding Integrated USMARC. I refreshed and updated the earlier material—and also added occurrence tables for commonly-used fields in each material type, based on the test runs done for Bibliographic Displays in the Online Catalog and a new test run of over 600,000 records done in August 1988.
In addition to extensive updates and refinement, the second edition also added a chapter on format integration and a chapter on nonroman text (with samples from RLG cataloging, since RLG was a leader in establishing nonroman character sets, eventually working with a number of companies to establish UNICODE).
I’m guessing that most of you (if there are many of you!) who’ve seen or used MARC for Library Use used this edition—a 6″ x 9″ 358-page book (hardcover and paperback). It appeared in 1989. It did very well.
A note on production: While I’m pretty sure I produced camera-ready copy for some of my earlier books, I’m 100% certain of that in this case: there’s a colophon on the last page. It was set in Zapf Calligraphic, an updated version of Palatino designed by Hermann Zapf (who designed Palatino) for Bitstream as one of a series optimized for digital typography. Except for a few figures (added later), I prepared all pages using Ventura Publisher and an HP LaserJet Series II printer. (In some ways, I miss Ventura Publisher—but it didn’t play well with Windows, especially after Corel took it over. I do not miss the brutally expensive HP LaserJet, which ran hot and noisy, but it produced high-quality typography at a time when that was difficult to do on a budget.)
Crawford, Walt. MARC for Library Use, Second Edition: Understanding Integrated USMARC. Professional Librarian Series. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989. ISBN 0-8161-1887-6. ISBN 0-8161-1889-2 (pbk.)
