MARC and metadata - METS, MODS, and MARCXML : Current and Future Implications

This paper describes the MARCXML architecture implemented at the Library of Congress. It gives an overview of the component pieces of the architecture, including the MARCXML schema and the MARCXML toolkit, while giving a brief tutorial on their use. Several different applications of the architecture and tools are discussed to illustrate the features of the toolkit being developed thus far. Nearly any metadata format can take advantage of the features of the toolkit, and the process of the toolkit enabling a new format is discussed. Finally, this paper intends to foster new ideas with regards to the transformation of descriptive metadata, especially using XML tools. In this paper the following conventions will be used: MARC21 will refer to MARC 21 records in the ISO 2709 record structure used today; MARCXML will refer to MARC 21 records in an XML structure.