Adding geographic coordinates to authority records

Posted to MAPS-L on March 7, 2008, by Colleen Cahill, Digital Conversion Coordinator at the Library of Congress.

The Map and Geography Round Table of ALA successfully got MARBI to
add the 034 field to the Authority Format. This is in the MARC format now
and includes a subfield for date, for as we all know, geographic
coordinates can change over time.

The Library of Congress is awaiting the acceptance of the 034 in the
authority format by various ILS providers, including our own, Voyager.
Once that is in place, we will investigate loading bounding box
coordinates for locations; by this I mean 4 points (northern most,
southern most, eastern most and western most). For cities and smaller
areas, we are considering a center point, as the boundaries change rapidly
in such locations. All this is in the planning stage and there is not a
firm timeline. We certainly do want to use a batch load for as much of
this process as possible.

Colleen
Colleen R. Cahill | CCAH@LOC.GOV
Digital Conversion Coordinator | (202)707-8540
& Recommending Officer for | FAX (202)707-8531
Science Fiction & Fantasy | Library of Congress
These opinions are mine, Mine, Mine! | Washington, DC 20540-465