Representation in the bibliographic domain: a look at MARC 21 Formats

Information representation has been done in several domains, one of which is the bibliographic domain, where information representation is based on instruments, principles, models and technologies, such as metadata standards and encodings. Among the standards used in the bibliographic domain, there are MARC 21 Formats that were created in 1960s. Considering the widespread use of these standards, we aim to (1) highlight the purposes that led to the creation of MARC 21 Formats, (2) present the features of record encoding in these standards and (3) discuss the main criticism about their current situation. To achieve these goals, we conducted a literature review about the origins of MARC and its development for MARC 21 and also about records encoding. Thus, we present the encoding with the XML and the MARCXML schema, as well as the criticism about MARC 21 Formats. We conclude that, despite the criticism, MARC 21 Formats are still widespread used and disseminated. We also conclude that, despite the advantages offered by XML, the encoding with ISO 2709, created for data interchange by using magnetic tape in 1960s, is still used.