008 - Sound Recordings, Musical Scores, and 006 tags

At the end of last month I covered the character positions (aka bytes) in the 008 tag that are consistent regardless of the Type of Record code and Bibliographic Level code in the leader. 

Today I am going to talk about what you will find in bytes 18-34 in a record for a sound recording or musical score. I am covering both because they are identical.

Records in the REC format will have a Type code of "j" (musical sound recording) or "i" (non-musical sound recording) in the leader and a BLvl code of "a" (monographic component part), "b" (serial component part), "c" (collection), "d" (subunit), "i" (integrating resource), "m" (monograph), or "s" (serial). 

Records in the SCO format will have a type code of "c" (notated music) or "d" (manuscript notated music).

Within the 008 tag of a REC or a SCO record the specific positions indicated contain these elements:

• 18-19: contains a 2-character code, from MARC Form of Musical Composition Codes,  indicating the form of composition
  
  
• 20: indicates the format of music -- for a sound recording this will be "n" (not applicable)
  
  
• 21: indicates the music part -- for a sound recording this will be "n" (not applicable)
  
  
• 22: the intellectual level of the audience for which the work is intended (preschoolers, specialists, etc.)
   
• 23: the form of the work (microfilm, large print, etc.) - blank means it is none of the specific formats for which there is a code which is what you will typically see on a sound recording record
  
  
• 24-29: the nature of the accompanying matter - up to 6 codes are used to identify the types of material that accompany the sound records (discographies, historical information, instruction materials, etc.)
  
  
• 30-31: indicates the type of literary text recorded on spoken word sound recording (this position will be blank for musical recordings)
  
  
• 32: this position is not currently defined
  
  
• 33: indicates the transposition and arrangement of notated music -- for a sound recording this will be "n" (not applicable)
  
  
• 34: this position is not currently defined

This post comes with a bonus -- the 006 tag which is used for the "additional" characteristics of an item that cannot be coded in the fixed field. For example, you might find in field 006 the serial-related information of a sound recording that is issued as a serial. The first position (0) of the 006 contains the type code for that aspect of the item being coded and the other positions (1-17) correspond to positions 18-34 of the 008 tag. This parallel definition is true for all the formats so what you have learned over the past few weeks applies to the 006 tags beginning with those type codes as well.