Overview
About MARC 21 Formats
MARC 21, with its five formats, is the most used standard worldwide for documenting and exchanging bibliographic, authority, holdings, classification and community information in a machine-readable form. It is also the most widely supported encoding standard by integrated library systems.
MARC 21 has proven to be highly effective in organizing enormous metadata quantities, providing effective bibliographic and authority control, supporting all library functions, and meeting the needs of both the library and the user.
Using the MARC 21 standard prevents duplication of cataloguers work and allows libraries to better share bibliographic data. It also enables libraries to make use of commercially available library automation systems to manage library operations.
MARC 21 formats resulted from merging United States and Canadian MARC formats (USMARC and CAN/MARC) in 1997. They are maintained and continuously updated by the Library of Congress to cope with latest developments in bibliographic control and cataloging rules.
MARC 21 Formats in Arabic