Henriette Avram - MARC

MARC

MARC, MAchine-Readable Cataloging, is the method by which paper-and-ink card catalogs were converted to computer catalogs. This automated library systems, in turn greatly enhancing the feasibility of interlibrary lending and paving the way for networking capabilities. Avram was a key figure in the revolution of librarianship into information science.

MARC, in her words, is “an assemblage of formats, publications, procedures, people, standards, systems, equipment, etc., that has evolved over the years stimulating the development of library automation and information networks…nationally and internationally.” MARC has had many incarnations through the years, from the initial Planning Memorandum Number Three, which resulted from that first catalog card analysis at LC, to MARC 1, and eventually to MARC 21, the format that is used today.Avram is the author of the book, MARC, its history and implications, published by the Library of Congress in 1975.

In order to ensure that MARC would be adopted nationwide, she worked with the American Library Association and the American National Standards Institute to make it a national standard. Not content with earning the national standard in 1971, Avram continued lobbying until MARC became an International Organization for Standardization standard in 1973. Largely due to her efforts, MARC is now used as the basis for library automation and bibliographic communication throughout the world. Avram was also one of the original planners of the Linked Systems Project. In this role, she was “tireless in spreading the gospel of using international standards to link databases housed on disparate computer systems.” Though she never intended to be a librarian, Avram became a “towering figure in library automation and bibliographic control.”