Mapping the Data Elements of Geographical Resources in Iran MARC with Entities, Attributes, and Relationships in the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM)

The organization of geographical resources is considered important as one of the types of non-book resources used by library users because they provide detailed and strategic information about any place in the world. In many libraries the organization of geographical resources is done in the book standards and with the Iran MARC format, as a result, due to the lack of relationship between bibliographic records, users face challenges in searching and retrieving geographical resources. Since establishing a semantic relationship between bibliographic records in the libraries requires the implementation of library cataloging systems based on conceptual models, the newest of which is the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM), it is essential to map bibliographic records of Iran Marc with the LRM model. For this purpose, this research was carried out to map the data elements of geographical resources in the Iran MARC format with the entities, attributes, and relationships in the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM). The current research was conducted using the qualitative content analysis method and the checklist tool related to the IFLA final report, the August 2017 edition. In this checklist, the structure of 11 entities in three levels, 37 attributes, and 36 relationships between them are comprehensively and clearly presented in the form of separate tables. In this study, all the data elements of geographical resources are mapped in the table including data elements of Iran MARC format with entities, attributes, and relationships between them in the LRM model. In this way, the columns of this table consist of the main fields and sub-fields of Iran MARC format related to geographical resource records taken from RASA software, as well as the columns of entities, attributes, and relationships of geographic resources in the LRM model. Also, Due to the extensibility mechanism of the LRM model, five new relationships (person has part person, work was created by a person, a person is equivalent to a person, and the collective agent is equivalent to a collective agent) have been added to the LRM model by the researchers. If all the entities, attributes, and relationships are systematically described, the mapping of the fields related to Iran MARC records to the LRM model will be successful. The results indicate the data elements of geographical resources in the UNIMARC format are compatible with the entities, attributes, and relationships in the IFLA LRM model. Also, the results of this study indicate the representation of new relationships between the entities of the LRM model. Since the LRM model is a reference model and the RDA rules use this model as a guide, transferring from the UNIMARC format to the LRM conceptual model can be a suitable solution for organizing geographical Resources.