General Overview

The MARC manual format document structure is described in the format.html document, including source (please note that elements are sorted by name - the document hierarchical structure can be easily followed beggining at the FORMAT element description).

Top level element is FORMAT. It may have one LEADER and a sequence of FIELD elements (the reason why the LEADER element is optional is to allow for sections of the manual to spread along several physical XML documents).

The LEADER element holds standard leader information (record status and type, bibliographic level, and so on).

Each FIELD stores information on indicators and field inner structure. Special attention is paid to context-dependent field definition (fields which composition depends on current information, such as leader or other field values - the APPLYIF element is used in such occasions and proper context mantained by the stylesheet). Related information and examples from the manual are also discriminated.

Subfields documentation is stored in SUBFIELD elements, and provision is made for the distintion between standard free-text data and structured positioned sub-elements (such as in coded fields).

Where appliable, controlled set ot terms are hold in VOCABULARY elements.

There is no provision for rendering related tags, except for P and TABLE (even those cut down to their simplest forms). It's expected that the adequate rendering of the documentation will be controlled through the transformation processes and CSS.