Change Profession 550 to 374 on Person records

[ahankinson]

The 550 field is used on people to track "Profession or Function." However, 550 is a generic 'topical term' See Also From heading field, so this is not appropriate.

This should instead be changed to 374, "Occupation": https://www.loc.gov/marc/authority/ad374.html

The subfields should be:

• $a occupation: A (required) string indicating the occupation.
• $s start period: (optional) start date for that person in that profession
• $t end period: (optional) end date for that person in that profession

Additional information about the coded value for the relationships and any URI values can also be added. Please comment if you have any suggestions on available vocabularies, etc.

[jenniferward]

I agree with the field change, thanks!

As to the vocabularies: Our RISM list, as ad hoc as it is, has been in use for decades and is very specific to this repertoire and it would be a shame to loose some of the differentiation. You can do very good, specific searching when combining professions and cities, for example. Would it be possible to preserve that, without flattening our professions?

I looked at the list linked from the 374 page (https://www.loc.gov/standards/sourcelist/occupation.html) and itoamc seems to at least be in the historical direction, but it seems to be an internal LC thing (see https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Index_terms_for_occupations_in_archival_and_manuscript_collections_(ITOAMC) ). I wonder if we might be able to expand it, and if we do that, if it would be better to go through MLA or even RBMS to do so. Do you know what is in current use, particularly with historical documents?

[xhero]

@jenniferward What about the existing data? should it be moved there?

[jenniferward]

Yes!