I thought I'd pass along a link to a conversation on LibraryThing.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/90309

The topic is how LibraryThing can start exposing more MARC data—in
this case the 300 physical-description field—so that the library data
structure works with the simpler structure of Amazon data, can be used
as data for sorting and calculations, can be understood and edited by
regular people, preserves as much information as possible and can be
re-exported as MARC. It's a pick-2-of-4 sort of scenario. :)

This deserves Code4Lib attention not because of LT, but because these
sorts of tradeoffs happen so frequently already, as library, publisher
and user data bump up against each other. I also think they'll happen
more and more. Lastly, you guys are my peers here--the only other
people who think about library data issues on a regular basis--so, if
you're interested, I'd be grateful to hear what you think.

Best,
Tim

--
Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding