Month: March 2014

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Fundamentals of matrix-analytic methods / Qi-Ming He. (OCLC #829754638)

The preface of this book was incredibly helpful in assigning the call number. The copy in OCLC already had a subject assigned (“Matrix analytic methods”) but needed a full call number. I did a correlations search in Classification Web which gave the class number QA274.2, which corresponds to “Stochastic analysis”, a broader term of “Matrix analytic methods”. So is that the right class number?

The preface of the book has a nice section called “Topics and organization of the book” which lists the broad topics of each chapter, including Poisson processes, Markov chains, and Queuing theory, all of which are narrower terms of “Stochastic processes” (a broader term “Stochastic analysis” even). I went with the broader class number, QA274, and added a few more subject headings for the other topics covered in depth.

QA274.2 may not seem far from QA274, but in my library, there would be about 100 books between them!

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The role of energy in Iran-Turkey relations / Omid Shokri Kalehsar. (OCLC #873602124)

After reviewing the differences between the free-floating subdivisions –Relations, –Foreign relations, and –Military relations, I assigned this heading:

Iran ǂx Foreign relations ǂz Turkey.

When one of these relations subdivisions is further subdivided geographically, you need an additional heading with the geographic terms reversed (SHM, H 1629) so I assigned this one as well:

Turkey ǂx Foreign relations ǂz Iran.
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Computer programs for chemical engineering education. (OCLC #1434748)

The set containing the volume on the left is on its way to storage; we happen to have two additional copies of this volume in a smaller format. The smaller edition (also headed to storage) had been cataloged on its own monograph record, but as far as i can tell it is just a shrunk down copy of the larger one, except for the publisher (which sounds more like a printer/manufacturer to me), so I considered these to be added copies of the volume.

There is potential benefit to making that one volume more discoverable though subject access on its own record, but also benefit to tidiness and keeping the set together, so this was a judgment call. The title/author are included in a contents note in the set record, so the volume is still discoverable that way if somebody is looking for it.

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RDA Tip of the Week: Optional abridgement

Though the statement of responsibility (RDA 2.4) is a transcribed element (that is, it should be in the record as it appears on the piece), there is an optional instruction to abridge this element if this can be done without loss of essential information. This is typically done to omit details such as degrees or ranks, salutations like “Dr.” or “Mrs.”, or institutional affiliations. For example, a book with statement of responsibility:

    by Bob Jones, Ph.D, and Mrs. Frida Smith, University of Kentucky.

might appear in the record:

    by Bob Jones and Frida Smith.

The LCC-PC PS and NLA PS for this statement both say to generally not abridge a statement of responsibility, but many catalogers still do, keeping consistent with AACR2. At my library we tend to abridge in our original cataloging.

We recently had an example where the statement of responsibility listing five authors included the word “and” between each of the author’s names. Using this instruction, we were able to omit the extraneous “and"s and just use commas:

    by Jerry G. Pigman, Kenneth R. Agent, Patricia L. Hardyman, 
            Knowlton W. Johnson and Richard McCleary
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مختارات سلامة موسى / سلامة مس. (OCLC #19473204) and others.

I found some more of the ALL ARABIC CHARACTERS mystery, this time in the form of books actually on the shelf, somehow having call numbers, but no other metadata in the catalog except for that generic title. Maybe we used to have cards for them and the description got lost in that retrospective conversion?

They are now cataloged. Maybe somebody else will be able to discover them now!

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The Health consequences of smoking : a Public Health Service review. (OCLC #2241027)

This serial volume came to my attention because our government documents collection copy (with SuDoc stem HE 20.7016:) had been shelved with the HEs in our main LC-classed collection. Oops!

Our government documents librarian requested that the volume’s individual title “Chronic obstructive lung disease” be added to the serial record along with the several other individual titles already in there (all in 246s for some reason?) because a search for this title in our opac only brought up records for a 10-page summary of it, not for the full report (546 pages).

Though it is unusual to add analytical titles for serial records, we made an exception to provide more access, and put them in in 740s.

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Support/materialise. Columns, walls, floors / editors Alexander Reichel, Kerstin Schultz ; authors Henning Baurmann, Jan Dilling, Claudia Euler, Julius Niederwöhrmeier ; translation from German into English, Hartwin Busch. (OCLC #864390940)

I initially misread the pipe (“|”) in the title as a capital letter I. I read it over and over, trying to sort out its meaning “Support I materialise”? Fortunately, the initial cataloger had misread it the same way (so did Amazon!) so there was no problem finding copy. However, pipe is not an ALA character, so I had to represent it another way. Though RDA 1.7.5 says to ignore typographical devices that are used as separators, I followed the LC-PCC PS (and the example of another volume in the series) and used a slash, for consistency, and because it can be done without serious distortion or loss of intelligibility. I did include the version with capital I as a title variant.

Also, the ISBN actually on the piece is from an old edition with a slightly different title, and the ISBN in all online records I’ve found for this edition is not actually on the piece. I’ve included both in the record, because I’m not sure which is more authoritative.

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Escena de familia con fantasma / Julia Otxoa ; prólogo de Ángeles Encinar. (OCLC #865472923)

The record we ordered this book on did not have a full call number, just “PQ”. Fortunately there was a second record in OCLC created around the same time, not as full (no subjects, added entry for the author of the foreword, or traced series) but with a full call number.

The call number is good (class matches the author’s authority file, title cutter files nicely) so I added it to the fuller record, and recommended that they be merged.

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Walt Whitman and 19th-century women reformers / Sherry Ceniza. (OCLC #37155132)

Though the copy in hand has a new ISBN, it is really just a reprint of the original 1998 edition, with that same copyright date and no new content. The title page verso has some new metadata giving the 2013 date to the “paperback edition” and the “eBook edition”, but this is not enough to justify a new record, as 2013 is more of a manufacture date.

Though there wasn’t when we received the book, there is now an OCLC record for the paperback edition with a few holdings, but I am still using the more popular ©1998 record and have added the new ISBN locally. The two records may eventually get merged, and having the primary OCLC number locally avoids some discovery problems.

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Lebbeus Woods is an archetype. (OCLC #871557316)

This is the longest “cover title” I’ve seen yet! I decided to only include it as a quoted note, as it was so different from the title that appears on the title page and spine.

This is a collection of reproductions from an architecture exhibition, so gets a class number (including first cutter) for the artist (NA737.W66) subarranged by table N6, which says to use A4 for reproductions. This is the second such book from that artist from 2013 that we have in our catalog; if I hadn’t checked, they’d end up with the same call number!

Typically when you have two titles about the same subject by the same author, the item number (cutter) should be adjusted to shelflist, but the N6 table does not allow it; in this case, the call number gets a small letter b after the year:

NA737.W66 A4 2013b

This one also had a surprise in its ISBN. When I scanned in the barcode on the back, it also had a small b at the end! The title page verso has the version without the ‘b’, but the publisher has already used the ISBN for another title, so maybe they needed a way to distinguish between them. I included the version with the b in an 020ǂz in case other catalogers scan it in looking for copy.