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Tbilisi. (OCLC #865165950)

Books released as advertisements (this one for a company offering sight-seeing tours in the USSR) are not always so forthcoming with their publication information; I was delighted that the copy I found had an estimated publication date in RDA format:

[between 1950 and 1959]

The fuzzyness of the publication date shows up in the year of my call number as a z following the decade:

DK679.24 .I58 1950z

Whenever I see 1900z in a call number, I wonder if that means “between 1900 and 1999” or “between 1900 and 1909”; at least it is made clear in the record.

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Small : thoughts and projects / Carl Turner Architects. (OCLC #868008743)

Where to classify a book when its subject has more than one facet? I often class architecture books under one of the “Special artist” call numbers for the country where the firm is based (e.g. NA997 for England), but this title is about a specific type of architecture: small buildings.

I searched our catalog for other titles in the small buildings classification (NA7533) and found quite a few; we must be collecting in that area, so I classified there.

Subject headings will provide access to this title for those looking for English architects.

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Comment le voile est tombé sur la crèche / Caroline Eliacheff. (OCLC #864819163)

Many class numbers (including BP65, Islam in Europe) are subdivided “By country, A-Z” or “By region or country, A-Z”. Since this title is about France, I am using the standard geographic cutter .F8. The only geographic areas specifically mentioned in the schedule are the ones that vary from standard usage. For example, under BP65, the cutters .S7-.S72 are reserved for Spain (usually just .S7) as there are likely to be more titles about Islam in this country.

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莫言研究三十年 = Mo Yan study : from 1980s to 2010s / 主编杨守森, 贺立华 ; 执行主编丛新强, 孙书文. (OCLC #844719198)

When there are only three volumes in a Chinese or Japanese set, it may be enumerated using these characters instead of numbers:

  • 上 – (first)
  • 中 – (middle, shown above)
  • 下 – (last)

In my library, we label these on the spine with v.1, v.2, v.3 respectively.

If a set only has two volumes, it may only use 上 and 下.

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American contributions to the 15th International Congress of Slavists : Minsk, August 2013 / edited by David M. Bethea & Christina Y. Bethin. (OCLC #869343313)

In RDA records, I follow the capitalization rules in RDA Appendix A:

American is the first word of the title, so it is capitalized. It is also an adjective derived from the name of a people, so it is would be capitalized (by RDA A.12) even if it were not the first word.

International Congress of Slavists is a specific corporate body (a meeting held every 15 years), so it is capitalized by RDA A.16.5 (Names of Corporate Bodies). The phrase “international congress” on its own would not be capitalized.

Minsk is a city, so it is capitalized by RDA A.13.2 (Political Divisions). The word “city” on its own would not be capitalized.

August is a month, so it is capitalized by RDA A.21 (Names of Calendar Divisions). A season like “winter” would not be capitalized.

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RDA Tip of the Week: Capitalization rules

It is a common description of RDA that “capitalization doesn’t matter”, but that’s not exactly the case. RDA has extensive rules for capitalization of elements, detailed in Appendix A.

For example, RDA A.4 (covering titles of manifestations) says to generally capitalize the first word of a title, and to capitalize other words in the title according to A.10 – A.55 as applicable to the language involved; those guidelines basically match The Chicago Manual of Style, so many words we think of as “proper nouns/names” (people’s names, corporate bodies, months, etc.) should be capitalized.

Appendix A does include an optional alternative to create an in-house style manual and follow that instead of what is in the appendix, but the LC-PCC PS encourages catalogers to follow the appendix (though it permits “take what you see”), and the NLA PS says to follow the appendix.

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sehovde:

problem-cataloger:

Petit précis de laïcité / sous la direction d’Eric Ferrand ; préface de Robert Badinter. (OCLC #875411748)

I added an access point for Eric Ferrand as an editor of compilation, but won’t be using that term much longer, as it turns out. Last week’s RDA tip was timely: the April 2014 update to RDA will remove “editor of compilation” as a relationship designator; this relationship will be grouped with “editor”.

Also, “writer of supplementary textual content” will be getting two new sub-relationships, “writer of afterword” and “writer of postface”. Why no “writer of foreword”? I think “preface” and “introduction” are different, as they are often written by the author or editor, where a foreword is typically written by a different person.

(Thanks for the heads-up on this change, le-champignon!)

 was complaining on twitter about this the other day: the lack of “writer of foreword” is inexplicable and quite often a problem.

What do you use for that relationship in your records? The broader “writer of supplementary textual content”? The slightly wrong “writer of preface”? No designator?

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Petit précis de laïcité / sous la direction d’Eric Ferrand ; préface de Robert Badinter. (OCLC #875411748)

I added an access point for Eric Ferrand as an editor of compilation, but won’t be using that term much longer, as it turns out. Last week’s RDA tip was timely: the April 2014 update to RDA will remove “editor of compilation” as a relationship designator; this relationship will be grouped with “editor”.

Also, “writer of supplementary textual content” will be getting two new sub-relationships, “writer of afterword” and “writer of postface”. Why no “writer of foreword”? I think “preface” and “introduction” are different, as they are often written by the author or editor, where a foreword is typically written by a different person.

(Thanks for the heads-up on this change, le-champignon!)

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Kentucky pioneers / an instructional sound film produced by Erpi Classroom Films Inc. ; in collaboration with Thomas D. Clark and the staff of the Pioneer Memorial State Park, Harrodsburg, Kentucky. (OCLC #874761912)

A few notes about cataloging an old film re-released on DVD:

  • Black and white films are described in 300ǂb as “black and white”.
  • Publisher is an element that describes manifestation, so use the publisher of the DVD here. The original producer of the film may be in a 710 with ǂe film producer.
  • The date of publication should be taken from the disc surface if possible (this date is unlikely to be on the film’s title screen, and this is consistent with the AACR2 OLAC guide) ; the date of original release can go in a note, and fixed field Date2 with DtSt p.

I really wanted to include an access point for Thomas D. Clark (due to his connection with our institution) but had no details of his role other than “in collaboration with”. Producer? consultant? (performer?) This is a rare case where included an access point with no relationship designator.

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Cap-Martin : architecture beside the sea / Nerte Fustier-Dautier ; illustrations by Andre-Yves Dautier ; translated from the French by Julian Hale. (OCLC #875284539)

This book’s pages are numbered up through page 51 (which ends a chapter), and then there are five unnumbered pages which still have some content (notes, bibliography, series information).

RDA 3.4.5.2 says to record the last numbered page, leaf, or column in each sequence, and RDA 3.4.5.3.1 says that when there are both numbered and unnumbered sequences, disregard the unnumbered sequences unless they are referred to in a note. As the unnumbered pages would be referred to by the bibliography note, I recorded the pagination as:

    51 pages, 5 unnumbered pages

The bibliography spans the first two unnumbered pages, so how does that go in the 504? Like one of these?

    504 __ ǂa Includes bibliographical references (First and second
             unnumbered pages).
    504 __ ǂa Includes bibliographical references (Pages 1 and 2 of
             unnumbered sequence).

Gross! (AACR2 was tidier for this case.) I checked the table of contents and found that it numbered pages up through 55, so I chose to view these pages as “numbered”, just without page numbers printed on them. I recorded the pagination as:

    56 pages

did the bibiliography note as:

    504 __ ǂa Includes bibliographical references (pages 52-53).

and included an explanatory note about the pagination.