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ספר מורה נבוכים /להרב משה בן מימון ; … בהעתקת הרב ר’ שמואל אבן תיבון ; עם ארבעה פירושים … אפודי, שם טוב, ן’ קרשקש, אבברבנאל. (OCLC #29328452)

We found copy possibly matching this book, but without strong skills in Hebrew, and so much omitted (using …) from paragraphs on the title page, how to be sure?

Fortunately, the copy also included a link to an electronic copy online, including the title page, which was an exact match:

856 41 ǂu http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14118&st=&pgnum=1&hilite=
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The safe care and handling of gases. (OCLC #6526758)

Slides! I’ve never gotten to catalog slides before. It was a nice opportunity to review the rules for this format. The set does have an accompanying audiocassette:

300 ǂa 37 slides : ǂb color ; ǂc 2 x 2 in. + 
    ǂe 1 audiocassette.

So there are two sets of Content/Media/Carrier fields:

336 __ ǂa still image ǂb sti ǂ2 rdacontent
337 __ ǂa projected ǂb g ǂ2 rdamedia
338 __ ǂa slide ǂb gs ǂ2 rdacarrier
336 __ ǂa spoken word ǂb spw ǂ2 rdacontent ǂ3 accompanying material
337 __ ǂa audio ǂb s ǂ2 rdamedia ǂ3 accompanying material
338 __ ǂa audiocassette ǂb ss ǂ2 rdacarrier ǂ3 accompanying material

However, the soundtrack is considered an integral part of the slide set, so its sound characteristics are included in the slides’ 007 (not as a separate 007):

007 __ ǂa g ǂb s ǂd c ǂf b ǂg f ǂh j
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Chem sources-international–1998 edition. (OCLC #39262429)

This is the thickest book I’ve ever received for cataloging:

300 __ ǂa iv, 2259 pages : ǂb illustrations ; ǂc 29 cm

It made me wonder if RDA had exceptions in the rules for recording Dimensions of a volume related to a book’s thickness (as there are for the cover’s width). There don’t appear to be; it’s probably covered by pagination.

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Sämtliche Werke und Briefwechsel : historisch-kritische Ausgabe mit Faksimiles der handschriftlichen Texte Trakls / herausgegeben von Eberhard Sauermann und Hermann Zwerschina ; im Auftrag des Forschungsinstituts “Brenner-Archiv” der Universität Innsbruck. (OCLC #34642140)

When copy cataloging sets, it’s important to look at the set as a whole while searching for copy, not just the first volume. This one fooled me twice!

Volumes in this set were published in different years, not in order, and in somewhat of a wide range. Volume 1 was published in 2007, but Volume 2 was published in 1995. Looking only at Volume 1, I might have discounted the excellent record for the set with publication statement:

264 _1 Basel ; ǂa Frankfurt am Main : ǂb Stroemfeld/Roter Stern,
    ǂc 1995-

Also, the volume I initially assumed was the first one (given the spine label V.1) turned out to be Volume 5, Part 1; the existence of V.2 (the second part of Volume 5) was extra convincing. Volume 4 also has two parts, so the labels “IV.1” and “IV.2” gave me an extra clue that something weird was happening.

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For memories’ sake / Lovell Films & Preservation Project present, a film by Ashley Maynor ; producer, Paul Harrill. (OCLC #651057604)

RDA 7.17.1.4 on Details of Colour Content describes recording “details of the presence of colour, tone, etc., in the content of an expression, and the specific colours, tones, etc., including black and white, present. Record details of colour content if considered important for identification or selection.” There was a specific rule for color of moving image, but it has been deleted in a revision to RDA.

The OLAC best practices guide for DVD and Blu-Ray gives more detailed examples, including the one used in the physical description of this video:

300 __ ǂa 1 videodisc (29 min.) : ǂb sound, color with 
    black and white sequences ; ǂc 4 3/4 in.
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One hundred letters home / Adam Aitken. (OCLC #947042420)

Recently on the Troublesome Catalogers facebook group, somebody asked when it is appropriate to include both “text” and “still image” as content types for a textual book with illustrations:

336  ǂa text ǂ2 rdacontent
336  ǂa still image ǂ2 rdacontent

This appears to be a matter of catalogers judgment, as well as differing policy between cataloging agencies. Some include it when a book has any illustrations, others only when a book is chiefly illustrations (such as a picture book or a graphic novel), or if the illustrations are particularly noteworthy.

I don’t think I’ve used this much, but when considering it, I typically think – if a patron were to limit their search to images, would they be happy if they found this book?

This particular title had about 30 mostly-small black-and-white illustrations (including portaits, facsimiles) spread out over 300 pages. This did not seem substantial enough to merit the added content type, so I removed it for our local copy.

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An account of the assassination of loyal citizens of North Carolina, for having served in the Union Army, which took place at Kingston in the months of February and March, 1864 / by Rush C. Hawkins. (OCLC #993606950)

This volume includes this ISBN statement on the title page verso:

    ISBN: 4444000055732PB

though only the digits appear in the book’s barcode.

An ISBN is considered to be structurally invalid when “its length or structure is incorrect or its check digit does not agree with the formula for calculating it.” This one has 13 digits, and the final digit DOES match what would be computed by the check digit formula:

    (4 + 3*4 + 4 + 3*4 + 0 + 3*0 + 0 + 3*0 + 5 + 3*5 + 7 + 3*3
         + digit) mod 10 = 0
      (68 + digit) mod 10 = 0
      digit = 2

But it is otherwise not structurally correct; in particular, it does not start with a GS1 ISBN prefix (978 or 979).

Such ISBNs are still recorded in the 020 field in MARC, but in ǂz instead of ǂa:

    020 __ ǂz 4444000055732
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Әсем саз / М. Балтабаев, Б. Өтемұратова. (OCLC #1005139027)

This lovely picture book in the Kazakh language arrived at my desk needing original cataloging. I don’t know much of the language beyond my familiarity with its cyrillic alphabet, but fortunately the title page verso included this description in Russian:

Музыкальный букварь для начальных классов (казахский язык)

which translates to

Musical primer for elementary school (Kazakh language)

which helped with the subject analysis and classification.

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A.P.C. & Laurent Deroo architecte : 2000-2015. (OCLC #1005077316)

Inverse barcodes (white bars on a darker background) are readable by some fancier barcode scanners, but not by most. Fortunately, the numbers are usually nearby, so may be typed in instead!

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The world broke in two : Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster and the year that changed literature / Bill Goldstein. (OCLC #970042762)

Subject Heading Manual section H 620 on establishing chronological subject headings says:

Establish headings for centuries, decades, or years using words, not numbers. 

    650 _0 ǂa Nineteen twenty-two, A.D.

It also says:

This differs from the practice for subdivisions where numbers are preferred. 

    650 _0 ǂa Literature and society ǂx History ǂy 20th century.