Tag: cataloging

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[Agricultural Adjustment Administration documents related to Kentucky] (OCLC #891104587)

(Cataloging flash mob!)

For this month’s Third Thursday (cataloging discussion and professional development), we did a “bring your cataloging problems” session. I brought one that had been lurking on a nearby shelf in cataloging for years.

Those 39 volumes were not actually books; they were a bound archival collection (of letters, forms, and other documents related to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in Kentucky) but our Archives/Special Collections did not want them in their collections. Though the volumes contained some federal government documents, they also contained many state government documents (all mixed together!) so they did not belong in our federal documents collection either.

There were so many decisions to make: Should they be disbound, and the pieces cataloged separately and sorted into their appropriate locations? Should they get a detailed finding aid, or a briefer collection record? Should we gather more opinions from staff who might remember more about the collection, or change their opinion about which branch it should live in?

One thing that was clear was that the books were getting no use sitting on my shelf, and with all of my analysis paralysis going on, that’s where they were going to stay unless I got some help. At the problem session, I passed out volumes and a skeletal record to the group, and told them my basic plan: keep the volumes bound, collection record only, shelve in main library. Together we examined the materials and muscled through the record, discussing each questionable field until we had consensus, and adding more subject access points to make it more discoverable by researchers in the field. It took about 40 minutes – now that shelf is clear!

If there is interest, someone may eventually re-visit this collection and give it a more thorough description, but for now, its discoverability has been significantly improved.

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Cotton flour bag (sack) towels : a recorded voluntary standard of the trade. (OCLC #890720497)

Cataloging commercial standards creates a fun opportunity to look up subject headings I’ve never used before, like:

    650 _0 ǂa Dish towels ǂx Standards.

There is also a code for the Cont: fixed field for titles containing standards and specifications:

    Cont: u

A search for an LC classification correlated to “Dish towels” produced no results (though I was pleased to see Dishwashing–Fiction nearby), but the broader term “Towels” suggested TS1781, which is for Miscellaneous textiles including bagging, shawls, towels, etc. so we have the call number:

    TS1781 ǂb .C68 1951
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Symposium on the Orion Nebula to honor Henry Draper / edited by A.E. Glassgold, P.J. Huggins, and E.L. Schucking. (OCLC #8845640)

“What’s a Festschrift?” asked many of us when we first saw this fixed field in cataloging class. And after looking it up, “how often do you see those?” As it turns out, it’s somewhat unusual (0.2% of records in our catalog) but that just makes it a rare treat to get to change that fixed field, and often the conference publication fixed field at the same time:

    Fest: 1     Conf: 1

RDA also includes a relationship designator for specifying who is being hono(u)red in the Festschrift:

    700 1_ ǂa Draper, Henry, ǂd 1837-1882, ǂe honouree.
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Body measurements for the sizing of boys’ apparel (knit underwear, shirts and trousers) : a recorded voluntary standard of the trade. (OCLC #890709074)

RDA 2.17.2.3 (Title Source) describes a note that should be recorded if the title proper is taken from somewhere other than the preferred source of information; for example, the title page for a book. This book has no title page, so I used the caption title, and noted that, following the examples in the RDA text:

500 __ ǂa Caption title.

This note is core for LC/PCC. RDA itself does allow the note to be omitted if there is only one title on the piece, but the LC-PCC PS says not to omit.

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What the Bible says about salvation / by Virgil Warren. (OCLC #9092454)

Often when copy cataloging, we’ll find a record with a call number ending with “x”. It’s my understanding that some institutions add this when constructing a call number as a way of marking it “locally assigned”, so that there is no conflict if another book comes in with that same call number. Our policy is to not add x’s when constructing call numbers, and to remove them from call numbers in incoming copy. That is, if a record comes in with:

    050 _4 ǂa BT751.2 ǂb .W294x

We add a new call number to the record and use it:

    050 _4 ǂa BT751.2 ǂb .W294x
    090 __ ǂa BT751.2 ǂb .W294 1982

(We also add the year if it is not there already.)

Note that ‘x’ is different from other small letters that might appear at the end of a call number, which have their own specific meanings, and should not be removed:

  • a – facsimile
  • b,c,d, etc. – other title with that same call number, probably even published in the same year
  • z – uncertain year of publication (1950z = 1950-1959)

Sometimes the ‘x’ will sneak in on copy, and that’s fine too. This shelving tutorial suggests that it should be treated as “½”.

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The public papers of governor Martha Layne Collins, 1983-1987 / Elizabeth Duffy Fraas, editor. (OCLC #884916739)

If you are cataloging a digitized copy of a print book, you can use the OCLC macro OCLC!GenerateERecord while viewing a print record to create a workform with the same information, edited somewhat to indicate that it is an ebook. You’ll still have to do some editing, but it is a good start!

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What a modern Catholic believes about women / by Sister Albertus Magnus McGrath. (OCLC #324934)

This gift book is already labeled with a call number “SD82 M147”, which is from the Union Theological Seminary classification (SD82 = History of women, matriarchy).

Our library uses Library of Congress classification, so we reclassed as

BV639.W7 M37 1972

BV639.A-Z is The Church and special classes, A-Z, so the first cutter W7 is for “women” and the second cutter “M37” is for McGrath.

I have seen classifications where “Mc” at the beginning of a name is filed as though it were “Mac”, but LCC is not like that. In the Subject Cataloging Manual on Shelflisting, under Filing rules (G 100), Rule 15 (“Names with a Prefix”) says that a prefix that is part of a name or place is treated as a separate word unless it is joined to the rest of the name directly or by an apostrophe (without a space), and should be filed letter by letter, and has as an example filing order:

  Marshall, Catherine, 1914-
  McGrath, Suzanne
  Metal products manufacturing
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Imposters of God: inquiries into favorite idols. (OCLC #84666)

A single publication of a title may be part of multiple series, maybe even with different numbering in each. Statements about those series may appear together or separately on a variety of sources, including the main title page, a separate series title page, the cover, or even a publisher web site. To trace those series, use a pair of 490 (transcribed series statement) and 830 (authorized form) fields for each one, like:

    490 1_ ǂa Christian experience series ; ǂv 7
    490 1_ ǂa Witness books ; ǂv 11
    830 _0 ǂa Christian experience series ; ǂv 7.
    830 _0 ǂa Witness books ; ǂv 11.
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On-site staff evaluation of U.S. counter-narcotics activities in Panama, Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia : a staff report / prepared for the use of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. (OCLC #36934249)

When searching for hyphenated words in word indexes (such as the title index ti:) in Connexion, substitute a space for the hyphen or the search may not retrieve the records you’re looking for, even if your search is surrounded by quotes.

For example, this title (ti:) search does not retrieve any records:

"On-site staff evaluation of U.S. counter-narcotics
    activities in Panama, Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia"

but this one does:

"On site staff evaluation of U.S. counter narcotics
    activities in Panama, Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia"

Oddly enough, these title searches retrieve the record just fine:

"On-site staff evaluation"
"u.s. counter-narcotics"

but this one does not:

"u.s. counter-narcotics activities"

so the actual indexing may be more subtle.

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Investigation of the financial condition of the United States. Joint and supplemental comments of the presidents of the Federal Reserve banks in response to the questionnaire of the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Eighty-fifth Congress, second session. (OCLC #6334613)

I’m having a hard time determining if this book is technically cataloged “correctly” (Desc is blank), but it’s less than ideal. There is no collective title page (other than the cover), and the page that is in the typical title page position is really the cover of the document that is the first chapter (“Joint and supplemental…”) so that is used as the title. If I were cataloging this from scratch on a new RDA record (which difference in cataloging rules and difference in choice of chief source of information do not justify) I would use “Compendium … ” as the subtitle and indicate that the title came from the cover.

I’d rather not do a major (title-changing) upgrade of a popular DLC record (and interfere with people’s reclamations) so I did the best I could locally – added entries for the cover title, and chapter titles/sudocs to provide access to those (as they are separately cataloged in the monthly catalog).