Tag: copy cataloging

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Observations on the influence of religion upon the health and physical welfare of mankind. (OCLC #632285)

This piece is a 1973 reprint of an 1835 title. Difference in printing date is not usually sufficient to input a new record (so we might have used copy for the original) but this piece includes both the original title page and a new title page indicating the new publisher and the new series information, and we found popular copy that reflected that:

260 __ ǂa New York, ǂb Arno Press, ǂc 1973 [©1835]
490 1_ ǂa Mental illness and social policy: the American experience
500 __ ǂa Reprint of the ed. published by Marsh, Capen & Lyon, Boston.
830 _0 ǂa Mental illness and social policy: the American experience.
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Cinémas d’Afrique francophone et du Maghreb / Denise Brahimi. (OCLC #37413829)

While you can search titles for words using diacritics in Connexion client (there is a button to Enter Diacritics), you will find them just as easily typing them without, like for “cinémas”, you can search:

cinemas

Similarly, some punctuation between letters does not separate them into multiple words in the index, so you can search for “d’Afrique” as:

dafrique

Words with apostrophes index with a space as well, so you could also find this record with the search:

"d afrique"

but this would not retrieve records where a right single quote (’) is used, like in this record, so I am usually happiest using no space.

Other punctuation marks have different behavior. For example, periods, commas or hyphens between words are equivalent to space, so this title is also retrieved by the search:

francophone-et,du.maghreb
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Green woodwork : working with wood the natural way / Mike Abbott ; with a foreword by Richard La Trobe Bateman. (OCLC #27431448)

This volume is a 1991 reprint of a title originally published in 1989. Had I been doing original cataloging for this piece, I would have recorded only the 1989 publication date (like in this record) as printing date does not justify a new record in OCLC. There is a more popular (DLC) record for the reprint itself, indicating a publication with these fields:

DtSt: r      Dates 1991, 1989
260 __ ǂa Lewes, East Sussex : ǂb Guild of Master Craftsman
    Publications ; ǂa New York, N.Y. : ǂb Distributed by
    Sterling Pub., ǂc 1991.
500 __ ǂa Reprint. Originally published: 1989.

The Date: search box only searches the Date1 index (yr:) but not the Date2 index (yy:), so restricting the search to 1989 did not find the DLC record. When I’m not sure how a title has been cataloged but still wish to restrict by date, I use a range:

Date: 1989-1991
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Το ξύλο βγήκε απ’ τον παραδεισο (OCLC #810112973)

In the copy I found for this DVD, the title was represented in these linked fields in OCLC:

245 03 ǂa Το ξύλο [beta][gamma]ήκε [alpha][pi]' τον
    [pi][alpha]ρ[alpha]́δεισο ǂh [videorecording].
245 03 ǂa To xylo vgēke ap'ton paradeiso ǂh [videorecording]

In the actual MARC, the latter field would be the “regular” 245 linked using a ǂ6 to the vernacular form of the field in an 880. This appears to be an odd mix of following the LC-PCC PS for RDA 1.4 (Language and Script, section Greek and Other Non-Latin Script Letters, Ideographs, Etc.) and its exception that if a Greek or non-Latin letter appears separately, its name in the primary language should be given in brackets in the primary field, like:

245 10 ǂ6 880-01 ǂa [Alpha]-, [beta]-, and [gamma]-spectroscopy
880 10 ǂ6 245-01/(S ǂa α-, β-, and γ-spectroscopy

(There is a similar instruction in AACR2.)

Given that only a few of the letters were converted, and the change was made in the wrong version of the field (and how many similar results are retrieved by the search “ti: gamma and la: gre”), it looks like somebody’s clean-up script has gone wild.

Be aware of such weirdness when searching for Greek!

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Abstracts. (OCLC #7352023)

We initially did not find copy for this volume, probably because it was difficult to determine (particularly from the cover) what might have been used as the title proper (Ti? 3rd International…? The Academy…?). The title page and spine suggested the simple title “Abstracts”, a search for which returned many records and needed significant refining.

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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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From Aristotle to Schrödinger : the curiosity of physics / Antonis Modinos. (OCLC #867822764)

I didn’t spot the popular copy for this book on my first search because I did a personal name search for the author’s first and last name:

    pn: antonis and pn: modinos

Unfortunately, pn: indexes relatively few fields, all for access points:

    100/a,b,c,d,j,q,u
    700/a,b,c,d,j,q,u

I didn’t find the record, because the author’s name authority has been established only with his first initial:

    Modinos, A., ǂd 1938-

(details confirmed on distributor web sites).

A broader index for author names is au: which indexes the same fields as above, but many more as well, including 245ǂc (which would include the full form as transcribed in the statement of responsibility) but more unusual ones too, including:

  • 505ǂr – Statement of responsibility in a formatted contents note
  • 508ǂa – Creation/production credits note
  • 511ǂa – Participant or performer note
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Laboratory evaluations of stabilized flue gas desulfurization sludge (scrubber sludge) and aggregate mixtures / by Mark Anderson, Gary W. Sharpe, David L. Allen, Herbert F. Southgate and Robert C. Deen. (OCLC #884361903)

When I first started cataloging ebooks, the standard was to catalog them as electronic reproductions of print, and with a separate record for each platform that provided the title. This made some sense, but was frustrating for copy cataloging when you’d see only a skimpy record for the copy you had access to, but a robust popular record for the copy from another vendor.

In 2009, the preferred standard changed to provider-neutral records; that is, all copies of a particular ebook should now be cataloged on a single record with 856 fields for each link that provides access to it. Fields in this record describe an electronic resource (rather than mainly describing print, with reproduction notes in a 533) and do not include details that only apply to specific platforms, such as added entries for the distributor or 506 notes describing restrictions on access. Such details can be added to local catalogs if they are helpful to patrons.

Since a single provider-neutral record can be used for manifestations with various carriers (PDF, HTML, plain text) but not all carriers (excludes print, microform), the level of cataloging is somewhere between expression and manifestation.

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La Grande Guerre expliquée en images / Antoine Prost. (OCLC #868020225)

When you specify the number of non-filing characters for a title, you are not just saying how a title should be sorted, but also how it should be indexed. Specifically, any characters you skip will not be considered part of the title, or even the record.

For example, if you do a title search in OCLC for:

la grande guerre expliquee en images

it will return no results, because the title field’s second indicator says to skip the first three characters:

245 13 La Grande Guerre expliquée en images / ǂc Antoine Prost.

For more on what not to search for, check out my longer blog post.

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Penser la laïcité / Catherine Kintzler. (OCLC #869720975)

After being identified as problems by our copy catalogers, non-rush books go to the problem shelf where they may sit for a couple of months before I address them.

This title had only a skimpy record in OCLC when the book arrived in February (no call number, no subjects), but between then and now, somebody (TZT? C3L? DEBBG?) has completed it. Thanks!