Descriptive CatalogingUsing RDA

Introduction, Concepts, and Tools

Cooperative and Instructional Programs DivisionLibrary of Congress

2014

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Module 1

Acknowledgements

This course is the product of collaboration between Tim Carlton, Cooperative and

Instructional Programs Division, Library of Congress

Ingrid Hsieh-Yee, Ph. D., Dept. of Library & Information Science, Catholic University of America

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About This Material

This training material has been created for a primary audience of Library of Congress staff.

Other audiences are welcome to adapt and utilize it as they see fit. However, it should be understood that it reflects LC policies, and should not be interpreted to either prohibit or require specific practices for other libraries or organizations.

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Preamble – Scope and Target Audience

This curriculum is a conceptual overview of the basics of descriptive cataloging

The intended audience is those persons who have little or no experience doing descriptive cataloging.

Although primarily conceptual, it includes coverage of some significant details of RDA It is not expected that trainees be fully-functioning

catalogers upon completion. Rather, trainees should be able to understand basic concepts, navigate RDA, and, like good librarians, know how to further their education.

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Learning Objectives

Why Do We Catalog? Describing Resources Historical Overview of Cataloging Codes Cataloging Tools

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Unit 1: Why Do We Catalog?

Why do you think?

Let’s brainstorm for a few minutes …

Hint: Think about users and catalogers

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Some Possible Answers

To help people find things To know what we have in our collections To categorize and classify our resources To provide access To develop taxonomies and controlled

vocabularies To transfer information To facilitate standardization To enable machine manipulation To collocate Because Google can’t do everything and more …

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What Others Have Said

‘to enable a person to find a book; to show what the library has; to assist in the choice of a book’ (Cutter, 1876)

‘to make the greatest number of items readily available to the greatest number of potential users … the differentiation of the individual item’ (Downing, 1981)

‘to record, describe, and index the holdings of a specific collection’ (Wynar, 1985)

to address the FRBR and FRAD User Tasks Find, Identify, Select, Obtain, Contextualize, Justify

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Unit 2: Describing Resources

How do we describe anything? How do we describe bibliographic

resources?

As we do these exercises, consider: Isn’t the act of describing, really, an

attempt to categorize and distinguish?

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How Do We Describe Anything?

How would you describe this thing?

Or, you might think of it this way: “What are the characteristics that

distinguish this thing from something else?”

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How Do We Describe Anything– Continued

That thing we just described …

Do those ways of describing that thing have ‘parallels’ for bibliographic resources? Think about ‘parallels’ broadly

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How Do We DescribeBibliographic Resources?

What are the important parts of a resource?

i.e., What are the important components of a bibliographic record?

‘What are the characteristics that distinguish one resource from another’ Later, we’ll use terms such as work,

expression, and manifestation How are these characteristics recorded,

using MARC?

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Looking at Surrogates

Let’s look at ‘surrogates’ and think about what components are ‘important’ i.e., “What is ‘worth’ including in a catalog

record?” or, “What is helpful to a user?” FRBR User Tasks provide a framework

for deciding what is helpful Find; Identify; Select; Obtain

Note: the following records were cataloged using AACR2, not RDA

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Book

• What are the different elements on this title page?

• Which of these do you think should be included in a catalog record?

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Book

• Are there any elements on this ‘title page verso’ that you think should be included in a catalog record?

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Book –LC OPAC Full Display

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Book –LC OPAC MARC Display

Here is a different display of a portion of the same record; it is the “MARC Tags” view from the LC OPAC, and shows only some of the ‘descriptive’ elements we talked about on the previous slide.

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Sound Recording

• What are the different elements on this sound disk?• Also, what do

you not see that you would expect to see?

• Which of these should be included in a catalog record?

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Sound Recording –LC OPAC Full Display

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Sound Recording –LC OPAC MARC Display

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Again, here is the “MARC Tags” view from the LC OPAC, showing only some of the ‘descriptive’ elements we talked about on the previous slide.

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DVD

• What are the different elements on this DVD?

• Which do you think should be included in a catalog record?

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DVD –OCLC Display

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Here is an OCLC display of a portion of the record, showing the elements we discussed on the previous slide – and many more!

Unit 3: Historical Overview of Cataloging Codes

Antonio Panizzi Charles Cutter ALA AACR ISBD(M) Anglo American Cataloguing Rules,

Second Edition Resource Description and Access Subject Cataloging and Classification For Further Reading

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Antonio Panizzi

91 Rules for Standardizing the Cataloguing of Books (1841)

British Museum First major English-language

cataloguing code

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Panizzi

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Charles A. Cutter

Rules for a Dictionary Catalog (1876) First principles of cataloguing Objectives of the catalogue Entry and Description Collocation function

Find a ‘book’ Show what the ‘library’ has Assist in the choice of a ‘book’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ammi_Cutter

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American Library Association

Catalog Rules: Author and Title Entries “ALA Rules”

1908; 1941; 1949 In conjunction with LC production of

catalog cards Distinct parts of rules for entry and

description

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Anglo-American Cataloging Rules

British Library; Canadian Library Association; Library of Congress

1967 Three parts

Entry and Heading Description Non-Book Materials

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ISBD(M)

International Standard Bibliographic Description for Monographic Publications

1974 “internationally accepted framework” Goal: result in records that are

convertible into machine-readable form Assigned an order to the elements System of punctuation

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Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, Second Edition -- ‘AACR2’

ALA; (British) Library Association; British Library; Canadian Committee on Cataloging; Library of Congress

1978; 1988; 1998; 2002 Goals

Consolidate British and American versions Incorporate changes to AACR Promote international interest Facilitate machine treatment Apply to non-book materials

Description and Headings

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RDA: ResourceDescription and Access

ALA; Canadian Library Association; Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

2009 Closely tied to FRBR/FRAD concepts

User tasks Entities Attributes = “Elements” Relationships

All types of content and media

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Subject Catalogingand Classification

Library of Congress Subject Headings

A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloging and Arranging Books and Pamphlets in a Library “Dewey Decimal System” Melvil Dewey Public and small academic libraries

Library of Congress Classification Most research and academic libraries

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For Further Reading

The Conceptual Foundations of Descriptive Cataloging. Edited by Elaine Svenonius. San Diego: Academic Press, 1989.

Foundations of Cataloging: A Sourcebook. Edited by Michael Carpenter and Elaine Svenonius. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1985.

Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. 3rd ed. Edited by Marcia J. Bates and Mary Niles Maack. Boca Raton: Taylor and Francis, 2009. Last updated Aug. 10, 2012. (Available online or in print)

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Unit 4. Descriptive Cataloging Tools

Resource Description & Access (RDA) Library of Congress-Program for

Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements (LC-PCC PS)

MARC … and beyond

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Resource Description & Access

Covered in detail in a later sequence of courses in this curriculum

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Library of Congress-Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements

Interpretation and application of RDA Jointly crafted by LC and the Program for

Cooperative Cataloging “PCC is an international cooperative effort aimed

at expanding access to library collections by providing useful, timely, and cost-effective cataloging that meets mutually-accepted standards of libraries around the world”

BIBCO, CONSER, NACO, SACO Conducts specialized training and mentoring http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/

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MARC … and beyond

MARC Bibliographic Framework Initiative (in

development)

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MARC

MAchine-Readable Cataloging ‘markup language for catalogers’

Understanding MARC Bibliographic http://www.loc.gov/marc/umb/ Online resource for learning about MARC Source for the brief overview that follows

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MARC –Why is a MARC Record Necessary?

Why can't a computer just read a catalog card?

The computer needs a way of interpreting the information in a catalog record. A MARC record contains a guide to its data, or "signposts," before each piece of bibliographic information.

The place provided for each of these pieces of bibliographic information (author, title, call number, etc.) is called a "field."

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MARC –Why is a MARC Record Necessary?

If a record has been marked correctly … programs can be written to format the

information for printed catalog cards or for display on a computer screen

programs can be written to search for certain kinds of information.

Using the MARC standard prevents duplication and allows libraries to better share bibliographic resources.

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MARC –Content Designation -- Tags

Each bibliographic record is divided logically into “fields” (author, title, publisher, etc.).

Each field is associated with a 3-digit number called a "tag." A tag identifies the field -- the kind of data -- that follows. Though online catalogs may display the names

of the elements, those names are supplied by the system software, not by the MARC record (remember the record examples).

Each field is subdivided into one or more "subfields."

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MARC –Content Designation -- Indicators

Two character positions follow each tag. One or both of these character positions may be used for “indicators.”

The indicators are used to convey more coded information about the field.

Each indicator value is a number from 0 to 9. The allowable values and their meanings are spelled out in MARC 21 documentation.

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MARC –Content Designation – Example for 245

245 14 $a The emperor's new clothes / $c adapted from Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by Janet Stevens.

In this field: the tag 245 defines this as a title field

the next 2 digits -- 14 -- are indicator values The first indicator (1) provides separate access to

the resource through the title

The second indicator (4) displays the number of leading characters to be disregarded by the computer in the sorting and filing process

Blanks are indicated in documentation by # 42

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MARC –Content Designation – Subfields

Most fields contain several related pieces of data. Each piece is called a “subfield,” and each subfield is preceded by a “subfield code”. Each code indicates what type of data follows.

The subfields are separated by characters called “delimiters.” Software programs and documentation use different

characters to represent the delimiter (most commonly, as below, the dollar sign).

Example: 300 ## $a 675 p. : $b ill. ; $c 24 cm.

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MARC –Tag Hundreds

The broad divisions of the MARC 21 record are0XX Control information, numbers, codes

1XX Main entry/Heading

2XX Titles, editions, imprints

3XX Physical description, etc.

4XX Series statements (as seen on the resource)

5XX Notes

6XX Subject access points

7XX Access points other than subjects or series

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MARC –Some Commonly-Used Fields

010 Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) 020 International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 1XX Creator access point 245 Title information 250 Edition 264 Publication information 300 Physical description 490 Series statements (as seen on the resource) 500 Notes 650 Topical subject heading 7XX Contributor access point

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MARC –Access Points

Access points are an important part of the record. These are the “headings” for which a patron can search in an online catalog. 1XX fields (formerly called main entries)

4XX fields (series statements)

6XX fields (subject headings)

7XX fields (formerly called added entries)

8XX fields (formerly called series added entries)

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MARC –Parallel Construction

Access points use parallel tag construction: X00 Personal names

X10 Corporate names

X11 Meeting names

X30 Uniform titles

X40 Bibliographic titles

X50 Topical terms

X51 Geographic names

For example, a main entry (1XX) that is a personal name (X00), is coded as 100.

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MARC –Subfield Patterns

Generally, there are patterns in subfield coding

$a is the first subfield, and usually represents the ‘key’ data in the field e.g., the name; the title; the ISBN; the subject

Often, there is a mnemonic structure e.g., $d for date; $n for numbering; $p for part;

$l for language

Consistency in coding subject subdivisions topical, chronological, geographical, form

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Bibliographic Framework Initiative

An undertaking by the Library of Congress and the community to transition from MARC to a different bibliographic framework

Intended to accommodate varying views of data FRBR for libraries DACS for archives CCO for museums

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Bibliographic Framework Initiative

Provide an alternative to the deeply embedded MARC formats

More compatible with the Web-based and Linked-Data environment

Start examining on your own

http://www.loc.gov/bibframe/

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