Cataloguing and Classification

An introduction to AACR2, RDA, DDC, LCC, LCSH and MARC 21 Standards

Fotis Lazarinis

• Editore: Chandos Publishing
• Anno: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780081001899
• Argomento: Business
• Categoria: Information Management

Cataloguing and Classification introduces concepts and practices in cataloguing and classification, and common library standards. The book introduces and analyzes the principles and structures of library catalogues, including the application of AACR2, RDA, DDC, LCC, LCSH and MARC 21 standards, and conceptual models such as ISBD, FRBR and FRAD. The text also introduces DC, MODS, METS, EAD and VRA Core metadata schemes for annotating digital resources.

• Explains the theory and practice of bibliographic control
• Offers a practical approach to the core topics of cataloguing and classification
• Includes step-by-step examples to illustrate application of the central cataloguing and classification standards
• Describes the new descriptive cataloguing standard RDA, and its conceptual ground, FRBR and FRAD
• Guides the reader towards cataloguing and classifying materials in a digital environment

1

Introduction to cataloguing classification

Abstract

Libraries have to organize their items and the information about them in a systematic approach so as to facilitate the retrieval of the needed resources. The chapter focuses on the organization of information. First, bibliographic control is defined and the information in a bibliographic record is specified. Then the role of catalogues in information organization, the principles they rely on and how these evolved from the Cutter rules to the Paris Principles and to the latest IFLA statement are discussed. Card catalogues and OPACs are examined and the concepts of cataloguing and classification are described. Finally, some cataloguing services and the main cataloguing and classification codes are introduced.

Keywords

Bibliographic control

bibliographic record

Cutter rules

Paris Principles

FRBR

card catalogue

access points

main entry

OPAC

copy cataloguing

cooperative cataloguing

AACR2

RDA

DDC

LCC

LCSH

MARC 21

1.1 Information organization

Organizing the objects in a library (e.g. books, CDs, maps etc.) and the knowledge (e.g. main and additional subjects) about them in a coherent and consistent way is of vital importance to effectively support the requests of patrons (i.e. library users) and the retrieval of needed information. The organization of information in library and information science is referred to as bibliographic control.

Hagler (1997) defines bibliographic control as ‘the sum of all the practical operations a librarian undertakes to organize documents and their descriptions so that relevant ones can be located most directly and efficiently in answer to any user’s expressed need’. It is clear that bibliographic control is a broad term, integrating all the tasks involved in creating, organizing, managing, updating and exchanging the information about the items in a library or an archival collection. The items could be books, electronic resources, maps, musical files, web pages, computer programs etc.

The three main functions of bibliographic control tools can be summarized as follows (Taylor, 2006):

• identifying or finding a particular bibliographic item

• collocating or gathering closely related materials

• evaluating or selecting the most suitable item that contains the required information and/or is in the appropriate physical form (e.g. on paper or on disc).

Bibliographic control is today, in the digital age, as important as it was in past decades. One might believe that major search engines like Google, or Baidu in China, make bibliographic control or even traditional libraries redundant, but this belief is far from true. The tools and techniques employed by librarians for information organization are still, and will continue to be, essential in providing accurate discovery of authoritative material, through well-defined structures containing knowledge about the objects in a library.

For each item in a library, a bibliographic record is developed as a result of one of the basic tasks of bibliographic control. This record, known also as an entry or metadata, is a uniform description of the item’s characteristics, both physical, e.g. title, author, number of pages, and intellectual, e.g. main subject of the item. The record of an item usually also includes its position in the physical library space, i.e. the number of the shelf where it can be found. The development of these records and their representation using standardized library codes like AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition) is the focus of this book.

The development of bibliographic records is both an art and a science. It is a science because several principles, codes and rules are involved in systematically describing resources in a uniform style. In the following sections and chapters it will be shown that these principles, codes and rules concern various aspects of the characteristics and knowledge about an item and have been developed over the last century. Interpretations of the current rules, new metadata schemes and instructions continue to evolve as this book is being written. As Gorman (2003) points out, it is the good judgement and the fruits of experience that make a good cataloguer (one of the job roles involved in bibliographic control). This is, undoubtedly, an art. People involved in bibliographic control need sometimes to interpret vague rules or to be creative and experienced in the selection of the correct instructions to accommodate unusual or complicated cases.

Nevertheless, there is no need to be intimidated. All the codes and instructions have a logical structure, which makes them relatively easy to comprehend. Further, solid case studies, examples and interpretations are available in books, journals and on the Web, making the selection of the correct instructions a straightforward task for the majority of cases a librarian will confront.

1.2 Catalogues and catalogue objectives

The bibliographic records of a collection are organized in catalogues. The information about all the holdings of a library is registered in a catalogue to support the discovery and retrieval of specific items matching user requests. The catalogue should be comprehensive and systematically organized to allow finding a resource by title, author(s) or other person(s) responsible for a work, subjects, editions etc. Before we go on to discuss the form of a catalogue, it is important to discuss the principles of catalogues as evolved from the nineteenth century to the present.

1.2.1 Cutter’s rules

It was Charles Ammi Cutter, in 1876 (1904, 4th edition),¹ who first explicitly stated the objectives of catalogues:

1 To enable a person to find a book of which either

2 To show what the library has

a. by a given author

b. on a given subject

c. in a given kind of literature.

3 To assist in the choice of a book

a. as to its edition (bibliographically)

b. as to its character (literary or topical).

In essence, these functions state that a catalogue should enable people to find books either by defining some of their characteristics (e.g. title) or by searching for specific subjects or kinds of text. In today’s environment these functions are considered to be limited in scope, as they are primarily aimed at books, leaving out serials, periodicals and, obviously, contemporary electronic resources. However, they influenced the library and information science community for more than half a century.

1.2.2 The Paris Principles

In 1961 a more comprehensive set of functions for catalogues was stated at the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions; www.ifla.org) conference held in Paris. These fu...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of abbreviations
• Preface
• About the author
• 1: Introduction to cataloguing classification
• 2: Descriptive cataloguing codes and the anatomy of AACR2
• 3: AACR2 general rules and rules for books
• 4: AACR2 access points and headings
• 5: FRBR and FRAD: the conceptual models underlying RDA
• 6: RDA: the new standard for descriptive cataloguing
• 7: Classification
• 8: Dewey Decimal Classification
• 9: Library of Congress Classification
• 10: Subject access: LCSH, Children’s Subject Headings and Sears List of Subject Headings
• 11: MARC 21: digital formats for cataloguing and classification data
• 12: Metadata
• Glossary
• Index