Southern Connecticut State University
Information Analysis and Organization, ILS 506-70
Assignment #3
27 July 2001
ASSIGNMENT no. 3
PUBLIC CATALOG CONSTRUCTION
The works which I selected for my Heinrich Böll ISBD catalogue were chosen because the CONSULS MARC records for them were clearer or more complete than for some other works. In light of my personal unfamiliarity with the German language in general and Böll’s work in particular, I wanted to supplement my interpretations of the data given (using a German-English dictionary) with the existing cataloguing entries as much as possible.
Nonetheless, I still felt uncertain on several issues, such as the name of the publisher of CONSULS #65 and the themes of the fiction works. Were I working in an academic library setting, I would prefer to access the knowledge of the German language faculty to ensure accurate cataloguing. Undoubtedly, one who is processing such works on a regular basis could quickly identify the name of familiar foreign publishers.
I believe that by including subject entries for the thematic focus of a work, the access points which I used exceed the minimum standards set forth in the IFLA principles: the appropriate author, title, and uniform title, with cross references to the original language titles, will allow a user to identify this library’s holdings for particular works, including edition information.
As I understand the samples provided, it is not customary to provide a translated title for works in the original language. I realize that a librarian is not likely to be a skilled translator. However, when a native language title is well established for a work, I would like to include that for the use of those who are more comfortable or familiar with that title, such as an intermediate language student. That information would also assist the user in locating other resources about the foreign language work, for example a digest of the plot or a reference in a social sciences context.
The availability of cataloguing programs like MARC Magician certainly make the formatting of the printed ISBD cards much easier than it was at the time of my first library job, 30 years ago. The spacing rules were clearly developed during the typewriter age and don’t translate well to mere word-processing. Thus, I believe that my “cards” are not in complete compliance. However, I was unable to discover a system for using the MARC Magician program to drop the elements into an MS Word document and instead followed the professor’s suggested format.
Obviously, it is not possible to assign reasonable catalogue numbers for these works without an understanding of the balance of the collection now existing and/or likely to be acquired. In light of the trend to larger and larger “global” catalogues, the selection of the unique identifiers for works, such as Cutter numbers, must take into account the actions of other libraries with which one’s facility may eventually be sharing cataloguing data. The numbers which I selected had the benefit of a 20:20 hindsight overview of the entire CONSULS collection, most of which predate the shared OPAC. I also tried to take into account my understanding of the distribution of surnames in German.
The recent tragedy at Johns Hopkins University (in which a healthy medical research subject received a fatal exposure of a substance whose hazardous properties had been identified 30 years ago) highlight the need for cooperation between the information professional and substantive experts. Had the researcher realized the limits of an online database or the librarian been aware of the area which was being searched, perhaps the death could have been avoided. My aim in cataloguing is to collect and convey as much useful “metadata” about an information resource as possible, in light of an understanding of the users needs.