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Katy,<br><br>
At 02:22 PM 1/10/2007, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="Garamond">The issue
of OCLC is one that I keep coming back to as I read messages on this
list. Aside from my own personal misgivings about OCLC as the single
national catalogue, it also affects our cataloguing decisions. We are
currently not a member of OCLC and do not submit records, but I have no
doubt that will change sometime in the future. Do we want to record our
copy-specific notes on inscriptions, ownership, etc. in field that may
upload to OCLC? Is that appropriate? My instinct is to keep copy-specific
notes in fields which would display only in our own system (or use a
subfield 5 and have them stripped out). But is that then removing
information that might be useful to a researcher? Because I do not
regularly use or catalogue for OCLC, I do not have a real sense of what
is expected, or approved of, or what is “normal” practice. I have a
general feeling that I am missing something... Or perhaps the whole
OCLC/RLIN issue really is just that confusing.</font></blockquote><br>
I would urge you to create, display locally, and upload to OCLC any and
all copy-specific notes of the type you mention. Presumably the book was
purchased for your institution partly (or wholly) because of these
copy-specific qualities: binding, provenance, or what-have-you. If these
notes contain information important for your own constituency, they are
at least potentially of interest to the scholarly community at large. As
I understand it, "normal practice" in OCLC will change with the
merger of the RLIN database, resulting in something closer to RLIN
practice in the treatment of copy-specific information. But whether or
not that happens, I would take the high road, provide as much copy
specific information as possible, and let researchers and other
institutions decide what is useful to them, and what is not.
<br><br>
Regards,<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<a name="OLE_LINK1"></a>Eric Holzenberg<br>
Director<br>
The Grolier Club <br>
47 East 60th Street<br>
New York, NY 10022<br>
phone: 212/838-6690<br>
fax: 212/838-2445<br>
e-mail: ejh@grolierclub.org<br>
website:
<a href="http://www.grolierclub.org/">www.grolierclub.org</a><br>
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