[DCRM-L] ISBD Area 0 (content form; media type) and Rare Materials cataloging

[Elizabeth O'Keefe]

I agree that it would be preferable to take the content type out of the title (provided that the vendors implement the change quickly; it often takes years for library system vendors to catch up with changes to MARC). But there are problems with where to put it. 

The 655 field is used both for content (novels, fables, epics) and for form (drawings, engravings, photographs). How to distinguish? And the 655 is used to index not only what an item is, but features that it contains (for example, Woodcuts could mean that the item IS a woodcut, or that it contains woodcuts as illustrations, or that Woodcuts are material accompnaying the main item being cataloged) . I was wondering about using the first indicator in the 655 to indicate whether the term was primary or secondary, as is done for the the 650-- but the first indicator for genre terms is already defined to indicate when a heading is faceted, so that wouldn't work.

I like the idea of defining a separate field or even subfield for specific material designation (as opposed to general material designation). At present, we use the same field (the 300$a) for what an item is (the SMD) 

300 \\$a1 drawing
300 \\$a1 painting

and for the subunits that constitute an item (some of which are also carriers, some are not):

30 p.
3 v.
1 sound disc
etc. 

If there were different fields or subfields for the SMD and for the extent field, it would be possible to identify an item as a book or a broadsheet or a drawing in one field, and then give the extent of the item in the other (30 p., 1 sheet, or whatever). 

The January 2006 proposal for content and carrier terms from the GMD/SMD Working Group proposal suggested something akin to this (it would have required "specific carrier terms", such as book, lithograph, sculpture, CD audio) but this dropped from later versions of RDA.

Putting the type in a separate field would also facilitate data exchange with the museum and visual resources communities, which place great importance on the material type. 

Elizabeth O'Keefe 

>>> Kate Moriarty <moriarks at slu.edu> 1/15/2009 7:11 PM >>>

I think I like the idea of taking the content form, etc. out of the 245 and giving it its own variable field. It can serve as a good flag to users as to the form of the resource and is less confusing when separated from the title and statement of responsibility.

I'm not sure how helpful the manuscript- and graphic-related vocabularies provided by the ISBD 0 report and MARBI proposal are. As best as I can tell, the options for graphic material is "Image: (ISBD) or "Still image" (MARBI / RDA). For manuscript material I could only come up with "Text" from each of the proposals. I don't see any way of indicating that the text is, for example, a handwritten manuscript. Would that designation be left to the form/genre terms to express?

-Kate


On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Alison Bridger <aebridger at yahoo.com> wrote:

While I was at Bancroft (and this would not have changed since the position is still open) we used the $k for some of our single item manuscript materials but not all mss/archival materials. Like ALS for letters or typescript and manuscript for items with formal titles. Although I did drop using ALS at some point as I felt that most of our users would not really know what that meant. Can't recall what was done with graphic materials at Bancroft but I seem to remember something was added, possibly a $h graphics. James Eason can probably shed some light on that ...

Alison





From: Elizabeth O'Keefe <EOKEEFE at themorgan.org>
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 11:27:47 AM
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] ISBD Area 0 (content form; media type) and Rare Materials cataloging



This is a very knotty topic. Though in some ways the loss of the GMD (if RDA outlaws it) is to be regretted, the allowable terms were often so vague or so library-speak ("realia") as to be useless. Even "graphic" (one of the better terms) is too vague, if your users care whether the item is a drawing, a print, or a photograph.

Earlier drafts of RDA contemplated some sort of  arrangement that would relate the specific material designation more closely to the more general terms, facilitating displays like:

Image : Graphic : Drawing

But this fell by the wayside. 

I don't know how many cataloging agencies were using $h [manuscript]. Many probably preferred to follow APPM practice, and therefore included the word manuscript in the $k; those who cared about AACR may have been discouraged from using $h manuscript because LC does not use it.

Liz O'Keefe
>>> "Erin Blake" <EBlake at FOLGER.edu> 1/15/2009 10:39:30 AM >>>

On behalf of the editorial team working on DCRM(Graphics), what are other DCRM communities, especially the three M's -- Manuscripts, Music, and Maps -- thinking about proposed ISBD Area 0 (http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/isbdrg/ISBD_Area_0_WWR.htm) and the related MARBI proposal no. 2008-05/3 (http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2008/2008-05-3.html)?
In the words of the MARBI proposal for Media type, Carrier type, and Content type, "These three elements are intended as replacements for the general material designation (GMD) defined in AACR2 1.1C, which is currently recorded in field 245 (Title statement) subfield $h (Medium)." 
Here at the Folger, 245$h [graphic] and [manuscript] are regularly used in rare materials cataloging.  
Thoughts?
     EB. 
--------------------------------------------------
Erin C. Blake, Ph.D.  |  Curator of Art & Special Collections  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 E. Capitol St. SE  |  Washington, DC 20003-1004  |  office tel. (202) 675-0323  |  fax:  (202) 675-0328  |  eblake at folger.edu  |  www.folger.edu





-- 
Kate S. Moriarty, MSW, MLS  |  Rare Book Catalog Librarian  |  Pius XII Memorial Library  |  
Saint Louis University  |  3650 Lindell Blvd . |  St. Louis, MO 63108  |  (314) 977-3098 (tel)  |  (314) 977-3108 (fax)  |  moriarks at slu.edu  |  http://libraries.slu.edu/
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