[DCRM-L] What Belongs in a Master Record?

[Noble, Richard]

I am thrashing about in the underbrush of OCLC records for incunabula,
trying to create the occasional orderly clearing, but in the end I am
wondering what special unwritten rules there are concerning master records
that allow for such an *omnium gatherum* of copy-specific elements as OCLC
#56414568 (LCCN 2004574211 with revisions by Detroit PL and Columbia).

The information is interesting, no doubt of that; but there are facilities
for accessing it in more coherent form by way of the institutional catalogs
to which OCLC provides relatively easy access. I certainly don't want most
of it in my own institution's record (though it will be worth noting that
the Brown and the LC copies both have a Buxheim stamp).

Would I be justified in updating this record in part to delete all
copy-specific that has no bearing on identification of, or actual variation
in copies of, the  manifestation? This question often arises in connection
with LC-based records, of course, but lots of libraries do this sort of
thing, even adding copy-specific information to the OCLC record rather than
making local edits. Is this just shared cataloging with a vengeance?

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>
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