[DCRM-L] local form/genre guidance

[Lapka, Francis]

Hi everyone.

I'm currently working with a Yale task force that is reviewing the use of form and genre terms in the description of manuscript and archival material. A primary goal of this group is to make recommendations that will facilitate better consistency of form/genre application across Yale special collections units, leading (hopefully) to improved user discovery.

New or improved local guidance on form/genre application is one possible tool for achieving this goal. With that in mind, I'm keen to hear if others have established (or are aware of) local form/genre documentation that you find particularly successful. Please don't be modest if it's your own. Context is not limited to mss/archives.

Here are two examples that I'm aware of:

  *   (Yale) Beinecke Rare Book Cataloging Unit: http://beinecke1.library.yale.edu/info/bookcataloging/genre.htm
  *   Folger Shakespeare Library (Folgerpedia): https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Genre_and_form

It seems part of the exercise is to identify the terms that are important to your repository while keeping the list(s) to a manageable size. I'm especially keen to see examples of documentation that are organized (with hierarchies or categories) by format, content matter, etc. The Beinecke example does this at a broad level (genre, binding, provenance, printing/publishing).

Francis



Francis Lapka
Senior Catalogue Librarian
Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts
Yale Center for British Art
203-432-9672  *  francis.lapka at yale.edu<mailto:francis.lapka at yale.edu>


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