[DCRM-L] Guidance sought for the cataloging of leaf books/leaf collections (Otto Ege portfolios in particular)

[Myers, John]

Hello,

We have had the rare pleasure of (re)discovering the existence of multiple
Otto Ege portfolios of leaves in our Special Collections, namely his
well-known "... Famous Books, Eight Centuries ..." and "... Famous Books,
Nine Centuries ..." sets. We also have an earlier set of five medieval
leaves, as sold from the Lima Public Library Staff Scholarship Loan Fund
catalog, and an ad hoc collection of nine leaves individually purchased.

Ege's large "published" sets, including his posthumous "Fifty Original
Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts," have multiple iterations of records in
OCLC's WorldCat. I have made use of the most robust and most "popular" of
the records for our "Eight Centuries" and "Nine Centuries" sets. To be
honest though, they do not entirely satisfy. They are cataloged as if they
were single published items from when they were issued. Contrastingly, our
card catalog entries for the other two sets are cataloged more in keeping
with if they were collections, reflecting the content from its original
issuance, particularly when it comes to the recording of dates. I feel a
particular considerable resonance with this approach. There are also
institutions that have elected to catalog the leaves as individual archival
manuscript items.

I find that I am also expending considerable effort in additional
local-specific notes in the "monographic" records for the sets to address
particular details for the individual leaves in our specific portfolios.
For our minor issued portfolio and our ad hoc compiled portfolio, before I
endeavor to contribute a catalog record in WorldCat when I am significantly
out of my depth, I seek your collective guidance and the opportunity to
pose some questions. My survey of the web for "cataloging leaf books" did
not reveal any significant best practices documents, aside from a
discussion without conclusions on this list over a decade ago.

   - Firstly, should such leaf book portfolios most properly be treated at
   the bibliographic level as a "monograph" or as a "collection"? In some
   sense most of these portfolios were compiled and issued for sale as a unit,
   analogous to a published book or other resource, that is as a monograph.
   But in another sense they represent materials compiled by an individual,
   analogous to an archival collection.
   - How should date(s) be recorded for such portfolios? The date the
   individual portfolios were issued is important for identification of the
   portfolio as a whole, but the span of dates for the individual leaves is
   more accurately reflective of the actual content of the portfolio. There
   are interesting potential dynamics between the date span recorded in the
   title statement (per collection guidelines) and the date recorded in the
   publication statement (per "standard" bibliographic guidelines) and then
   the encoding and recording of dates in the Fixed field/008 field.
   - Is there room in MARC21 under the recent changes resulting from RDA to
   encompass both approaches with respect to date(s)?
   - What is the best mechanism to record the whole-part relationship
   between the individual leaves and the portfolio as a whole? If one wished
   to delve into the creation of leaf-specific records, then would one put a
   773 field in those records to point back to the record for the host
   portfolio? To what degree would such an effort be implementable in the ILS?
   - When we have an "ad hoc" portfolio that was not one of the
   pre-configured, issued portfolios, how might these answers change?

Moving beyond my specific questions for creating original cataloging for
these lesser portfolios, are there implications for resolving and
reconciling the multiple records for the each of the major portfolios (that
is, is there a reasonable means to "dedup" WorldCat to a single record
aligned with best practices for each of the major portfolios)?

If there is guidance that I have overlooked, I will gladly receive
direction to it. If there is no such extant guidance, am I opening a can of
worms that ought best be left undisturbed?

Thank you in advance for any insights and guidance you may offer,
John

PS: Yes, we are very excited by the discovery and by our opportunity to
contribute to the wider scholarship on Ege and his leaves. We are in the
process of digitizing the leaves and working out arrangements for
conservation.

John Myers, Catalog & Metadata Librarian
Schaffer Library, Union College
Schenectady NY 12308

518-388-6623
myersj at union.edu
pronouns: he/him/his
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