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

[Deborah J. Leslie]

Hi John. It doesn't look like anyone is leaping in to discuss this; perhaps, like me, they don't have the experience or confidence to expound.

The Folger has a many copies of A Noble Fragment of leaves from Shakespeare's first folio. This is how they're currently cataloged: http://hamnet.folger.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=232788. We do not consider this optimal, and giving better description and access to the individual leaves has been on my to-do list for some time now. We also have volumes of STC fragments assembled by J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps that have not been adequately described.

My first inclination is to make a record for the monographic manifestation, and describe the individual leaves as analytics with a 773 pointing back to the host (but probably not the reverse.) We did some experimentation several years ago in our Voyager system, but it wasn't satisfactory. I don't remember the details now, but these are notes from a Catalogers' Confab in 2017

We discussed linking practices between records for host (monographic) and constituents (analytic)

  1.  Add a 773 for all records for analytics. Use $t to link to the 245$a in the host record. Put Hamnet bib id in $w with label: (DFo). (Note: current analytic records for the British
  2.  Continue to use a 730 in the analytic record for the host record. It may look redundant of the 773, but they have different functions and contain somewhat different information
  3.  [Redacted] and Deborah are continuing to consult on encoding analytic and host records so that the linking is reciprocal in the opac
Would it be feasible to make a finding aid to be linked from a single bib record describing the portfolio?

I would love to see this problem discussed in a round-table. Maybe you can propose one for the RBMS conference, John. (-;

______________________________
Deborah J. Leslie, MA, MLS | Senior Cataloger | Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 East Capitol St., SE, Washington, DC 20003 | djleslie at folger.edu<mailto:djleslie at folger.edu> | www.folger.edu<http://www.folger.edu> | Opinions her own

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>> On Behalf Of Myers, John
Sent: Friday, April 1, 2022 13:07
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>>
Subject: [DCRM-L] Guidance sought for the cataloging of leaf books/leaf collections (Otto Ege portfolios in particular)

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<mailto:myersj at union.edu>
pronouns: he/him/his
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