[DCRM-L] Use of the Biographical or Historical Data field (field 545) for bibliographic entries?

[Erin Blake]

I can imagine 545 being used for books, but not for the bible example: the
biographical information you have is about the former owners of that copy,
not about "an individual or historical information about an institution or
event used as the main entry for the item being cataloged" (
https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd545.html)

Whether or not to include $5 would depend on whether the information is
relevant to any library's copy of the book, or just your library's copy.
For example, although it's true of all copies that the author had a
speaking engagement on your campus, it's not relevant or useful to other
institutions.

On the other hand, it would be useful to other institutions if a
Biographical/Historical note said something like "In addition to being a
[thing the Main Entry person is world-famous for], [World Famous Person]
began their career in the field of [obscure field of this publication]"
because otherwise it might look like an Automated Authority Control match
gone wrong.

Erin

______________________
Erin Blake, Ph.D.  |  Senior Cataloger  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |
201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20003  |  eblake at folger.edu  |
www.folger.edu
<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/-t5RCjRgpBtArRXC7R7_2?domain=urldefense.com>
  |  Pronouns: she/her/hers




On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 10:01 AM Myers, John <myersj at union.edu> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I recently ran across a situation where we held a family Bible. There were
> enclosures tracing the genealogical journey of provenance through the
> family. I have recorded this information in a 545 Biographical or
> Historical Data field. While this could have been recorded in a 561 field,
> it seemed more family/history in nature, as well as being more complex than
> I am accustomed to seeing in field 561.
>
> We have a further use case for fied 545, where we record the campus
> speaking engagement of a particular author, as justification for any items
> from that author's works to be added into our Special Collections.
>
> My sense is that field 545 was developed primarily for the archival
> community. Since archival collections and their associated records tend to
> be unique, it would follow that the inputting agency would be the
> institution for which such a note would apply. In a bibliographic context
> though, if one were recording some biographical or historical context for
> the individual item held within a larger manifestation set, then it seems
> like the use of a $5 would be helpful, even in the local system. The
> presence of $5 can be incorporated into import and synchronization profiles
> in order to protect the instance of the field from being overwritten or
> scrubbed.
>
> My questions to the assembly:
>
>    - Have others used field 545 in this manner for their bibliographic
>    collections?
>    - For these use cases, is there a better field to use?
>    - If field 545 is a good solution for these use cases, would the
>    addition of $5 be perceived as valuable?
>
> Thank you for your input,
> John
>
> 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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