[DCRM-L] Advice on cataloging panel stamped bindings

Mon Dec 8 17:18:32 MST 2025

Dear Eric,

I don't know if anyone else has already responded to your queries off-list, so in case they haven't, I wanted to address your question about whether your binding resource could be added to Standard Citation Forms. The answer is almost certainly yes, and you can submit a proposal to have it added using this form<https://rbms.info/scf/submit/>.

As for your binding question, I don't have a good answer, but appreciated your and Pax's discussion of the possibilities and need for clearer guidelines. I haven't encountered that many panel stamped bindings, but have run into similar questions for how to represent other binding aspects that ideally would be given in a subject field - fragments of medieval manuscripts come to mind. We are strongly discouraged from using local subject headings, but without that option we're not left with much in the way of controlled descriptive fields to represent this aspect of the books in our care.

Best of luck with your cataloging endeavors!

--Ann Myers

Ann K.D. Myers

Senior Rare Books Cataloger

Stanford Libraries

Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives

415 Broadway, Floor 1, 8406

Redwood City, CA 94063

akdmyers at stanford.edu

any pronouns

[cid:a597d550-27cb-46c5-b943-e5b4a7e76814]

________________________________
From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> on behalf of Johnson-DeBaufre, Eric via DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2025 12:25 PM
To: Pax Crowley <pcrowley4 at gmail.com>; DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Cc: Johnson-DeBaufre, Eric <eric.johnsondebaufre at trincoll.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Advice on cataloging panel stamped bindings

Dear Pax,

First, let me apologize for taking so long to respond to your substantive and substantial reply to my question but I was away from the office all last week. I hope that your dinner was not jeopardized by the time and care you took in your reply.

Second, I really appreciate the examples you provided and will be keeping them at close hand as I do this work. As you rightly point out, all of this is very much dependent on having sufficient number of items, researcher interest, and available staff time to achieve this level of description, but at present there seems to be enough of all three for me to forge ahead.

To your questions:

  1.  Although not (to my knowledge) currently recognized by Standard Citation Forms, the resource I rely on heavily for this kind of work is the Einbanddatenbank supported by the Staatsbibliothek of Berlin https://www.hist-einband.de/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.hist-einband.de/__;!!G92We9drHetJ8EofZw!d15Llx_n9aHCZU2qc8gbJZL3vSzEMisV0BDfUJbR5nsJ4q_ZOT2Cg1han67gFAIhvw7F9KkffCuc8rKRhTh7o4M$>. This database includes citation forms for a range of elements (see more here https://www.hist-einband.de/zitierweise/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.hist-einband.de/zitierweise/__;!!G92We9drHetJ8EofZw!d15Llx_n9aHCZU2qc8gbJZL3vSzEMisV0BDfUJbR5nsJ4q_ZOT2Cg1han67gFAIhvw7F9KkffCuc8rKRGEkNplo$> ) I would be interested to hear from others who have used and profited from this resource and especially on the issue of whether it could be included in a future iteration of Standard Citation Forms.
  2.  I really like your suggestion of using 690/69X and subfield 3 for this sort of thing and would be eager to hear from others who might be doing something similar.

Many thanks!

Eric

Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, PhD, MLIS

Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, Watkinson Library

Trinity College

300 Summit Street

Hartford, CT 06106

860-297-4219

From: Pax Crowley <pcrowley4 at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2025 5:48 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Cc: Johnson-DeBaufre, Eric <eric.johnsondebaufre at trincoll.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Advice on cataloging panel stamped bindings

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I'm responding to the whole group because I'm very interested to hear more on this topic and have a bit of a question myself. And I'm going to try to be quick, as I need to get home and cook dinner.

I mean, I'm probably saying the absolute obvious here, but beyond a good local binding note (I don't know whether you are using 563 or 590 or a custom local extension in Alma) and adding a good set of 655 genre terms, I'm not sure what to do here. And that is frustrating to me, because it feels like we really ought to have a standard method for addressing pictorial bindings where the illustration or pictorial tr4eatment is what is of particular interest. Here's a record of mine from the depths of time. Please look kindly on it as it is over a decade old at this point and RDA, DCRM, and the RBMS controlled vocabularies have changed since then, and I've grown as a cataloger:  https://tripod.brynmawr.edu/permalink/01TRI_INST/1ijd0uu/alma991007868749704921<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tripod.brynmawr.edu/permalink/01TRI_INST/1ijd0uu/alma991007868749704921__;!!G92We9drHetJ8EofZw!d15Llx_n9aHCZU2qc8gbJZL3vSzEMisV0BDfUJbR5nsJ4q_ZOT2Cg1han67gFAIhvw7F9KkffCuc8rKRxEOBSVA$>.

Here's another example from the University of St. Andrews that takes a similar approach, though that's also over a decade old: https://librarysearch.st-andrews.ac.uk/permalink/44USTA_INST/6vqs55/alma991011256409708966<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://librarysearch.st-andrews.ac.uk/permalink/44USTA_INST/6vqs55/alma991011256409708966__;!!G92We9drHetJ8EofZw!d15Llx_n9aHCZU2qc8gbJZL3vSzEMisV0BDfUJbR5nsJ4q_ZOT2Cg1han67gFAIhvw7F9KkffCuc8rKRe5s4P8c$>

I'd be eager to see some more up-to-date records for this myself. And I have a couple of questions that may help to tease out some practical advice as well:

1) Is there a standard reference work and/or a crowdsourced database of panel stamps that we can refer to and put in a 590 (because it looks like there's no capability for 510 to be flagged as describing item or institution specific details? I think that if the answer to this is yes, this would be an ideal way. But I also feel like, if there were a comprehensive resource of this type it would be in the RBMS Catalogers Tools Resources or in the Standard Citation Forms.

2) I've been kind of noodling for some time on how to best include controlled terms for binding aboutness rather than isness. I'm wondering if this could be solved with the 690/69X (whatever you can use for local topicals). I feel like this could be a good use for subfield 3? Like if we have a panel stamped portrait of Martin Luther with unnamed angels in the border rolls, could we do something like:

696 #0 $3 Binding, central portrait: $a Luther, Martin, $e depicted.

690 #0 $3 Binding, borders: $a Angels.

I mean, this is predicated on the notion that a given collection has enough of a given type of binding or researcher to justify the cataloging time. But I think that there are definitely use cases for this. And I've not really found a good solution myself for *encoding* aboutness in bindings, even when that's important. Please go easy on me here, if the above is terrible. I'd be happy to hear your ideas on this.

OK. What was supposed to be a quick message has turned into a 50 minute message. Have a really nice weekend all, and I'm excited to hear about other models and resources to answer Eric's question!

Pax

On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 4:19 PM Johnson-DeBaufre, Eric via DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>> wrote:

Hello everyone!

I am looking for some advice on how (or whether) those of you who catalog panel-stamped bindings handle issues of the images often found on the central panels of these bindings.

We have, for example, a number of panel-stamped bound books in our collection (which almost always seem to be found on alum-tawed bindings) that have readily identifiable images, among them Luther and Melanchthon, the Biblical figures Judith and Jael, and one (so far) with two panels that are clearly copied from Lucas Cranach’s painting “Allegory of Law and Grace.”

I am wondering about the best way to make this information available for researchers who might be interested not simply in the fact that we have a number of panel-stamped bindings in our holdings but who want to find specific stamps or kinds of content (e.g. religious, etc.)

Do any of you have recommendations or examples of bibliographic records I might use as a model?

Many thanks for your assistance!

Eric

Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, PhD, MLIS

Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, Watkinson Library

Trinity College

300 Summit Street

Hartford, CT 06106

860-297-4219

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--

Pax Crowley (they/them)

Special Collections Cataloger

Olin Library, Wesleyan University

pcrowley4 at gmail.com<mailto:pcrowley4 at gmail.com>
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