[DCRM-L] Tarot decks: "books" or "visual materials"?

[Vernica Downey]

Hello, Samantha:

For our indie tarot collection, we catalog decks with the OCLC Books workform but treat the deck as the primary material and the instruction booklet as accompanying material. If half of our collection had not been cataloged as books previously, I would have chosen to treat them as visual materials ("k"-- two-dimensional nonprojected graphic and TMat "i"). However, I did not want to change existing practice mid-project.

Our documentation is not available publicly, but I am happy to share if you contact me offlist. I used a combination of OLAC's Best Practices for Cataloging Objects, Beinecke's playing cards cataloging instructions (https://rbc-cataloging-manual.beinecke.library.yale.edu/playing-cards), and our existing local guidelines. I also received helpful guidance from Guy Frost, Catalog Librarian at Valdosta State University and NACO and SACO Occult/Esoteric Funnels co-coordinator. I wish there were best practices guidelines available for tarot and oracle decks since OCLC records show that cataloging practice varies a lot.

Vernica


Vernica M. Downey

Metadata Librarian for Distinctive Collections

MIT Libraries
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