EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW
ABOUT AV CATALOGING –
PLEASE ASK!
Nancy B. Olson
I am somewhat distracted lately--there have been 10 incidents of vandalism at my house the last several months. The latest one was the worst with two-thirds of a concrete block thrown through a garage window against my car. This involved someone bringing a concrete block with them, going through a gate into my back yard, not tripping over low fences or plant supports to get to the window, and having the strength to heave that hunk of concrete through the window and against the car hard enough to dent the door and scrape the window. The worst part for me is that the two garage windows are pointed-top church windows from a Latter Day Saints Church that my aunt and uncle attended in southern Iowa--they are thick glass with a swirly design, and are very special to me.
Before this the incidents included pulling flowers out of the garden and scattering them up and down the street, and many nights of eggs thrown against the house. I’m now installing motion-detecting lights all around, and offering a reward through the police. I hope next column to report my life is back to normal. I had no idea how awful this would make me feel--and I have no idea why it is happening.
Now--on to cataloging matters.
I have been surprised at all the non-book related cataloging questions there have been the last few months on Autocat and the OLAC-List. There have been many questions sent privately to me, as well. It seems that many catalogers are now having to deal with unusual materials, and many people new to cataloging are involved. This would indicate it is time for networks and organizations to sponsor workshops for cataloging nonbook materials--and not just for electronic resources! And I am again reminded that many who have questions are not involved with OCLC or with networks or with any agency from which they can expect help, so, if you do plan a workshop, include those folks.
Main entry for CD-ROM
I received a question from a school librarian as follows: "I have a few Living Books titles, one in particular is Arthur’s teacher troubles by Marc Tolon Brown. However, this is an electronic version of it, along with quizzes and classroom activities. I only found one record for this series (Living Books (Novato, Calif.)) in LC, and they have the CD-ROM, Stellaluna, with author main entry by the actual author. I have found many records for this series with title main entry, and a few with the actual author as the main entry. I found a few with the programmer as main entry. I found one "cheat sheet" … that mentioned personal authors are rare for electronic resources due to the number of people involved in producing the items."
The description includes: "Interactive CD-ROM picture book for ages 6-10. When Arthur starts third grade, he discovers he has "The Rat"--the infamous Mr. Ratburn--for his teacher. The user can have the book read aloud (passive mode) and watch animated pictures, or play within the story (interactive mode) and play with the animation on each page. Characters and pictures can talk, move, sing, and dance."
The question: "Should the main entry for this CD-ROM be Brown as the original author? --or title main entry, or programmer?"
I am reminded of the controversies over the years about main entry for films made from books (or plays by Shakespeare), and for videos of operas. Many have argued that main entry for the related work should be the same as for the original book or score. However, in all these cases, including that of an electronic resource, considerable creative work is necessary from many people to turn the original work into something that includes interactivity, sound, animation, dance, settings, lighting, costumes, etc., as well as quizzes and classroom activities.
AACR2 is very clear in these cases. 21.1C1 says to "enter a work under its title proper if … the personal authorship is … diffuse…" and refers us to 21.6C2, which says, "If responsibility is shared among more than three persons or corporate bodies and principal responsibility is not attributed to any one, two, or three, enter under title."
While the original work may be by a personal author, and that person may be the only one named on the item being cataloged, the responsibility of that person was only for the original work itself. The creative, intellectual, work involved in turning that written work into the interactive work with sound, music, animation, etc., is very
great, and causes the overall responsibility to be diffuse, thus entry under title. One must, of course, make an entry for the original author (an author-title added entry), and this will bring the bibliographic record you create together with the bibliographic record for the original in your catalog.
Some people go on to argue that you need the author main entry for the cutter number in your classification, so they will sit together on your shelf, or can be retrieved together with a call number search. Classification is not covered by AACR2, and, regardless of what you may have been taught in library school or on the job, you can do whatever you need to do with the classification numbers. You can cutter your films or videos or electronic resources as if they were books, with the addition of a workmark, or date and workmark, or date and word to distinguish them from the book itself. That classification number we create for an item is a kind of code and can be juggled as needed for local use and retrieval.
Cataloger neutrality
There was lots of discussion on Autocat and on the OLAC-List in mid-October about wording of summary notes. It was interesting to see the variety of 520 notes written for the same film, which was titled, Bowling for Columbine. Another example of why we need catalogers--and why something like summary-writing cannot be automated or controlled by rules. Over the years there are so many times when I have encountered
situations where administrators or others have been so sure the cataloging process could be completely done without catalogers. I am reminded of an administrator I used to know who said: "If I were King, I’d make all title pages be laid out to rules, so there would be no question about cataloging them."!
Film length in MARC21 field 300
A question came to me about a set of two DVDs that included a film and considerable supplementary material. The cataloger wondered what length (how many minutes) to put in subfield a of field 300, reasoning (correctly, I think) that to say
2 videodiscs (119 min.)
would be confusing.
I think this is a case where the length should be omitted in field 300, but included somewhere else. One could use the number of minutes as part of the description of the film in the 520. If some of the supplementary items had known running times, a contents note could include titles of whatever was included in the package with number of minutes given in parentheses after each title for which running time was
known.
I would give just the time for the feature film in the fixed fields--I do not worry too much about this fixed field, as I am not sure anyone is using it--however, if it is being used, users would probably be concerned only in the running time of the feature film included in the DVD package.
Captions or Subtitles?
A cataloger in a public library e-mailed me for help with the following dilemma:
"We put stickers on our videos and DVDs that indicate closed captioning. This is done to help out browsing patrons, as the print on much AV packaging is so small. We are getting some non-fiction films that say ‘Subtitles in English.’ The productions are also in English, usually how-to DVDs and videos. Is it legitimate to apply ‘closed-captioned’ stickers to these items? … it seems to me that subtitles are somewhat less that full captioning, but I don’t want to limit the value of these titles to our hearing-impaired users."
I replied that yes, subtitles are somewhat less than full captioning, but they are still close to being fully closed-captioned, and some DVDs seem to include one set of captions but say they have both closed-captioning and subtitles. If you are putting stickers on the packages to aid hearing-impaired users, I would label both those that say they are closed-captioned and those that are subtitles in the same way.
In the bibliographic records, I would make a note for whatever the packaging said was included, whether closed-captioned, subtitled (or sometimes both).
Videodisc or DVD in MARC21 300?
A question appeared on Autocat from someone who wanted to use "DVD" rather than "videodisc" in the extent of item part of the physical description area when cataloging a DVD. I looked at 7.5B1--"If none of these terms is appropriate, give the specific name of the item as concisely as possible", and later, "Give the trade name or other similar specification in a note", and I asked Jay Weitz what he thought about this.
On September 25, Jay wrote:
"To my mind, ‘videodisc’ continues to describe any medium in disc form that contains video data, including DVDs (in the same way that ‘sound disc’ continues to describe any medium in disc form that contains audio data, whether it be vinyl or CD). Currently, according to the rules, we must continue to describe DVDs as ‘videodisc’. Just in the past few days, however, I have read a preliminary report (from John Attig via Matthew Beacom) about the JSC meeting earlier this month. It sounds as though the ‘conventional terminology’ option that currently appears for electronic resources in 9.5B1, will indeed be included in both Chapters 6 and 7, in the 2004 revisions to AACR2. Personally, I find this option to be a retreat from bibliographic control and have argued against it in several forums (including CC:DA). In any case, using the ‘conventional terminology’ of ‘DVD’ for videos will have to wait for the implementation of this future revision."
I replied to Jay that I agreed with him, having been around long enough to see many terms of “conventional technology” come and go. In AACR2, the GMD is a broad generic description and the SMD in field 300 is a narrower, but still generic, term, and the use of these generic terms was developed in an attempt to create a bibliographic record that would be applicable regardless of whatever “conventional terminology”
existed at any time.
Measurements
I had a question from someone who wondered what units were to be used in measuring accompanying material--specifically an electronic resource item, measured in inches, but accompanying something for which measurement is to be in metric units.
The joys of inconsistency! As anyone who catalogs non-book materials knows, some chapters use metric measurements and some do not.
When you are cataloging something that belongs in a specific chapter, use the kind of measurements specified in that chapter throughout the physical description.
Or, omit any measurements for the item accompanying the main item.
And encourage CC:DA, JSC, and any groups working on revisions to AACR2 to use one kind of unit for measurements throughout AACR2.
DVD regions
There has been quite a lot of discussion on the lists recently about what to use in a note for the region or regions a DVD is designed for. The problem arises because the world was divided into a number of regions (I have a nice little map of them) and for each region, players are made that play DVDs designed to work in that region. There are, of
course, some expensive players that will play DVDs from more than one region, or maybe even all DVDs. And DVD players attached to computers do not necessarily work as you expect them to.
I always favor saying in a note exactly what is said on the item, figuring that any patron knows more about the subject than I do, and they will understand what is going on, given the wording on the item.
I am reminded that the document on OLAC’s Website uses the example:
Produced for region 4 (Central and South America); user must have a DVD player that will play region 4 DVDs.
This should cover it.
I would reassure catalogers not to worry about the odd kinds of players, or what someone’s DVD player attached to, or part of, a computer system will play. The note above covers the standard DVD player--that should tell any user what they need to know.
Cataloging Continuing Resources
Glenn Patton of OCLC announced on June 27, 2003 that some changes to AACR2 Chapter 12 will not be implemented at OCLC until sometime in the future, possibly July 2005. The complete text of this announcement is as follows:
"The majority of the changes that support broadening of AACR2, Chapter 12, from Serials to Continuing Resources were implemented by OCLC in December 2002 and documented in Technical Bulletin 247
<http://www.oclc.org/technicalbulletins/247/>. The Library of Congress began to use the new version of Chapter 12 on December 1, 2002, and OCLC member libraries should already be following those rules.
Two items in the MARC21 format changes were deferred because of the magnitude of their impact on OCLC systems:
-- the first is making the 260 field (Publication, Distribution, etc.) repeatable. Since the field has never in the history of the format been repeatable, all OCLC systems expect only one instance. This affects validation, searching, displays, batchload matching, card printing, etc. The issue of repeatability for field 260 is being factored into a wide variety of system changes that will be happening over the next couple of years. In addition, LC has not yet provided any guidelines for how to use the repeatable field.
-- the second, even more major, piece is the implementation of the new Bibliographic Level code ‘i’ to identify integrating resources. This affects validation also but it also means changes to how OCLC systems and services identify the basic format of a record and to the software that determines everything about who can do what to which record under what circumstances. OCLC has deferred this in order not to have to make significant changes to basic PRISM software at a time there is so much other work to be done to implement WorldCat and associated databases in the Oracle environment and to migrate users to Connexion.
Technical Bulletin 247 provides interim coding guidelines that were developed in consultation with LC. The TB indicated that the remaining changes ‘would be implemented no earlier than July 2003’. Recently it has become necessary to extend that timeframe further because we are still in a position of maintaining multiple cataloging interfaces and database platforms. OCLC has notified the Library of Congress that the delay may extend as far as July 2005.
In the meantime, OCLC member libraries should continue to follow the interim coding guidelines given in TB 247."
Intercat ceases September 25, 2003
OCLC announced in September that the Intercat list would cease to function on September 25, 2003. This list was established as part of the efforts made by OCLC for the cataloging of Internet resources, and was used by many.
Ann Sandberg-Fox
I was saddened to receive an e-mail from Bob Fox, husband of Ann Sandberg-Fox, telling of her death on August 21. I had known Ann almost 30 years and had a great deal of respect for the work she has done for cataloging and catalogers, especially her work in recent years on the ISBDs. She and I did not always agree on how things should be done (remember the MRDF mess?), but we could always discuss it and we listened to each other.
I think the last message I saw from her was on the OLAC-List in June when she replied to John Attig about a question from Bao-Chu Chang about illustrations in material cataloged using Chapter 9. Her reply:
"The recording of ‘col.’ goes back to the ’80s and the early set of guidelines that were developed to catalog microcomputer software. It was meant to account for educational games and graphics packages that required a color monitor. Unless the item specified color or was known to produce color, catalogers were advised not to record the term. At that time, most software was what we termed ‘monochromatic’--where the text and illustrative matter were designed to display in one color (e.g., white or green on a dark background).
I don’t recall any discussions about including ‘ill.’ maybe because, as you say, the term was identified primarily with text and printed matter. I think it probably has some validity today to be used for documents that are primarily textual in nature."
Often I turned to Ann for historical background on something I was not sure I had remembered correctly, or for her thoughts on the direction in which rules seemed to be heading. I will miss her insights on cataloging on non-book materials.
For your questions
Please use the subject line in your emails: Question for Nancy B. Olson.
Contact Nancy B. Olson at
PO Box 734, Lake Crystal MN 56055
avnancy@ic.mankato.mn.us
(please put in the subject line "Question for Nancy")
Phone: 507-726-2985
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Last updated: November 24, 2003
http://www.olacinc.org/newsletters/dec03/qanda.html
neumeist@buffalo.edu