EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW
ABOUT AV CATALOGING –
PLEASE ASK!
Nancy B. Olson
Correction to streaming video example
In my streaming video example in the March 2003 issue, there is a typo--in field 538 there should be a colon, not a semi-colon, after the phrase "System requirements".
stereo. or stereo
An e-mail question came recently from a cataloger who questioned why I had used "stereo." (with a period) in the sound recording examples in the 4th ed. of my cataloging book. Her colleagues all thought this was wrong.
I referred her to AACR2 6.5C7 in which periods are used after
mono.
stereo.
quad.
These are all abbreviations (for monophonic, stereophonic, and quadraphonic) and that is why the abbreviated form is followed by a period in the rules and in bibliographic records.
The confusion comes about, I suspect, because the period is no longer used in common usage in advertisements and text of articles; however, for bibliographic records, a period is required.
AACR2
One of the many things I learned from those who attended my workshops the past few years was that not all catalogers, or even all catalog departments or libraries, have access to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules in whatever edition is current. Workshop attendees would arrive with earlier editions or with no edition at all and explain that they did not have any where they worked. Some of these catalogers had no formal training of any kind in cataloging; some had never seen the rules! I came to understand that this is just the way it is for some institutions; clerks or secretaries may be told to do library work, to run the library, or to take over all library operations with no training at all. While this is more likely to happen in the very small libraries, in special libraries, or in some K-12 school libraries, it can happen anywhere.
Another thing I found was that many of the people attending these workshops did not have OCLC access. They were completely on their own.
All this made me realize how important cooperative cataloging and networks and training for network participation really is--and maybe our colleagues without that affiliation but living nearby could be invited to these workshops and into some kind of cooperative endeavors?
This realization also made me more concerned about the trend toward what I see as more complicated cataloging rules.
Subject headings for DVDs
Closed-captioned DVDs should have this note in field 546
546 Closed-captioned.
with the following genre subject heading
655 7 Video recordings for the hearing impaired. $2 lcsh
DVDs described for the visually impaired should have a note
546 Described for the visually impaired.
with the following genre subject heading
655 7 Video recordings for people with visual disabilities. $2 lcsh
A DVD with both aspects could have
546 Closed-captioned and described for the visually impaired.
or this could be combined further with other language aspects
546 Closed-captioned and described for the visually impaired (feature film only). Sound tracks in English and French; optional subtitles in French and Spanish.
What's next?
Some have e-mailed to ask when and where I will be doing my next workshop. Sadly, I must announce my workshop days are over. It is getting too difficult for me to travel and I just don’t have enough energy to deal with airlines. I do hope to complete a new edition of my DVD/film/video cataloging book, and prepare a looseleaf edition of my av cataloging book during the coming year.
If anyone is interested in taking over this column, please contact the incoming OLAC President. The person doing this should attend the OLAC meetings held during ALA conferences to be able to transcribe correctly the questions, answers, and the "flavor" of the discussion.
When submitting questions to Nancy B. Olson for this OLAC QA column, please put in subject line "Question for Nancy B. Olson" so I don’t delete it without looking further.
Contact Nancy B. Olson at:
P.O. 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: June 5, 2003
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