Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Society of American Archivists
Archivists have reason to celebrate the long-awaited publication of Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Devised and compiled initially by members of the American and Canadian archival community, this volume is intended to help archivists describe their collections at all levels, creating consistent points of access or index terms that will assist researchers in finding the materials they seek.
Describing Archives: A Content Standard, also referred to as DACS, replaces Steve Hensen’s 1989 second edition compilation, Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts (APPM). Hensen’s work has long been the place for archivists to look for guidance at how to formulate their catalog record entries for creator names, titles, etc., since the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed., rev. (AACR2) are so sketchy in this area. DACS builds on Hensen’s work and carries the concepts into the electronic environment within which most archivists currently work, including the Web, XML, and Encoded Archival Description (EAD). DACS not only addresses questions on how best to formulate a catalog record, but also describes the various levels within the finding aids for archival and manuscript collections. Moreover, DACS includes data elements from the two international archival conventions of the General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)) and International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (ISAAR(CPF)).
DACS is divided into three main parts: "Describing Archival Materials", "Describing Creators" and "Forms of Names". The data elements described within the chapters in each of the first two sections usually include a note of "Purpose and Scope", "Exclusions", "Sources of Information" and "General Rules". Best of all are the multiple examples illustrating the points. (The compilers point out that the examples given in Part 1 are meant to be illustrative and not prescriptive.) Even better, additional examples are also given for the first two parts showing the encoding necessary for both EAD and MARC 21, two widely used descriptive standards.
In addition to the three basic sections, there are a number of very useful chapters. One is a short introduction that may help archivists--especially those new to this area of work--to learn about basic archival principles. The compilers have also included a succinct overview about archival description. Four appendices include a glossary of terms, a bibliography of companion standards, and crosswalks. The crosswalks include tables showing the relationship between APPM to DACS, DACS to EAD and MARC, and DACS to the two international standards ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF). The final appendix includes examples of short finding aids, at all levels of description, fully encoded in EAD and MARC. The examples are drawn from an assortment of personal papers, family papers, organizational records and collections, helping to demonstrate more fully how the data elements may be utilized.
While it does not cover specific types of media already addressed by other library and archival standards, Describing Archives: A Content Standard meets many of the needs of the archival community. Congratulations are in order to the many thoughtful people who worked on this volume by incorporating their insights and combined knowledge into meeting the daily needs of today’s archivist. Highly recommended.
Published in 2004 by: Society of American Archivists, Chicago. (269 pages). ISBN 1-931666-08-3. $49.00 (SAA members $35.00)
Reviewed by:
Jacquelyn K. Sundstrand
Manuscript and Archives Librarian
Library Special Collections Department
University of Nevada, Reno
UCLA Film and Television Archive Cataloging Procedure Manual
By the UCLA Film and Television Archive
When Martha Yee announced the availability of the UCLA Film and Television Archive Cataloging Procedure Manual (CPM) on the Archive’s Website, I leapt at the opportunity to review it because I knew I would personally profit in the process. As a nationally recognized scholar in the field of moving image cataloging, Martha Yee requires no introduction to catalogers. Moreover, under Yee’s leadership as the Cataloging Supervisor, the UCLA Film and Television Archive has historically set standards for and actively promoted the cataloging of archival moving images for the last decade or so. Last modified on November 2004, the CPM continues to fulfill this tradition with an exemplary documentation of procedures.
In her announcement of September 22, 2004, on the OLAC List, Yee explained: "We use a combination of Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed., rev. (AACR2R) and Archival Moving Image Materials: a Cataloging Manual (AMIM2) rules, Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Moving Image Materials: Genre Terms (MIM) genre and form terms in MARC 21 format records on Voyager. The procedure manual indicates which rules we are following in any given situation and contains many examples. In addition, the CPM contains local rules for uniform titles, supplied titles, local subject headings and genre/form terms, and terms for use in the physical description of archival moving image materials, with an extensive glossary of the latter, including suggested MARC 21 coding. The glossary in particular might be useful to institutions that deal on an occasional basis with film or video".
Indeed, Section 26.5, "UCLA Film and Television Archive Terminology, Definitions, and Abbreviations List", is an excellent reference source for understanding the various film, video, and sound formats and processes, as well as for identifying proper MARC 21 coding. Quite often, definitions will be broader than those found in AMIM2 and include anecdotal history lessons. For example, the definition of frames per second (fps) cites a letter to American Cinematographer from Kevin Brownlow:
"16 [fps] was standard in 1914 …but it was changing as early as 1915. The speed was rendered obsolete by the habit of ‘racing’, projectionists speeding up the film so they could get home early…As a result, cameramen were obliged to increase their speed of cranking, and by 1920 many films were cranked at 20 fps. By the mid-Twenties, the average speed for American films was 22 fps, and they tended to be projected slightly faster. Western Electric engineers, checking the average speed of Broadway theaters, discovered that they were running between 22-26 fps, and this was one reason 24 fps became the standard for sound. I admit that the pioneer cameramen I interviewed insisted that they cranked at 16 fps throughout the silent era. But having had to speed-correct scores of silent features for television, I can confidently state that most of them, apart from D.W. Griffith’s early features, were photographed significantly faster than 16 fps."
In another example, "Busch" is defined as a "…color process used ca. 1928. ‘Additive two-color. The negative is produced by running 35 mm. film horizontally through the camera. Twin lenses form a pair of images upon a single frame area; image pairs are superimposed when projected’--Trimble. (007 byte 13 (Refined categories of color), code c); use in the 903 $b subfield".
Given these examples from the glossary, one might suppose that the manual is not appropriate for libraries with a more commonplace video or sound collection. However, detailed definitions of terms encountered in general collections, such as Dolby, Dolby-A. DTS, monaural, NTSC, etc., are also included, and they should benefit those new to or inexperienced with cataloging audio-visual collections. Beyond the glossary, sections on holdings fields provide additional definitions and clear instructions of MARC 21 coding to further aid in cataloging video and sound recordings.
There are sections, of course, that are more suited to archival collections with unique holdings or apply only to UCLA Archive. One should not forget that the CPM is designed for a specific archive with a targeted audience that does no shared cataloging. For example, sections on inventory inputting, preservation notes, local policy, collection-specific procedure (e.g., "Hearst collection"), and Voyager-specific notation can be ignored unless someone is trying to set up procedures for an archival collection in a similar cataloging environment. When the Archive’s procedures diverge from AACR2R and AMIM2 rules, the manual clearly identifies that, as mentioned by Yee above. In Section 5.1.1, the CPM instructs not to follow "…the option of adding general material designators (GMDs) to the description", and explains that this "…local policy is due to our practice of treating videocassettes as copies of films when necessary". On the other hand, each section provides cross-references to AACR2 and AMIM2, as well as LCRI, when applied and appropriate to serve as further clarification and documentation on procedure decisions.
To improve access to its collection, the Archive also maintains local subject, genre and form headings (Section 6.4.2), such as "Christmas programming", "Academy Award films", and "Student films and video". It also performs double-indexing of proper names (Section 6.4.4.1) to "…allow patrons to conduct a single broad search on a topic such as Wrestlers, without needing a list of every person who ever wrestled". Although the Archive establishes local access headings, it also uses NAF records. More importantly, the Archive is an AV Funnel NACO member and Section 8 provides step-by-step instructions on authority work from searching to creating authority files with a helpful list of abbreviations for commonly cited reference works.
Another extremely helpful section is for the body of description. For those who wrestle on occasion with cataloging television programs or serials, Section 5 provides explicit instructions and detailed examples to address individual episodes, parts, or excerpts. Within this section, instructions on notes fields include a table with explanations and examples of the 5xx MARC 21 fields that serve as an ideal template for creating concise and informative notes, albeit most of the examples are of the Archive’s holdings.
There are other sections and procedures that I found extremely helpful, but lest I lose readers with my rambling analysis, permit me to conclude here by simply recommending the CPM as a fine example of cataloging documentation and training tool for both libraries and archives and catalogers and archivists. If I were asked how to improve this resource, my greedy reply would be to add a search feature to afford better retrieval of all of the desired information by a casual user.
Published in 2004- by: UCLA Film and Television Archive, Los Angeles, California. Available on the Internet at: <http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/CPM%20Voyager/CPMV00TofC.html>
Reviewed by:
Sueyoung Park-Primiano
Special Formats Cataloger
New York University
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Last updated: March 29, 2005
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