Maps and Related Cartographic Materials:
Cataloging, Classification, and Bibliographic Control
edited by Paige G. Andrews and Mary Lynette Larsgaard
A Review
This book was co-published simultaneously as volume 27, numbers 1-2 and
3-4, 1999, of Cataloging and Classification Quarterly. The only difference
between the book and the combined issues of the journal is that the book
has an index. Of course, another advantage to buying the book is that one
can keep the book at hand to refer to while leaving all the issues of the
journal together. This book's main sections cover MARC tags for cataloging
cartographic materials, an overview of map cataloging, cataloging specific
types of material such as map series and serials, globes, geologic
sections, printed atlases, and aerial photographs and other remote-sensing
images, cataloging early cartographic material, metadata and cataloging
digital cartographic material, classification and the assigning of subject
headings to cartographic material, retrospective conversion of map
collections, and cataloging cartographic material in archives. The editors
have also included a table of acronyms. The authors of some of the
chapters in the book refer the reader to other chapters in the book, which
is useful, and is a feature not usually found in books in which the
chapters are written by different authors.
This is a very useful book that fills in a large gap that has existed in
tools for map cataloging. Cartographic Materials: A Manual of the
Interpretationfor AACR2 is still useful, but it is so outdated by the
publication of revisions to AACR2 and the advent of electronic
cartographic material that it is confusing. This will be remedied when the
revised edition is published, but many audio-visual material catalogers
still have to go on cataloging maps in the meantime. The Geography and Map
Division of the Library of Congress's Map Cataloging Manual is helpful,
but it covers LC's policy on certain aspects of map cataloging but really does not cover map cataloging as a whole and does not include all the different types of material this book covers. Basic map cataloging workshops are offered by several groups, but except for the Library of Congress's summer map
program, there aren't many ways for catalogers who catalog maps to learn
more beyond the basics on their own. This book addresses that need.
The authors of the chapters of this book are all well-known map catalogers
and map librarians, but they write clearly enough that even beginning map
catalogers can understand what they are saying. This book would be very
useful to catalogers who catalog cartographic material only part of the
time and do not have other map catalogers in their institution or even in
their city to ask questions of.
I recommend this book for anyone who catalogs any type of cartographic
material.
Published in 1999 by: Haworth Information Press, New York. (487 p.). ISBN
0-7890-0778-9 ($69.95).
Reviewed by Katherine Rankin
Special Formats Catalog Librarian
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Last updated: April 7, 2003
http://www.olacinc.org/reviews/andrews.html
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