[DCRB-L] Main entry for collectors
Richard Noble
dcrb-l@lib.byu.edu
Sat, 24 Jan 2004 17:03:45 -0500
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Mere lucubrations:
Beth is dead right about the rationale for collector main entry in APPM;
but collections of published materials, as opposed to archival materials,
fall into a kind of grey area, largely because there's a tension between
our notions of main entry for individual published items, or items
published in some sense collectively, as against main entry for archival
collections.
If I recall, the examples in CSB are entered under title--but these are not
the sort of collections addressed in APPM. The LC guidelines were devised
for the purpose of creating collective records for bodies of materials for
which item-level cataloging was judged to be uneconomical (something to do
with clearing arrearages...). The "collections" thus created within the
catalog and on the shelves are in themselves of no interest as such.
Main entry is not dead. To conceptualize it, ask yourself what the entry
point should be for a single-entry book catalogue, and by extension, what
the order should be for the elements of reference citations. Take, for
example, the case of the Roosenwald Collection at LC, for which there is a
corporate heading "Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection (Library of Congress)".
From the point of view of this discussion, LC finesses the problem by
aving only an authority record for the collection itself. As an "adequate"
verbal formula it's entered directly; there's also a 410 "Library of
Congress. Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection", which suggests the direction
one might go in if searching for an alternate main entry.
The question is, what do you think people might look for in that one-entry
list? Where in my list of references at the back of my book would I want to
list the collection as a resource? Where does the identity of the
collection begin? Well, really, with Lessing J. Rosenwald, or course; but
if I were looking for a collection, as a catalogue-naive but otherwise
intelligent user (something that's hard for most of us to imagine, I
suspect), I think I might begin with the institution in which the
collection resides, if not with Rosenwald himself. Sadly, searching on
Rosenwald's name as author/creator will not retrieve the individual items
or the authority record in the LC database--which does suggest that a
collection-level record, with whatever main entry, might be a useful
addition to the LC catalogue, and to OCLC and RLIN too.
I'd have to infer, if a 710 heading is taken as a kind of reference
citation, that LC would enter the collection under title, with a 700 for
Rosenwald (please--and not just a 600). Frankly, I'm not sure that the
choice is ever going to get beyond arbitrariness. Also, I wonder how
necessary it is to be absolutely prescriptive about all this: these will
never be shared records, though of course it's always more convenient when
people enter similar things similarly in large databases.
At Brown we've been using the citation form as 110 main entry. This was my
idea, 12 years ago, and I now think it may have been rather silly. There
seemed to be a logic to "advancing" a heading that is otherwise a mere
added entry, when the record represents the collection itself, but it
really has no functional advantage unless one could narrow a search to main
entries. (Is there any catalogue that includes that option??)
I suppose I've mentioned Brown's documentation for set-collection records,
but here's the URL again:
http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/Catalog/setrecords.html
I'd hope that whatever the Committee comes up with will not cast us down
too deep into the netherworld of heterodoxy (though I guess I'm agnostic
about main entry for these things).
At 1/22/04 01:22 PM -0500, Beth Russell wrote, among other sensible things:
> From a purely theoretical point of view, the "collector" is in fact, the
> CREATOR of the collection, which is the ITEM being cataloged. There is
> only one item being cataloged in a collection-level record (the
> collection) and if one individual is responsible for assembling its
> contents in its current state, this activity surely merits main entry, so
> long as we maintain the concept of main entry in our cataloging rules.
RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOK CATALOGUER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 : RICHARD_NOBLE@BROWN.EDU
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<font size=3>Mere lucubrations:<br>
<br>
Beth is dead right about the rationale for collector main entry in APPM;
but collections of published materials, as opposed to archival materials,
fall into a kind of grey area, largely because there's a tension between
our notions of main entry for individual published items, or items
published in some sense collectively, as against main entry for archival
collections.<br>
<br>
If I recall, the examples in CSB are entered under title--but these are
not the sort of collections addressed in APPM. The LC guidelines were
devised for the purpose of creating collective records for bodies of
materials for which item-level cataloging was judged to be uneconomical
(something to do with clearing arrearages...). The
"collections" thus created within the catalog and on the
shelves are in themselves of no interest as such.<br>
<br>
Main entry is not dead. To conceptualize it, ask yourself what the entry
point should be for a single-entry book catalogue, and by extension, what
the order should be for the elements of reference citations. Take, for
example, the case of the Roosenwald Collection at LC, for which there is
a corporate heading "Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection (Library of
Congress)". From the point of view of this discussion, LC finesses
the problem by having only an authority record for the collection itself.
As an "adequate" verbal formula it's entered directly; there's
also a 410 "Library of Congress. Lessing J. Rosenwald
Collection", which suggests the direction one might go in if
searching for an alternate main entry.<br>
<br>
The question is, what do you think people might look for in that
one-entry list? Where in my list of references at the back of my book
would I want to list the collection as a resource? Where does the
identity of the collection begin? Well, really, with Lessing J.
Rosenwald, or course; but if I were looking for a collection, as a
catalogue-naive but otherwise intelligent user (something that's hard for
most of us to imagine, I suspect), I think I might begin with the
institution in which the collection resides, if not with Rosenwald
himself. Sadly, searching on Rosenwald's name as author/creator will not
retrieve the individual items or the authority record in the LC
database--which does suggest that a collection-level record, with
whatever main entry, might be a useful addition to the LC catalogue, and
to OCLC and RLIN too.<br>
<br>
I'd have to infer, if a 710 heading is taken as a kind of reference
citation, that LC would enter the collection under title, with a 700 for
Rosenwald (please--and not just a 600). Frankly, I'm not sure that the
choice is ever going to get beyond arbitrariness. Also, I wonder how
necessary it is to be absolutely prescriptive about all this: these will
never be shared records, though of course it's always more convenient
when people enter similar things similarly in large databases.<br>
<br>
At Brown we've been using the citation form as 110 main entry. This was
my idea, 12 years ago, and I now think it may have been rather silly.
There seemed to be a logic to "advancing" a heading that is
otherwise a mere added entry, when the record represents the collection
itself, but it really has no functional advantage unless one could narrow
a search to main entries. (Is there any catalogue that includes that
option??)<br>
<br>
I suppose I've mentioned Brown's documentation for set-collection
records, but here's the URL again:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/Catalog/setrecords.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/Catalog/setrecords.html<br>
<br>
</a>I'd hope that whatever the Committee comes up with will not cast us
down too deep into the netherworld of heterodoxy (though I guess I'm
agnostic about main entry for these things).<br>
<br>
At 1/22/04 01:22 PM -0500, Beth Russell wrote, among other sensible
things:<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>From a purely theoretical point of view, the
"collector" is in fact, the CREATOR of the collection, which is
the ITEM being cataloged. There is only one item being cataloged in a
collection-level record (the collection) and if one individual is
responsible for assembling its contents in its current state, this
activity surely merits main entry, so long as we maintain the concept of
main entry in our cataloging rules. </font></blockquote><br>
<br>
<br>
<div>RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOK CATALOGUER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN
UNIVERSITY</div>
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 :
RICHARD_NOBLE@BROWN.EDU
</html>
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