Article Summary for Lecture #5- Delsey

 Standards for descriptive cataloguing:

Two perspectives on the past twenty years

  

This article explains two elements, shared catalog records and computer technology, that have affected the standardization of cataloging around the world. With the great advancement of technology over the past few decades, it is not hard to believe that cataloging has evolved right along with it.

First, improvements in technology has allowed libraries all over the planet to communicate with each other and share information and resources.  The International Federation of Library Associations has created a code called the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules that catalogers follow to have uniform bibliographic records. This code allows for a single agency to create the bibliographic record following the accepted cataloging rules and this record can then be used by any cataloger, which saves a lot of time, money, and energy. Another benefit to having a standard way of cataloging items is so that they can be shared with others across the country and even internationally. A group of libraries, called the ABACUS libraries, are the national bibliographic agencies for their countries and they have helped develop alternative rules within the AACR2 so that records and items can be shared internationally with little modification and effort. Previous to this, differences in languages and cultural context made it difficult to transfer records internationally.

Next, twenty years ago, most libraries were still using card catalogs. Obviously today things are different and with the advancing technology has come a higher demand of accuracy in cataloging. Delsey (1989) points out that back in the card catalog days, as long as the card fit in the catalog box, the record was able to be used in the catalog and would serve its purpose. Today, if something it not put in the electronic catalog correctly, it is possible that when searching for the item in a database, it might never come up as a search result. This can include typos, inserting the wrong information in the wrong field, and other easily made mistakes. Computers also made it necessary for records to be consistent across all material types. The Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR then developed a General International Standard Bibliographic Description in 1977 that served as a foundation for all material types. This was accepted by the IFLA and was adopted into the AACR2. Today, we’re seeing a shift from records being single units to records being cataloged as relational to others. Computers have allowed us to attach related records together so that users are able to see all different editions, translations, and manifestations of a work. With technology still rapidly developing, we will see what the next twenty years brings to cataloging.

Reference

Delsey, T. (1989). Standards for descriptive cataloguing: Two perspectives on the past twenty

years. In E. Svenonius (Ed.), The Conceptual Foundations of Descriptive Cataloging, pp 51-60. San Diego: Academic Press.

Article Summary for Lecture #4- Carlyle

Understanding FRBR As a Conceptual Model

The Fuctional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) is a conceptual model. Conceptual models can be used to explain ideas and theories through representation. To use conceptual models, one must first operationalize the elements of the model. Operationalizing makes it so that we can observe and measure the output of an abstract element. For example, when looking at something like happiness, you can operationalize that by counting how many times someone smiles or how many times they say something positive. The elements of FRBR that need to be operationally defined are “work”, “expression”, “material”, and “item”. To explain, a “work” is the original publication by an author, an “expression” is a remake or artistic realization of a work, a manifestation is the physical format of an expression, and an item is the single copy of that manifestation. The difference that this model makes in cataloging is that bibliographic records usually just describe the single item that you are looking for, but FRBR makes it so that bibliographic records contain information relating the item back to other expressions and manifestations, making FRBR an entity-relationship model. An example of this can be if I was looking for the children’s book Charlotte’s Web, instead of just getting one record for Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, I would find multiple records, representing translations in different languages, a modern retelling, movie versions, a graphic novel version, etc… all of the different expressions and manifestations of Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White that may have different titles, authors, and formats, but they are all related back to the original work of Charlotte’s Web. This is the power of FRBR. Evaluating conceptual models can be difficult, but you must look at the goal of the model to determine if it is good or not. The goal of FRBR is to provide a framework that would facilitate a common understanding of what a bibliographic record provides information about. One of the cons of FRBR is the abstractness of the elements it uses. There are no concrete definitions or qualifications for “works”, “expressions”, and the rest. This makes it difficult for us to reach a mutual understanding and complete agreement on the correct way to catalog items using the FRBR model. What make be an expression of a work to one person may be considered a totally different work by a colleague. The entities used in FRBR are not exactly new to the cataloging world and FRBR is relatable to many past models, what is new about FRBR is that is brings relationships between different items into account when cataloging, making catalogs and databases more efficient than ever.

Reference

Carlyle, A. (2006). Understanding FRBR as a conceptual model: FRBR and the bibliographic

universe. Library Resources & Technical Services 50:264-73.

Article Summary for Lecture #3 - Russell

Hidden Wisdom and Unseen Treasure: Revisiting

Cataloging in Medieval Libraries

Cataloging in the medieval period was rudimentary at best, but serves as the foundation for the system that we use today. The biggest problem medieval librarians dealt with was lack of a standard when organizing their collections and every library had a different way of cataloging their collections. There was no mass printing and books were not as common or widely available as they are today so libraries in the medieval times did not have huge collections or a need to constantly keep up with a quickly growing collection. A lot of the libraries were part of churches and monasteries, used to hold religious texts intended for monks and other individuals involved in the church. Once larger libraries were built to include secular as well as religious works, librarians realized that they needed a better system of organizing, finding, and retrieving items from their collections. This is when cataloging became more involved with the content of books rather than just the title and author. They also needed to note the location of the items in these larger building and began labeling shelves and including the shelf name in their catalogs. Medieval catalogers used a variety of techniques to record the books in their collections, including details such as physical descriptions, condition of the item, opening lines, and many more. Books in medieval catalogs were also divided by function. School books were kept together, while religious books had their own place. In the Durham Cathedral, books that were restricted to who could use them were kept locked away behind iron gates. Interestingly enough, union catalogs, which are a collaborative list of all of the items within a group of libraries, did exist in this time period and were intended to be used by travelers looking for a specific item so that they wouldn’t waste their time going to so many different libraries. This meant they could go to a nearby library and be able to see if other libraries in the area had it, very similar to today’s library systems. The Registrum Librorum Angliae from 1296 was one of these union lists and contained the holdings of one hundred and eighty-three libraries in England. It is interesting to see how similar yet very different medieval cataloging is from modern cataloging. Medieval librarians changed how they sorted and cataloged their libraries based on what their individual library needed at the time. It seems that a lot of the same ideas and reasoning are still in use, we have just adapted to technology available to us today.

Reference

Russell, B. M. (1998). Hidden Wisdom and Unseen Treasure: Revisiting Cataloging in Medieval

Libraries. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 26(3), 21-30.