Cataloging

About: Cataloging is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4770 publications have been published within this topic receiving 32489 citations.

The U.S. RDA Test Process

Abstract: From July through December 2010, three U.S. national libraries, the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Medicine, coordinated a test of Resource Description and Access (RDA) that included 23 other test participants representing a broad range of institutions. The goal of the RDA test was to assure the operational, technical, and economic feasibility of the new cataloging code in order to help determine whether the national libraries would decide to implement the new code. The design and methodology of the test, how the data were analyzed, and specific impact of RDA on the serials community were presented.

The Australian National Bibliographic Database and the Functional Requirements for the Bibliographic Database (FRBR).

Abstract: The development of the conceptual 'Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records' (FRBR) Model enables records to be considered in terms of contextual relationships. Developments in software can capitalise on this to significantly improve the display of works through surfacing of these relationships. This paper reports on an investigation of the Australian National Bibliographic Database to understand the implications and potential issues of applying FRBR in this environment.

Subject Analysis: An Interpretive Survey

Abstract: CHANGING PATTERNS OF SUBJECT ANALYSIS THEYEAR 1876 marked the publication in the United States of Charles Cutter's Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalogue' and, to some minds, the beginning of an inevitable dichotomy between the development of rules and procedures for the descriptive identification of library materials and the evolution of principles and practices of subject analysis. For the better part of the ensuing century, even the field of subject analysis divided itself into two essentially separate disciplines: subject cataloging and classification. Because subject cataloging involved the selection of terminology to describe the content of the material, it was regularly and quite logically associated with the descriptive cataloging effort; the process of classification however, was seen basically as an attempt to group materials in meaningful ways and thus formed a separate operation. As library collections grew and efforts to centralize the cataloging operation intensified, selection of subject terms became a larger problem than Cutter had perhaps anticipated. Whereas this pressure resulted in the elaboration of rules and examples in the area of descriptive cataloging, it eventuated merely in the development of lists of subject headings. Meanwhile, classification established itself as primarily hierarchical and enumerative, also taking on-especially with the appearance of the Library of Congress Classification-the characteristics of a list rather than a code. Indeed, it is somewhat astonishing that there is still no comprehensive set of rules for the application of the Library of Congress Classification. After World War 11, the inadequacies of lists without codes in the area of subject control of library materials began to be felt in significant ways. Prosperity, accompanied by a startling increase in the number of materials being published and the size of library acquisi

Inventory at Brooklyn College, 1998–1999: An Original Method

Abstract: This article discusses the development of an inventory project at Brooklyn College that entailed examining the collection and comparing it to the corresponding records in the online catalog. The procedure became necessary in large part due to problems resulting from the migration to a new, integrated cataloging system in 1987. We needed to deal with (a) books in the catalog that were not on the shelves, (b) books on the shelves that were not in the catalog, and (c) books that lacked circulation information (item records). We used the circulation module of our integrated system to discharge every book, thereby changing its record. An unchanged record indicated a missing book. Missing books were then removed from the catalog. Books on the shelves with no bibliographic record were redeemed and entered into the catalog. Item records were created for those books that needed them. Other errors were also identified and corrected during this time.