Successive vs. Latest Entry Cataloging (2 messages) Birdie MacLennan 15 Sep 1993 15:42 UTC
2 messages, 97 lines: ----------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 01:21:13 -0600 From: "T.F. Mills" <tomills@DIANA.CAIR.DU.EDU> Subject: Re: Successive entry and common sense > Successive entry vs. latest entry As I write I do not have access to AACR, LCRI, etc.-- so I can't cite chapter and verse very effectively; and my local PAC has crashed-- so I can't find precise examples ... but some general theoretical comments on successive entry are in order. I should begin with the disclaimer that I firmly favor successive entry for all the standard reasons of international standards/networking/cooperation, clarity and precision of entries, etc. That said, it is also obvious that successive entry has its problems, of which two stand out in my mind: 1. The application of successive entry rules eventually brings up the question of common sense. While it is easy to appeal to same, it is very difficult to codify common sense, and it is also painfully obvious from any perusal of an OPAC or the OCLC database that most catalogers are quite lacking in this commodity and very rigid in their application of the rules. There are even numerous instances of OCLC records being revised to merge successive entries where a cataloger once imagined a title change where there was none. AACR2 and LCRI could probably use an even more liberalized, yet precise, definition of what constitutes a title change. For example, most film buffs know that "Screen World" has always been "Screen World"; only a serials cataloger is likely to know that it has gone through the following "title changes": Screen world Daniel Blum's Screen world John Willis' Screen world Screen world In fact, the last title change consists solely of the omission of an apostrophe, and thus the application of another rule (i.e. the grammatically linked statement of responsibility, which seems particularly absurd for serials). Successive entry in this instance does not appear at all user friendly. Since I was recently doing a retro cleanup of this title, and we only had one entry in our catalog, I modified it into latest entry form. I may have violated the letter of the law, but I think this is within the spirit of AACR2. 2. Linking fields do not appear to be well handled in OPACS. Successive entries would indeed be user friendly if they displayed successively in an online catalog and/or a single keystroke jumped the user from one entry to the next. Perhaps a fellow "Serialst" can identify for us what systems support such use of the linking fields. I work in a CARL environment, which until recently did not seem to even recognize the existence of linking fields. Now it does, but only in the sense of creatively and unhelpfully reinterpreting standard usage of display constants. User groups should exert pressure on their systems managers to make the necessary enhancements to make full use of linking fields. T.F. Mills University of Denver tomills@du.edu ---------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 10:16:50 EDT From: "Enrique E. Gildemeister" <EEGLC@CUNYVM.BITNET> Subject: Re: Successive entry vs. latest entry Administrators love latest entry cataloging. RLIN is more lax than OCLC about following standards, and I know that there is at least one RLG member that is doing latest entry cataloging. A difficulty one gets into is consistency for union lists. If everyone contributes records cataloged "their" way, the list manager has to decide how to record the data and untangle and reassign holdings information with no pieces in hand. For universal bibliographic control and identification of titles a "master record" is needed Personally, my opinion is this: we've had successive entry policies for quite a long time; in the beginning there was a mania for micro-title-changes, but now all sorts of creative solutions are being implemented for difficult situations; see OCLC #2241027 (LC card no. 75-643179) for a radical approach. We're moving away from rigidity and will probably wind up somewhere in the middle. Enrique E. Gildemeister Cataloger/OCLC Enhance Coordinator Lehman College of the City University of New York Voice: (718) 960-8831 Fax: (718) 960-8952 Internet: eeglc@cunyvm.cuny.edu BITNET: eeglc@cunyvm