Dear Brenda and colleagues
Like those who have posted to date, I too was somewhat shocked when I
read the announcement from the BL. However when I started to
investigate, I found that, as Brenda says, this has been LC stated
policy since 2006, so I can see why the British Library feels it is
reasonable to adopt the same approach.
At the same time, I realise that the underlying issue is really around
the whole concept of the structure of catalogue records, the structure
of the MARC record and how searching is implemented in OPACs. In a
nutshell, does the concept of an "added entry" still have validity? And
also, is keyword access across the whole of a MARC record now the
accepted norm rather than searching groups of individual tags in an
author/title/subject/series index?
I think that, regarding series, the second question is effectively
answered by the decision to cease working with an authority file for
series entries (which was the real nub of the LC decision in 2006). Once
that is done, then, logically, keyword searching becomes your primary
access to series information. And therefore, there is no logic in
differentiating between 440 and 490, and certainly not in repeating the
information in a 490 in precisely the same form in an 830. Once LC and
BL decided to cease treating series as a controlled access point, then
it makes sense to use 490.
If you look at MARBI proposal 2008-07, it clearly intends 830 to be used
as the sole MARC tag for a series added entry and states:
"The intention of the proposal is to resolve the long-standing problem
of field 440 being both a descriptive field and a controlled access
point. Separating the two functions will result in a more reliable
description and easier maintenance through authority control over time."
This is confirmed on the MARC21 web pages where the field definition for
490 states: "Field 490 does not serve as a series added entry. When
field 490 is used and a series added entry is desired, both the series
statement (field 490) and a corresponding series added entry (fields
800-830) are recorded in the bibliographic record."
However, abandon the concept of a "series added entry" and the LC/BL
decision makes sense. Though it does seem a shame that there are such
discrepancies between theory, documentation and practice within our
community.
The Program for Cooperative Cataloging has a web page with links to many
of the relevant statements: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/seriesPCC.html
and these clearly point out the conflicting issues of consistency and
record exchange around the recording of series.
I have to say that for Leeds, what bugs us is that we have never indexed
MARC tag 490. We are now faced with a significant (and potentially
expensive) system reconfiguration in the light of the recent decisions.
And the strange thing is that, 3 years on from the original LC decision,
we see very few records with just a 490 when we would wish to provide
series access - clearly there is a lot of upgrading of records within
the community (I'm not aware of any automatic processing of records to
e.g. create a parallel 830 by utilities such as OCLC or RLUK).
Michael Emly
********************************************
Michael Emly
Collection Management Services Team Leader
Leeds University Library
tel. +44 (0)113 343 6444
email: [log in to unmask]
Postal address:
Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
-----Original Message-----
From: Bibliographic standards in UK libraries
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Young, Brenda
Sent: 21 January 2009 15:23
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: British Library Policy on recording series information in
bibliographic records
In response to Rose-Ann's query, I did not mean to suggest that the BL
would not be conforming to MARC 21.
In BL records first indicator zero will be used in 490 fields which do
not have an accompnying 830 field, and first indicator one will be used
in 490 fields which do have an accompanying 830 field.
The Library of Congress stopped creating Series Authority Records in
2006 and at that time they adopted the policy of recording series
statements in 490 0 fields. Now that the 440 field has actually been
made obsolete we have adopted the same policy.
By 'generic series titles' we mean those which are meaningless if used
on their own such as 'Paper', 'Occasional paper' or 'Research report'.
These are the series titles which we will qualify in an 830.
Brenda Young
Bibliographic Systems Manager
The British Library
Boston Spa
Wetherby
West Yorkshire
LS23 7BQ
[log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)1937 546 597
Fax: +44 (0) 1937 546 586
-----Original Message-----
From: Rose-Ann Movsovic [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 12 January 2009 15:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: Young, Brenda
Subject: Re: British Library Policy on recording series information in
bibliographic records
Have I misunderstood this or has the BL decided not to follow MARC21?
The message below suggests there will be no distinction between "traced"
and "untraced" series in the BL catalogue.
I don't have strong feelings about the recent changes to MARC21 but I am
concerned if BL-derived records will be different from LC- or
PCC-derived records or if extra duplication of records happens on OCLC.
There are several other implications. For example, will the BL create
authority records for untraced as well as traced series, or neither? If
neither, it will become difficult to maintain consistency and to guide
users to variant forms of series title and title changes. If both, this
seems like more work than following standard MARC21. Or maybe the BL
LMS works differently to ours...
Since MARC21 is maintaining the distinction between traced and untraced
series titles we will do the same. However, if we have a BL record we
will always have to examine it to see whether or not it needs an 830
adding and the 490 indicator changing to avoid inconsistency in our
catalogue.
I'm assuming the "generic" series title referred to below is a
non-unique series title, such as Studies in French literature (there are
series with this title published by Edward Arnold and Edwin Mellen).
However, there are non-unique series titles which we would have recorded
as 490.0 without worrying about other instances of the same series title
- I'm thinking of all the Italian series such as "Saggi". Will the BL
be adding 830s for these?
I'm sure people can think of other problems which will arise if the BL
doesn't follow standard MARC21 practice.
--
Rose-Ann Movsovic email: [log in to unmask]
Collections Manager tel: 0118 378 7487
University of Reading Library, UK web: www.reading.ac.uk/library
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
From: "Young, Brenda" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 09:46:09 -0000
In response to the decision by MARBI (2008-07) to make the MARC field
440 field obsolete, the British Library is changing its policy on
recording series information in its bibliographic records. The revised
policy takes into consideration the Library of Congress series policy
and the BL's requirement to ensure consistency and accuracy in derived
records with minimal intervention.
From January 12th 2009 the 440 field will no-longer be used to record
series titles in records created or edited by the British Library.
From that date it will be our practice to transcribe the form of series
appearing on the item in a 490 field for every volume in a series. The
830 field will only be created when the series title is 'generic'. In
such a case the generic title will be made unique by qualifying it with
the authorised form of the issuing body and adding this to the record as
an 830 access point.
The British Library has far too many records containing 440 fields for
us to consider converting them all to 490 fields at this time. We will,
however, change any 440 fields on derived records to 490 and change any
440 fields to 490 fields on existing records which are being edited for
any reason. We will retain any additional 830 fields which already exist
in derived records, whether they contain a generic series titles or not.
************************************************************************
**
Experience the British Library online at www.bl.uk
The British Library's new interactive Annual Report and Accounts 2007/08
: www.bl.uk/knowledge
Help the British Library conserve the world's knowledge. Adopt a Book.
www.bl.uk/adoptabook
The Library's St Pancras site is WiFi - enabled
************************************************************************
*
The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and may be
legally privileged. It is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are
not the intended recipient, please delete this e-mail and notify the
[log in to unmask] : The contents of this e-mail must not be disclosed or
copied without the sender's consent.
The statements and opinions expressed in this message are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect those of the British Library. The
British Library does not take any responsibility for the views of the
author.
************************************************************************
*
|
