And unfortunately cataloging is still being taught like this. My
instructor, who I consider one of the better ones at my school, kept
referring to "main entry" and "added entry," and how long it takes to
search 10,000 records. But, said I, we're not really searching each
record, are we? We're really looking up in an index of all the
records. And what is the significance of a "main entry," when any
field may be defined as an access point in the database? It seems to
me that we are retaining an awful lot of concepts and terminology that
meant something in the card catalog days, but are somewhat less than
useful now.
On 7/11/07, Suzanne Pilsk <suzanne.pilsk_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm always flummoxed when it comes to the decision : is the information I'm
> putting in just detail vs is it actually providing access.
>
> It comes out when something "interesting" is wanting to be done with the
> data and it turns out that details were skipped because they weren't seen as
> important access points.
>
> Anyone who tries to repurpose metadata sees the inconsistencies and can get
> very frustrated when trying to pull out or pull together data differently
> than, say, the established index of an ILS.
>
> Case: Whining recently about old old MARC records that had very sketch
> titles and often didn't include authors in 100 fields because the rules
> didn't make you do it. It was good enough then. Now it isn't
>
> Case: Georgraphic grouping of data but it turns out the fixed field for ctry
> was skipped because the ILS at the time didn't do anything with it anyway.
> Wasn't an access point - why look up those pesky three letters?
>
> Case: Grouping publishers together with dates to approach for copy right
> permissions; whoops, abbreviated publishers get us nowhere. The Association
> in 260 $b ugh! Well, it isn't an "access point" why bother.
>
> Case: Grouping personal names together - without relator codes - is the
> person in the 700 an author of the work or some other "role"? A detail that
> was not used because access was for the name not the role
>
> Anyway, you all get my point. The problem I have is when is a detail
> actually turn into an access point and when is "good enough" now turn out to
> be useless down the road?
>
> I think what I took away from the meeting at LC was that I need to give up
> on the touch the record once and walk away. Instead, the record might be
> touched and retouched over and over as more data becomes available. But
> that sounds very expensive.
>
> Yet still, I go back to my cubical and I do.... what? Go fast and hope that
> what I've decided was good enough is actually okay and that later I won't be
> cursing myself because I can't provide subset of my data by something that
> seems so obvious to that future me?
>
--
Sharon M. Foster
[affiliations omitted]
Any opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Received on Wed Jul 11 2007 - 20:13:27 EDT