Jonathan said:
>But with virtual resources (I hesitate even to use the term
>"electronic resources") all of this must be reconsidered. Even in
>printed materials, the weird publications (loose-leaf) didn't fit
>into the classical norms all that well ...
We have found the new integrating resources category in AACR2 and
MARC21 work equally well for both loose-leaf services (we do a lot
of these for law firms) and updating websites (we also do a lot of
these). The note* concerning when consulted works equally well for
both. Information is information, whether print or digital. It is
good to have 247 for earlier forms of the title when cataloguing as
integrating resource; successive changes in title are easily
transcribed.
A recent experience might be relevant here.
We prepare MARC records for an electronic publisher of research
"papers" (i.e. electronic documents) in a particularly esoteric field.
We had assumed, since they are sometimes updated, that they would be
catalogued as integrating resources. The research library customers
for these high priced resources said absolutely *not*, when contacted
by a consultant hired by the electronic publisher. Those "papers" are
cited in doctoral theses, including page numbers, as particular
iterations. Each successive iteration must be preserved as it was at
the time cited, along with a monograph record describing that
iteration in their catalogues (with accurate transcription of the
prime source title), and an url** taking one to that particular
iteration.
The needs of scholarship have not changed as much since Panizzi as
Jonathan seems to think.
An added wrinkle not yet addressed by rules (so far as I know) is that
each of these "papers" comes in two electronic forms: one for
consulting online and one for printing. Libraries did not want two
records, one for each electronic form. Our first inclination was to
do repeating 300, one for each (which we do rather than omitting 300
as OLAC would have one do for videorecordings in two formats), and two
urls. But then we discovered that there is an url for an abstract,
which in turn has links to each electronic form. We use a generalized
300***, and the abstract's url**. A little imagination and creative
rule interpretation can go a long way to meeting patron needs.
>... the problem arises when we try to insist that the same rules must
>operate in the virtual world. They don't make sense.
They make great sense to us. As I said, information is information.
Print documents can be digitalized, and digital documents can be
printed. It is a porous membrane. Each of these research "paper"
electronic documents has a version for printing, and many libraries do
print them out. Many of the electronic document MARC records we
prepare are for electronic versions of printed books.
> ... simply consider virtual materials to be fundamentally different--
>which is true.
Not in our experience. Textual information is textual information.
>We do this now with manuscripts in many ways, where the rule of
>transcription of the "title" of a draft of a speech or letter that
>was dashed off in a couple of seconds and full of typos is not
>necessarily transcribed exactly.
We transcribe exactly in 245 with "[sic]". and the corrected form in
246. Doesn't everyone?
>How should virtual materials be handled?
As information resources, which we have done for centuries.
>To me, it doesn't make sense that it is so important to transcribe
>faithfully the chief source of information for a title of a virtual
>resource when it may change in a week or within the next 5 minutes.
We find (as in the cases described above) vital to do this accurate
transcription, either using 245/247 as an integrating resource, or as
successive monograph records for preserved successive iterations.
Unless the title is accurately transcribed, seeking a known resource
on Google leads to false hits.
>What is the solution? Again, that can come only with trial and error.
Our several trials and errors have led us to appreciate the work of
Panizzi, Cutter, and Gorman; not to mention the utility of ISBD,
AACR2, and MARC21.
We are not optimistic about RDA serving us as well.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
P.S. Selected MARC fields used for research papers in electronic form:
245 10 $a<Title>$h[electronic resource] :$b<subtitle> /$cStatement of
reponsibility.
246 30 $a<Distinctive part of title>.
250 $a<Edition>,
***300 $a1 electronic text ( p. : ill.) :$bdigital file.
*500 $aTitle from PDF t.p. (viewed on <date>).
505 0 $a<Contents; cut & pasted from pdf>
506 $aAbstract freely available; full-text restricted to subscribers
or individual document purchasers.
510 0 $aCompendex.
510 0 aINSPEC.
510 0 $aGoogle scholar.
510 0 $aGoogle book search.
520 $a<Abstract; cut and pasted from pdf>.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
538 System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
**856 42 $3Abstract with links to resource$uhttp:// ...
