On 4/15/12 3:26 PM, Ben Companjen wrote:

>
> And on import, most of the punctuation marks like [, ], : and / can be
> stripped I think. There are 376566 records with "[microform] :" in the
> latest datadump, whereas there were 376323 in January's datadump. See
> most variants (with proposed normalization "Microform") in this huge
> table: http://companjen.name/ol/editions_formats-2012-01-31.html

The issue with punctuation is a huge one -- MARC includes the 
punctuation in the data, UniMarc derives punctuation from the fields. 
The really insane thing with MARC is that you have to include the 
punctuation in the subfield BEFORE the thing it punctuates. This is so 
absurd... yet it is commonplace in library cataloging.

There are tricks to removing punctuation, for example:

This is a book title.
This is a book title with etc.

I can try to find some rules that have been used in the past (or you can 
join the code4lib list, code4lib.org, and ask there).


> Is it true that Paperback and Hardcover are not on the MARC list of
> GMDs or in RDA's lists of content/carrier/material types?

Yes, it is true. These are not included in any of the lists.

> I guess these are "concepts" under "text", but since there are 3M+
> Paperbacks and 1.5M Hardcovers in OL, I was a little surprised to not
> find them.

Those terms probably come from Amazon records (since for a bookseller 
that is an important indication of price and shipping costs). For 
libraries, the distinction is not considered important. The idea being 
that if a person wishes to read a book they will not care whether the 
library copy is hardback, paperback, trade paperback, but they will care 
about eBook and audio book versions.


> Does Open Library say anywhere that paperbacks and hardcovers should
> be separate editions? I consider them different, but I get the feeling
> newly published authors who add their own books don't (seem to) care,
> or maybe just don't know.

Open Library has no cataloging rules. If the paperback and hardback come 
in on different records, as they do from amazon, those will be 
considered separate. But there is nothing to say what is "right" in that 
regard.

kc


-- 
Karen Coyle
[email protected] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
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