Document (#30607)

Author

Hill, J.S.

Title

¬The elephant in the catalog : cataloging animals you can't see or touch

Source

Cataloging and classification quarterly. 23(1996) no.1, S.5-25

Year

1996

Abstract

Reviews the basic form and function of catalogues of all types, including: types and form of material catalogued (whether owned by the library or by another library); cataloguing staff; standards; and workflow. Focuses on the changing function of catalogues which now extends not only to items located in the library but to materials that belong conceptually but not physically to the library's stock.

Content

We have all heard the story of the three blind men who were put next to an elephant and asked to describe it. Each of them touched a different part of the beast, and because none of them could examine the entire creature, their resulting description was neither accurate nor useful. Constructing a catalog has always been a bit like describing elephants blind, and rather than getting easier as standardization and new technologies are widely implemented, the emergence of new types of information resources are making the job more difficult. Remotely-accessible electronic information resources are among the newest of cataloging's elephants. Not only is it difficult to see -or touch the entire animal, but the creature may move or change during or after the description process. The beast is also unwieldy, and the person doing the description may have no control or ownership of it. The temptation is great to say that it is not our business to describe either this particular beast or any other animal that we don't own, and to walk away. Unfortunately, remotely-accessible electronic information resources are increasing in number and importance, and access to information about materials over which the local library has no control is becoming both easier and more common. Library users more and more expect to have access to these resources, so the option of leaving them undescribed and thus excluding them from the catalog is becoming indefensible. In coming to grips with the problem of describing these exotic beasts, it may be helpful to recall how we have dealt with similar challenges in the past, and to remember that the practices, rules, policies, and principles that surround and define the activity of cataloging have always reflected the current concept of what constitutes a library catalog, and that that concept inevitably reflects both the history and role of libraries and available technology. Until relatively recently the primary roles of a catalog were widely recognized to be providing inventory control for a particular collection and serving as a finding aid to that collection only, but in practice, even the most elaborate catalogs never fulfilled even these roles entirely. Whole categories of materials, such as maps, photographs, newspapers, pamphlets, and rare books were excluded, or at best were described in separate catalogs or finding aids. Information about the contents of individual objects, such as chapters, contributions, and journal articles were also rarely included in the catalog. A small number of major parts of some works were described through analytic cataloging, and contents of other items were sometimes listed in notes in cataloging records when those parts were considered separable and potentially important in their own right, but because entries were generally not made for items included in contents notes the lists were primarily useful to those who had already found the main record. Description of the internal contents of information resources was left to reference works such as indexes and bibliographies. Far from being viewed as a flaw or insufficiency in the catalog, this need to use outside finding aids was accepted as the way things were.

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