The Catalogging Rules are broken
Feb. 3rd, 2006 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcnealyThe following is a librarian related rant, mainly posted for my own amusement.
The cataloging rules put out by the ALA and commonly known as AACR2 (known by more colorful terms by cataloging students), have failed to keep up with the changing nature of materials that libraries hold and represent in their OPACS (online card catalog).
For instance, a multi-volume DVD set.
AACR2 says to catalog it as one item, and specify the details of each DVD included in the set in the details of the ISBN record. For you non-librarians, basically this means that when you (the user) look up Lord Peter Wimsey. The complete collection [videorecording] / BBC in the online card catalog, you see the entry in the catalog for the whole boxed set, with each DVD specified below, and each is checked out individually.
Now, let's say as is typical, not all the DVD's in the set are checked in at the same time. You check out volume one of "Five Red Herrings" and then want to place a hold on volume two so you can watch it.
But, due to the AACR2 rules on cataloging multi-volume sets of multimedia, and the implementation of those rules in OPAC's, there is NO way to do this. You, the library customer, are forced to haunt the DVD racks hoping that the DVD you want to watch will be available when you get to the library. In my particular case, I gave up waiting for my lucky library day and ordered it from Netflix, which does have each volume in the set as a separate record, so if you just want volume 2, you can get volume 2 and only volume 2. Now that's customer service!
In other words, the AACR2 rules need to be overhauled to accommodate the needs of the users, the OPACs need to change to be more user friendly. Our local system is especially problematic, I could write a whole paper on how to make it more user friendly, starting with the login process, but that's another rant for another day.
The cataloging rules put out by the ALA and commonly known as AACR2 (known by more colorful terms by cataloging students), have failed to keep up with the changing nature of materials that libraries hold and represent in their OPACS (online card catalog).
For instance, a multi-volume DVD set.
AACR2 says to catalog it as one item, and specify the details of each DVD included in the set in the details of the ISBN record. For you non-librarians, basically this means that when you (the user) look up Lord Peter Wimsey. The complete collection [videorecording] / BBC in the online card catalog, you see the entry in the catalog for the whole boxed set, with each DVD specified below, and each is checked out individually.
Now, let's say as is typical, not all the DVD's in the set are checked in at the same time. You check out volume one of "Five Red Herrings" and then want to place a hold on volume two so you can watch it.
But, due to the AACR2 rules on cataloging multi-volume sets of multimedia, and the implementation of those rules in OPAC's, there is NO way to do this. You, the library customer, are forced to haunt the DVD racks hoping that the DVD you want to watch will be available when you get to the library. In my particular case, I gave up waiting for my lucky library day and ordered it from Netflix, which does have each volume in the set as a separate record, so if you just want volume 2, you can get volume 2 and only volume 2. Now that's customer service!
In other words, the AACR2 rules need to be overhauled to accommodate the needs of the users, the OPACs need to change to be more user friendly. Our local system is especially problematic, I could write a whole paper on how to make it more user friendly, starting with the login process, but that's another rant for another day.
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Date: 2006-02-04 08:26 am (UTC)