The Cataloger's Instinct

I feel pretty good about my progress at first-time cataloging so far. For issues not addressed in-depth in class, I have found my instincts pretty accurate--which makes me feel good, of course. Perusing some of the answer keys for the MARC exercises, I'm noticing some disparities, however. I can only chalk this up to "cataloger's discretion", as the differences between my work and the answer key seems to revolve around minor information--which tags to include certain amounts of information, what information to include (if any), and how to list information. As if MARC wasn't already confusing enough, a new wrinkle: 5xx tags are coded out of order.

Nice.

BTW:
521 tags: When is a librarian considered "expert" enough to add a target audience tag?

I did receive an answer to an earlier question, though. It appears the publisher's address on a title page verso can be used for place of publication when no POP is listed on the chief source (title page). So no more $a [New York?] or $a [S.l.]. Hello, $a Worthington, Ohio.

We also began practicing subject headings today. It was one of those things that seemed easy enough to be a bit eerie. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one. I did have some confusion in regard to government officials. I read something in the rules where government official names should be formatted a certain way (i.e. United States. President (1961-1963 : Kennedy). Seemes like the authorized LOC Subject Heading had them formatted in the regular form of authors, though. So I guess the verdict is still out on this one.