Half-way Point

This week my cataloging class completed its mid-term exam. The exam took me several hours and included creating MARC records, questions about cataloging terms and rules, and two sizeable essays. The essays focused on cataloger decisions and rule-based cataloging, which are just similar enough to cause alot of headache. There seemed multiple ways to attack the essays, but for some reason my mind kept thinking in broad strokes rather than specific AACR2R rules. Though I could have probably written about any number of specific cataloging rules, I decided to discuss industry issues and settings that affect a cataloger's work in making cataloging decisions. For rule-based cataloging, I attacked the essay from the perspective of the three main access points: author, title, and subject. I really hope my points fall into the scope of the essay, but by the time I wrapped up the essays my mind was effectively mush and my wife and son were waiting to embark on a Friday evening excursion. I also realized 3/4ths of the way into the second essay on cataloging rules that presenting the subject access perspective may be problematic. While authors and titles are covered under the strict ruleset of AACR2R, subject cataloging is not. I felt that since library organizations such as the Library of Congress publishes "principles" of subject cataloging, that is in essence a kind of rules which are explained and mimicked. I hope the professor sees it the same way!

One of the MARC record construction questions was also tricky and presented an issue I had previously been unclear about. The item contained three authors and one illustrator. So in question was whether a 100 tag needed to be created or simply a title main entry followed by a 700 tag. According to rules I am familiar with surrounding the 245 tag, entering up to three authors plus a separate illustrator is allowed. Then that necessitates a 700 tag to trace the creators listed in the 245 tag. But the rulebook from which I was basing most of my decisions, EasyMarc, was strangely worded something along the lines of only tracing the primary author. I tried to play safe and repeat the 700 tags to include all four creators (3 authors, 1 illustrator noted as such). We'll find out soon enough how accurate that was.