“Cataloging record” means a bibliographic record, or the information traditionally shown on a catalog card. Every automation system that is MARC compliant, that
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INTRODUCTION TO CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION FOR THE SSC LIBRARIAN Proceedings of the 41st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA ΠJune 18-21, 2006) 1 Basic principles, including bibliographic records and subject headings, with a focus on the Elazar and Weine classification systems compared to Dewey and LC; MARC records and the Z39.50 utility and their relation to automated cataloging. Sherry Wasserman, M.L.S., servedas Head of Adult Services andAutomation Manager for the OakPark Library in Oak Park, MI for 28years. Retired, she is now thevolunteer Librarian at CongregationBnai Moshe in West Bloomfield, MI. Prepared by Sherry Wasserman and Eileen Polk for the Association of Jewish Libraries Convention, 2006 1. What is Cataloging? a. The parts of the cataloging record i. Description ii. Subject headings iii. Classification 2. Traditional cataloging a. Card sets 3. Standards for automated catalogs a. MARC b. Z39.50 c. Unicode 4. Cataloging with MARC a. MARC tags 5. Linking a. Barcodes 6. What is Classification? a. Dewey and Library of Congress 7. Judaic Classification Systems a. Weine and Elazar 8. Some problems in classification
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 2 INTRODUCTION TO CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION FOR THE SSC LIBRARIAN : Basic principles , including bibliographic records and subject headings, with a focus on the Elazar and Weine classification systems compared to Dewey and LC; MARC records and the Z39.50 utility and their relation to automated cataloging. During the next two hours I hope to give you all a basic introduction to the cataloging and classification of library materials. I will be speaking about the basic principles of cataloging and classification and also will address how automation has impacted and changed th is traditional library activity. The rise of the automated catalog has totally changed the mechanics of the cataloging process. I™m going to start with cataloging because that is where auto mation has had such a big impact. WHAT IS CATALOGING? Cataloging is the method used to create an index to your collection. It tells you what you have and where to find it. The catalog descri bes each title and attaches it to the classification shelf location assigned to it. If what you have now is just a firoom full of booksfl, the most import ant thing you have to do to turn it into a library is to catalog it. Every title in your library will have a record in the catalog. First, let me explain the catalog record itself, a nd by that I mean the information about each title that identifies it. In general every catalog record has three separate parts to it. They are: 1. The DescriptionŒ this consists of all the bibliographic information found on the title page and elsewhere on the item. It includes the author, tit le, publisher, date of publication, added personal entries such as a joint author, illu strator, translator, etc., descriptive information such as number of pages, illustrations, size of book etc., format in formation like, video or CD, and helpful notes relating to significant information such as c ontents notes or if the book has a bibliography included etc. This information, for any partic ular title, will be the same everywhere. 2. The Subject Headings Œ these are terms used to identify the contents of the title. Subject headings need to be consistent and systematically assigned so that one search will bring up all the materials on any subject a patron is looking for. There are two major sources for subject headings, The Library of Congress Subject Headings , and Sears List of Subject Headings. To use either of these subject heading sources you have to look up the subject you want in the volume and find the absolutely correct wordage and the correct punctuation for the needed subject heading. Subject headings have parts, the main part, followed by any number of subdivisions to further define the subject. The main topic of the s ubject heading can be one word or a series of words; a series of words can utilize a comma or parenthesis. Th e subdivisions can be topical, geographical, chronological or by format. Sub-di visions are separated from the ma in part of the subject heading
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 3 by a hyphen and they also can be one word or a series. A correct subject heading must conform to the language and punctuation as it appears in the subject headings source. It is usually recommended that you use LC headings for Judaic li braries because Sears is too general. But LC is pretty academic and needs to be reviewed. You can make up your own additional subject headings if you want and if you think that it will help your patrons find material. But be careful, keep track of them and be consistent when us ing them. And if you do make up subject headings, it is better to use the accepted standard h eadings too. The use of fiseefl and fisee alsofl cross- references from a common term to the standard accepted heading can solve a lot of problems. 3. The shelf location Œ this is also known as the call number. (Years ago in libraries a patron could not go into the book stacks. A book needed to be requested or ficalled forfl and then a staff person got it for you. So the location number that told th em where to find the needed item got the name call number.) Now, with open stacks, I like the term shelf location better since many times the ficall numberfl was actually not a number but a word like fiFictionfl. The term fishelf locationfl describes the information is being given to you by that word or number. The fishelf locationfl is defined by what classification system you use. In fact the classification you assign to each title is the shelf location for that title. Clas sification will be discussed later. In addition to those three parts to a record which appear everywhere, a catalog record will keep track internally of your library™s Copy Information. This information identifies each individual item, not title, owned by your library and so tracks th e number of copies you have of each title. In traditional cataloging, they were actual copy numbers, the first copy of a book was designated copy one, the second copy 2 etc. TRADITIONAL CATALOGING Traditional cataloging is done according to an accepted set of rules, the most recent version of which is the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules 2 known as AARC2. These rules govern exactly what information should be included, the order it should be included, and how each line should be punctuated, In fact, AACR2 governs the entire design of the card. AACR2 insures that cataloging is done correctly and uniformly in all libraries. This is good, but it makes cataloging a sp ecialty in Library Science since there are so many rules and it™s complicated; good cat aloging is an art. Once the item description is created, then you assign the correct subject headings and you classify the item by assigning it a shelf location. All of this information is found on the card which is known as the main entry card. But for each item a card set needs to be created. In addition to a main entry care, a card set includes a subject card for each assigned subject, added entry ca rds for each added entry and a shelf list card which includes the copy information and price. Each of thes e cards has the appropriate identifying line on the top so it can be filed appropriately. Even if you purchase a card set, you may need to edit each card, to put the subject
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 4 headings on the top and the shelf location in the corner of each card. Cataloging is a special area of professional librarianship, needing serious training and expertise to do it right. But we are living in the digital age and practically everything you may purchase for your library has already been cataloged somewhere and you can find the correct descriptive and subject heading cataloging for it online at other libraries. These cataloging record s that are available online can be electronically downloaded directly into an automated system. Li brary suppliers will provide the cataloging for you electronically too. The only thing you will definitely have to catalog from scratch is material that is produced in house su ch as videos of lectures, or programs. With an electronic catalog, you enter each piece of information once with an acco mpanying identification code, and then the machine manipulates the information allowing you to search by all the traditional methods, author, title and subject and also by a new search method called keyword sear ching which searches every word in the record including subtitles and contents notes. This lessens your dependence on knowing the absolutely correct subject heading in order to find material. The ability to find and acquire correct cataloging online leads to the next issue, leaving the card catalog behind and moving to an automated catalog. STANDARDS FOR AUTOMATED CATALOGS So now let™s talk about creating th e electronic catalog of ma terials. As with anything else, there is a right and a wrong way to do it. The library comm unity, along with the technology community, has set up standards and rules about how to do it. These standards are instituted by NISO, The National Information Standards Organization, which deals with all aspects of information technology and regulates, among other things, how electronic library catalogs should be created. Yes, you can create an electronic catalog using ordinary da tabase software like Microsoft Access, but it is NOT recommended because the catalog you create does not conform to the cataloging standards which are used and accepted internationally. It will not integrate itself with other automated catalogs, provi de keyword searching, or coordinate with a patron database to track circulation. It is a lot of work, and if you do it, someday when you want to participate in these ot her areas of library automation, you will have to start over. There are three important standards that relate to cataloging with an automated system. MARC CATALOGING STANDARD The first one is MARC cataloging. MARC, M-A-R-C, is an acronym. It stands for MAchine Readable Cataloging record. fiMachine-readablefl means that a machine in this case, a computer, can read and interpret the data in the catalog record. fiCataloging recordfl means a bibliographic record, or the information traditionally shown on a catalog car d. Every automation system that is MARC compliant, that creates its catalog records using MARC, will be able to understand the records of any other MARC compliant system. If you are going to have an au tomated catalog you should create the catalog records using MARC.
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 5 THE Z39.50 PROTOCOL And what does Z39.50 mean??? Z39.50 is a computer protocol that can be implemented on any operating system and that defines a standard way for two comput ers to communicate for the purpose of information retrieval. It allows two computers to talk to each other and exchange information even if they are running different systems. And what does that mean? Simpl y, it means that if your automation system and your electronic catalog m eet the Z39.50 standards then the catalog can exchange data with any other electronic computer catalog that also meets th e Z39.50 standards. This allows you go to other libraries™ online catalogs and search them for MARC r ecords and import information from them. That is how you are able to obtain MARC catalog records from them. It allow for full use of the Internet by your automation system. In order to import cata log records, you need to be Z39.50 compliant. UNICODE STANDARD This is a new standard that is becoming more important to Jewish libraries because it governs the display of Hebrew. Officially called the Unicode Worldwide Ch aracter Standard, the Unicode system is the international standard for the representation, transmission, interchange, processing, storage, input and display of the written form of all the diverse languages of the world, including Cyrillic, Han Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Bengali, and so on, as well as additional symbols. If you want to import cataloging records for Hebrew language materials you need to utilize Unicode. Those are the three standards that are involved. Now let™s look at the specifics and how it applies to you. WHAT IS A MARC RECORD? A MARC catalog is not just an ordinary da tabase. A MARC record is more than the bibliographic information about the item. Imbedd ed inside the MARC record are codes that act as signposts to enable the computer to interpret the information correctly. The signposts are known as MARC tags. The different pieces of information that make up the catalog record are entered into fields and sub-fields that are each associated with a MARC Ta g that defines what each piece of information is. Look at your MARC tag handout. It shows the tag numbers for basic MARC cataloging along with the most frequently used sub-divisions. Notice the dollar sign. In MARC cataloging, each tag and sub-division is preceded by a $ which alerts the computer that a tag designatio n is following, then after the tag designation, the actual information is entered.
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 6 Basic Divisions of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Record: 0XX Control information, numbers, codes 1XX Main entry 2XX Titles, edition, imprint (in general, the title, statement of responsibility, edition, and publication information) 3XX Physical description 4XX Series statements (as shown in the book) 5XX Notes 6XX Subject added entries 7XX Added entries other than subject or series 8XX Series added entries (other authoritative forms) MOST FREQUENTLY USED MARC TAGS MARC TAG DESCRIPTION 010 Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) $a = LCCN 020 International Standard Book Number (ISBN) $a = ISBN 100 Personal Name Main Entry (author) 1# = Surname (most common) $a = Personal name $b = Numeration $c = Titles and other words associated with a name $q = Fuller form of name $d = Dates associated with a na me (generally, year of birth) 245 Title Information $a = The title proper $b = Subtitle $c=Statement of responsibility 250 Edition $a = Edition statement 260 Publication Information $a = Place of publication $b = Name of publisher $c = Date of publication 300 Physical Description $a = Number of pages $b = Other physical details (illustration information) $c = Dimensions (cm.) $e = Accompanying material (t eacher™s guide, manual, etc.) 440 Series Statement $a = Title $v = Volume number 500 General Note $a = General note (no specialized note field has been defined) 504 Bibliography, etc. note $a = Bibliography, etc. note 520 Annotation or Summary Note $a = Summary, abstract, or annotation $b = Expansion of summary note
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 8 the wheel. Of course, you do have to edit the record you import to reflect your shelf location. And the other thing you have to do is link your holdings. WHAT IS LINKING? So far I have talked about the process for creatin g the catalog record. But once it is created or imported and in your electronic ca talog, you still have nothing to tell you that you actually own one or more copies, or to identify them, or distinguish be tween them. Linking is when you inform the system that you actually own the title. This done using barcodes. Barcodes are machine-readable symbols of patterns of black and white stripes, those little zebra bars we see ever ywhere. Bits of information are encoded within the barcodes. The data is read by scanners and is often used with databases. In an electronic catalog, every item, every copy of a title in the libra ry, has its own distinct, unique barcode. The information encoded on barcodes used by librari es is generally a numeric sequence. Public and academic libraries use 14 digit barcode called a codaba r barcode. It is what you are probably used to seeing in library books. They can be purchased from barcode suppliers. But small libraries probably don™t need to use them because they don™t need all the information stor ed in them. Many of the library automation systems include a way to print your own barcodes that show only a sequential numbering that will be just 4, 5, or 6 digits long and just counts up. The barcode its elf is placed on the item being linked, and then the barcode number is scanned into the record. Any number of copies can be linked to the record. Every copy must be linked individually. Barcodes take the place of copy numbers in an electronic catalog. Counting how many barcodes are linked to a title tells you have many copies you own. The barcode numbers attached to one record do not have to be sequential; they have no relation to each other. The computer knows that anytime it sees that particul ar number sequence it means that particular copy of that title. So, you have either created or imported a MARC recor d, you have linked the copy you owned to the record with a barcode. What you have not done yet is assign a classification to the record; it needs a shelf location to complete the cataloging. Assigning this shelf location is done during the linking process. So let™s turn to the subject of classification. BREAK WHAT IS CLASSIFICATION? According to Webster™s the word ficlassifyfl means to arrange in classes or to assign to categories. Classification is the act or process of doing this arrangement; it is the systematic arrangement of groups or categories according to established criteria. In libraries of course this applies to how books and other materials the library owns are arranged in the build ing. In a broad way your library may arrange things by format, shelving all the books together, all the videos to gether, all the CD™s togeth er etc. But then, all of these formats are arranged by subject. Some librari es interfile the various fo rmats in order to keep
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 9 everything on one subject together. But, however the format issue is resolved, all materials in libraries are ultimately arranged by subject. The idea is to place mate rials on the same subject together on the shelf, and have the classification act as an address so you can find it. Classification schemes are for the most part number systems, but they also include the use of words to designate types of materials which may be arranged without numbers, for example fiction is usua lly arranged alphabetically by the authors last name and biographies are frequently designated by a B or BIO followed by the name of the person they are about and arranged alphabetically by that name. A complete shelf location can have more than just a classification designation. It can include a prefix to designate a form of material. For example all children™s materials may start with a prefix of J, all vi deos start with Video etc. They may also include a suffix that may show a volume or part number. Also be aware, there is myth in libraries that every book in the library has its own unique shelf location, that they are never duplicated. It is a myth. The only number that is absolutely unique in a library is a barcode number. You may have many books about a single subject like anti-Semitism and they will all have the same basic number. Unless you want to have classification numbers that stretch far out and become very large, you will find that classifi cation numbers repeat themselves. When you have more that one book with the same classification nu mber they are organized and differentiated by the Cutter letters that follow the number. The Cutter letter s are usually the first three letters of the author™s last name if there is a main author or the first three letters of the title depending on how the item was cataloged. So don™t expect to classify each item in your collection differently. None of us in school or synagogue libraries have such big collections that this is a hardship. But we want to focus on the main portion of the shelf location the classification designation itself. There are many classification schemes available for libraries. The two most commonly used in the United States, that most of you have heard of, are th e Dewey Decimal System of Classification, used in most public and school libraries, and the Library of Congress Classification System (LC), used in academic and other very large specialized systems. De wey was invented by the American librarian Melvil Dewey, the father of Library Science, in 1876, as a system for small libraries. It has since been revised and updated many times. It has the advantage of a limited number of general categories and short call-numbers. The system is based on ten classes of subject (000-999), which are then further subdivided before and after the decimal point. The Dewey classes include 000™s = Generalities 500™s = Natural Science and Mathematics 100™s = Philosophy and Psychology 600™s = Technology (Applied Sciences) 200™s = Religion 700™s = Arts 300™s = Social Scien ce 800™s = Literature 400™s = Language 900™s = Geography and History
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 10 Unfortunately, there is much evidence that Dewey was antisemetic. The religion se ction, reflects his bias towards Christianity by assigning almost all the 200™s to that religion. On ly the 290™s are devoted to other religions and Judaism is assigned to one little subdivision, 296. This makes it inad equate for a Judaic library or any library with a strong Judaic section since all the books have a classification number that starts 296– All the actual classifying comes after the decimal point whic h results in very long numbers. But nevertheless, Dewey is appealing because it is familiar to most of the public. On the other hand The Library of Congress Classification System (LC) organizes material in libraries according to twenty-one branches of knowledge. The 21 categories (labeled A to Z, but missing I, O, W, X and Y) are further divided by adding one or two additional letters and then a set of numbers. The first letter of an LC call number represents on e of the 21 major categories of the LC System. The second letter represents a subdivision of main category. Judaism falls into the letter B for religion, with the added subdivision letter of M to designate the Jewish religion, BM = Judaism. Then, the added numbers classify Judaism itself. The system is very complete and gives plenty of room for detailed classification of Judaic material, but it is cumberso me and really designed for the academic world. For most of the small synagogue and school lib raries out there, it is overkill! A = General works M = Music B = Philosophy, Psychology, Religion N = Fine arts C = Auxiliary Sciences of History P = Language & Literature D = History, Countries not in Americas Q = Math, Science, Computer Science E = America & United States R = Medicine F = US Local, Other Countries in Americas S = Agriculture G = Geography, Anthropology, Recreation T = Technology, Engineering H = Social Sciences, Business U = Military Science J = Political Science V = Naval Science K = Law Z = Bibliographies, Library Science, Information Sciences (general) L = Education LC BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE JUDIACA CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS Because neither of these two systems met the needs of most of the Judaic libraries that existed outside of academia, which probably means most of the libraries you are working in, other Judaic systems were developed. The two Judaic classification systems which are used most often these days are the Weine Classification Scheme for Judaica Libraries, now in its 8th ed. and Daniel Elazar™s A
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Proceedings of the 41 st Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Cambridge, MA Œ June 18-21, 2006) 11 Classification System for Libraries of Judaica, now in its 3rd ed. And there are other Judaic systems out there, Abraham Freidus™ Classificatio n Scheme for the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library, Gershom Scholem™s Classification Scheme for JNUL (Jewish National & University Library) are among them. None of them are perfect; a ll of them have aspects that you will wish were different. With all of them you will need to be creative. Remember you ar e organizing and sorting your collection into defined subject areas, and these areas are then given class numbers which result in their having a precise address on your shelves. Always remember the goal is to get li ke items together on the shelf. Consistency within your own library is the most important thing. I want to focus on the two classification systems you are most likely to use, Weine and Elazar, and give you an overview of how they are structured and can be utilized. I will talk about the Weine system that I use and my colleague Eileen Polk will speak about Elazar which she uses in her library. The Weine system, developed by Mae Weine in the 1940™s or early 50™s, can be purchased from the Association of Jewish Libraries or here at the convention. It is small and in expensive consisting of two paper pamphlets, the Classifi cation Scheme itself and the Relati ve Index. The Scheme itself is organized in class numerical order an d the Relative index is an alphabetical subject index to lead you to the proper number in the scheme. Weine is base d on Dewey. What she did was to accept Dewey™s decimal structure and his ten classe s, but changed how he subdivided the classes to fit the needs of a Judaic library. Thus in Weine, the 200™s, Dewey™s class for religion, is devoted to Judaism, not Christianity, which was switched to Judaism™s old number 296. The entire span of numbers in the 200™s area thus became available to classify Judaism. She did this for each area, redefining things in Jewish terms as needed. So the 900™s, history, is totally reva mped to accommodate Jewish history worldwide. It gives a great deal of space and attention to the Holocaust and to Israel. The Weine scheme itself rarely subdivides past the first number afte r the decimal point. That is left totally up to you. For example, as with Dewey, cookbooks are classified with the number 641.5. That is as far as the scheme classifies them. But if you want to sort your cookbooks on the sh elf so that all the holiday cookbooks are together and the Passover cookbooks separated from gene ral holiday cookbooks, and all the special diet cookbooks, or international cookbooks especially Israeli cookbooks are together, etc. Weine does not go that far into the classification mechanism to tell you. You can try and see what Dewey does to sort varieties of cookbooks if you happen to have a copy of Dewey, or you can subdivide 641.5 further yourself. This is what I did, in a very arbitrary way. But when you do this, you need to edit your copy of the Weine Scheme so that the next time you can be consistent when you catalog a cookbook. After a while you will find your copy full of these edits. The Weine Scheme does provide a systematic mechanism for subdividing by form which is found at th e back. There are ten designated fiformsfl such as
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