Learning More About Bibliographic Standards

I was interested to know that not every institution produces full records. I knew that Charles A. Cutter first proposed three levels of cataloguing (Chan, 2007, p.81). AACR2, unlike previous standards, advantageously accommodated, ‘three levels of bibliographic description’; brief, medium and full, to meet the cataloguing needs of different libraries, of all sizes (Chan, 2007, p.81). However, according to Hider (2010, p.36) whether cataloguers use brief, medium or full records according to the needs of their library ‘they are still adhering to the same basic standard’. I loved Cutter’s explanation of how full records should be. He suggested, ‘the information resource needs to be described only as fully as is necessary to set it apart from other resources, and only as fully as will make it easy to find’ (Hider, 2010, p.36). Research results from the Centre for Catalogue Research in England was as follows: ‘The conclusion suggests that much of the information normally included in the catalogue entry is very rarely used by readers, and its inclusion makes catalogues difficult to use with the result that some items may not be found’ (Seal, in Hider, 2010, p.36). The conclusion must be to consider the needs of your users and choose the level of bibliographic description to meet those needs. The point is made by Hider though, that considering the needs of the user might actually mean enhancing records (Hider, 2010, pp.36-37) which may mean adding more metadata, especially if it provides ‘subject access to information resources’! Hider gave three examples: • Adding an abstract (e.g summary of a book’s or film’s plot) • Adding keywords from an index or contents page to improve subject access • Adding links to web-related material, like information about the author This makes total sense to me. I have almost finished evaluating every picture book in my library in terms of how they relate to the Learner Profile, for a Teacher Support document. I included a cover image of each book, my summary of each story and where possible I included a link to any web-related material that I thought relevant. I hope that it will meet my users’ needs! Now I am thinking perhaps that this information (ie. which attribute of the Learner Profile the book relates to) would be useful in the records too. Food for thought!