Page 35 - DLIS102_LIBRARY_AND_ITS_USERS

Library and its Users

Notes which information from a bibliographic item is included in the entry; → how this information is
presented on a catalog card or in a cataloging record; → how the entries should be sorted in the
catalog. The larger a collection, the more elaborate cataloging rules are needed. Users cannot and do
not want to examine hundreds of catalog entries or even dozens of library items to find the one item
they need.
Currently, most cataloging rules are similar to, or even based on, the International Standard
Bibliographic Description(ISBD), a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to describe a wide range of library materials. These rules
organize the bibliographic description of an item in the following areas: title and statement of
responsibility (author or editor), edition, material specific details (for example, the scale of a map),
publication and distribution, physical description (for example, number of pages), series, notes,
and standard number (ISBN). The most commonly used set of cataloging rules in the English speaking
world are the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd Edition, or AACR2 for short. In the German-
speaking world there exists the Regeln für die alphabetische Katalogisierung, abbreviated RAK.
AACR2 has been translated into many languages, however, for use around the world. AACR2
provides rules for descriptive cataloging only and does not touch upon subject cataloging.
Library items that are written in a foreign script are, in some cases, transliterated to the script of the
catalog.
Cataloging terms
• Main entry: Generally refers to the first author named on the item. Additional authors are
added as “added entries.” In cases where no clear author is named, the title of the work is
considered the main entry.

Library Sorting

In a title catalog, one can distinguish two sort orders:
• In the grammatical sort order (used mainly in older catalogs), the most important word of the
title is the first sort term. The importance of a word is measured by grammatical rules; for
example, the first noun may be defined to be the most important word.
• In the mechanical sort order, the first word of the title is the first sort term. Most new catalogs
use this scheme, but still include a trace of the grammatical sort order: they neglect an article
(The, A, etc.) at the beginning of the title.
The grammatical sort order has the advantage that often, the most important word of the title is also
a good keyword (question 3), and it is the word most users remember first when their memory is
incomplete. However, it has the disadvantage that many elaborate grammatical rules are needed,
so that only expert users may be able to search the catalog without help from a librarian.
In some catalogs, person’s names are standardized, i.e., the name of the person is always (cataloged
and) sorted in a standard form, even if it appears differently in the library material. This
standardization is achieved by a process called authority control. An advantage of the authority
control is that it is easier to answer question 2 (which works of some author does the library have?).
On the other hand, it may be more difficult to answer question 1 (does the library have some specific
material?) if the material spells the author in a peculiar variant. For the cataloguer, it may incur
(too) much work to check whether Smith, J. is Smith, John or Smith, Jack.
For some works, even the title can be standardized. The technical term for this is uniform title. For
example, translations and re editions are sometimes sorted under their original title. In many catalogs,
parts of the Bible are sorted under the standard name of the book(s) they contain. The plays of
William Shakespeare are another frequently cited example of the role played by a uniform title in
the library catalog.

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