In Message Thu, 31 Mar 1994 06:16:25 -0800,
Frank Mokry <fm9@columbia.edu> writes:
>Do you have experience with adding tables of contents in field 505 or
>summaries, abstracts, etc. in field 520?
>Are these fields indexed in your local system?
At Florida State University Law Library, we have always included 505
Contents notes for multivolume treatises where each volume has a distinctive
title. For collections of essays, addresses or conference papers, if the
master OCLC record has a 505 note for the contents, we are keeping this note
(with a cursory review to verify its accuracy). But if the cataloging copy
lacks the note we generally do not add it (lack of staff resources/time).
These contents notes are indexed in our OPAC's collective keyword index and
in its title keyword index, but not in its author keyword index.
Access to these chapter-level titles is a mixed blessing. Patrons who
have a highly specific search term, or an esoteric or hot topic, are often
pleased with the retrieval results. But those who hope to find an entire
book on their subject can be disappointed by what initially looks like
positive results, only to find that upon closer examination, the book only
has a few pages on their topic, and that chapter/essay/address may have an
entirely different context for the phrase or search words that were chosen.
Our library uses the 520 "Summary" note only for audiovisual materials
and some computer files. This field is not indexed by our OPAC, however.
You asked about other types of enhancements. Although the examples you
gave (contents and summaries/abstracts), seem to be geared to enhancing
subject access, there is means of enhancing TITLE access which is especially
appropriate to law library patrons:
Add a note "Cited as: [citation title]" to the bibliographic description,
and index the citation title (using 246 for serials and 740 for monographs,
at least until Integrated MARC is implemented). Our library did this, for
more than 1,000 law reviews, reporters, digests, statute sets,
administrative codes, etc. and we continue to do this as new titles are
added. For the retrospective project, we chose to use _Bieber's Dictionary
of Legal Citations_, rather than the Blue Book (but I can't remember why !)
Laura Pinsley mentioned this idea in her 1988 L.Lib.J. article, "Making the
Card Catalog a More Vital Resource in the Academic Law Library."
BTW, if anyone thinks that such a procedure is not authorized by current
cataloging rules, I would like to point out that LC Rule Interpretation
12.7B4, Variations in title (published Nov. 1990) states:
"When considered important, make a note about any title by which the
serial has come to be known or identified even though this title does not
appear anywhere on the serial. Make an added entry for this title."
Of course the rule interpretation is for serials (e.g., law reviews and
reporters), but we are not troubled by following the "spirit of the rule"
and extending the provision to citation titles for statutes, admin. codes,
etc.
Sorry about the length of this epistle ... Alva
____________________________________________________________________
Alva T. Stone
Law Library Internet: atstone@law.fsu.edu
Florida State University fax: 904-644-5216
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1043 tel: 904-644-2881
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03/09/00 PST