Preface

Introduction

What makes this cataloguing book different from other cataloguing books? This book uncovers the oftentimes nebulous world of cataloguing unusual kinds of materials that many academic libraries do not collect and for which there are no set cataloguing guidelines. Libraries cataloguing materials such as fanzines, movie press kits, popular music CDs, and other formats are few, although it appears that more and more libraries are collecting these unusual formats. The problem, therefore, is that many cataloguers may not have encountered these types of material before and may not feel comfortable cataloguing them, or are unsure of how to catalogue them. Therein lies the inspiration for this book. Cataloguing outside the box relies on the experience of the authors, who routinely catalogue the very same formats covered here and who seek to assist others facing the same challenges.

Cataloguing is sometimes a thankless job. It requires a great deal of attention to detail, and an understanding of rules and regulations that may seem useless and completely unnecessary to some in other areas of the library profession, and certainly to users of the library catalogues we so religiously populate with data. However, if the bibliographic records are incomplete or sparse, it is difficult for users to find the information they need. So, it follows that cataloguers are a necessary spoke in the library wheel. Cataloguing unfamiliar materials is not an easy task, however. Cataloguing primary source materials is especially difficult, since many are rather old and scarce. Frequently there are no examples of records to examine, and many challenges can arise while cataloguing these valuable resources. This book aims to be a practical guide for other cataloguers and for library school students who face these challenges and obstacles. Using the collections - of which many of the holdings are themselves fairly old and scarce - in the Music Library and Sound Recordings Archives (MLSRA) and the Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies (BPCL) at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) as examples, the authors give practical guidelines for cataloguing such things as: fanzines (music and popular culture), movie press kits, comic books, popular fiction, nickel weeklies, and many other kinds of materials. Additionally, they outline both general and more specific challenges for each type of material. The book also covers name authority work for these materials, and the particular challenges that this presents. A thorough background of the two collections in which the materials reside follows this introductory section, because in order to fully understand the challenges that they present a basic understanding of the history of the collections is necessary.

The examples in the book use primarily AACR2 and MARC, and are of actual items in the BPCL and MLSRA collections. As examples are presented, the basics and the challenges are reviewed, in an effort to assist other cataloguers with similar problematic records. MARC21, used in the United Kingdom, when compared to the MARC tags used in this book, has very few differences, if any. Field numbers and associated subfields are in bold, while actual field values are in italics. There are also some example records of nickel weeklies that use a modified Dublin Core metadata standard. The authors use OCLC's Connexion software for finding, creating, and exporting MARC records into BGSU's library catalogue. The examples used in this book do not use end punctuation, simply because it does not appear in BGSU's online catalogue.

It should be noted that although BGSU relies on the cataloguing practices outlined in this book, other practices may also be used to describe these types of item. Each institution has standard and local practices to guide cataloguers, and so the guidelines in this book should be modified as necessary. A certain amount of professional judgment needs to be applied when items do not fit standard AACR2 practices.

Background of the MLSRA and the BPCL

The MLSRA and BPCL at BGSU began in 1968 and 1969 respectively. The collections were developed by Bill Schurk and Ray B. Browne to "collect and preserve that which was considered trivial - if not worthless - by the academic community" (Boettcher 850). Although the collections began as one under Schurk's supervision, they were eventually split into two separate collections and now reside on two separate floors of the Jerome Library at BGSU.

The collections initially held small amounts of materials given by donors or provided by Schurk and Browne. By 1971, both collections had built to a substantial amount of materials, including LPs and 45 s in the MLSRA and thousands of books, periodicals, fanzines, and other related materials in the BPCL. By 1979 the collections had been separated and each had a head librarian. By 1989, the BPCL had its own floor in the Jerome Library, as did the MLSRA.

BPCL collection development policies have changed since 1999, becoming more refined in an effort to create a more focused collection and to create space for an ever-growing collection in a place where there is no space to spare. The primary areas of collection are resources relating to: popular entertainment (i.e. motion pictures, television, and radio); popular fiction in the genres of romance, mystery/detective fiction, science fiction/fantasy, and western/adventure fiction; and the graphic arts (i.e. comic books, graphic novels, and other items). Other resources in the collection include, but are not limited to: games, realia, sports memorabilia, occult materials, popular religion, advertising, cookery, periodicals, fanzines and manuscript collections. The collection is non-circulating, except for the DVDs and has a reading room, and a reference section that can be browsed by anyone. The main focus is on print materials; however, there are other media in the collection, including: VHS Star Trek tapes, DVDs, CD-ROMS that accompany books, and cassettes. Much of the collection has been created through donations from various individuals since 1969. A budget for new materials is provided through the library accounts and the departments of Popular Culture and American Culture Studies. While the majority of the collection has been catalogued in OCLC, some items, mainly the more specialized collections, will most likely never be catalogued in OCLC, owing to their nature.

The MLSRA comprises both circulating and non-circulating collections. The Music Library (ML) portion is primarily devoted to collecting materials for the College of Musical Arts (CMA) and includes: books, scores, periodicals, videos, CDs, and LPs. This is the circulating collection. The Sound Recordings Archives (SRA) is a non-circulating collection that is devoted to acquiring and preserving various formats of popular sound recordings, including: LPs, CDs, 78s, 45s, books, scores, periodicals, posters, biographical files of performing artists, sheet music, and fanzines. The collection has grown to over 650,000 recordings and thousands of books, journals, and sheet music items. About 140,000 LPs have been catalogued since 1989 and over 15,000 CDs have been catalogued more recently. While the fanzines are completely catalogued, cataloguing of the sheet music collection is still in progress. Space continues to be an issue for the SRA collection as new materials are acquired and donations accepted.

While the main priority of these collections is to support the BGSU curriculum - particularly the music, popular culture and American culture departments - they have also been important for other departments on campus and have become internationally known collections, with scholars from all parts of the globe traveling to BGSU to use them. The BPCL is also a founding member of the Consortium of Popular Culture Collections in the Midwest (CPCCM), which currently consists of Kent State University, Michigan State University, Cleveland State University, the Ohio Historical Society, the Ohio State University, and Oberlin College. CPCCM libraries endeavor to coordinate collecting between institutions so as not to overlap a great deal, and attempt to direct patrons and/or donors to the appropriate library.

Although both collections have in the past been recognized internationally, they have recently become even more visible to users since numerous materials have been catalogued and the web has made resources and information accessible to anyone with internet access. Among the items catalogued in recent years are: comic books, fanzines, dipzines, periodicals, popular fiction in various formats, popular music CDs, New Music Festival original compositions, movie and television scripts, and press kits. These are the special collections materials that are addressed in this book.

Brief outline of chapters

Each chapter covers a particular format (e.g. fanzines, movie press kits), with information about each (e.g. what is a press kit?), the challenges presented in cataloguing these items, and detailed cataloguing guidelines. The following is an outline of the materials covered in each chapter.

Chapter 1: Examples of cataloguing non-commercially published scores and recordings for the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music

Chapter 2: Popular music compact discs, including compilations, mix CDs, unknown artists, and styles such as ska and filk

Chapter 3: Examples of fanzines from the BPCL and MLSRA, with such...