Cataloging Templates

It is the last official day of my sabbatical and I managed to put together the beginnings of two templates for cataloging recital and concert recordings. I decided to go with two because of the differences in some of the necessary fields between individual student recitals and concert recordings of larger ensembles. Even recitals featuring more than one performer were distinctly different than ensemble performances as were concert performances by a chamber ensemble still different than student, faculty, or guest artist recitals.

The main differences were in the fields for access points, the 1xx and 7xx fields. Also as I worked through the spreadsheet I came up with a format for titles of the recordings and these were different between the ensembles and the recitals. Overall, it just made sense to go with two templates.

I had questioned creating templates in our local catalog system (Voyager) versus creating them as constant data files in OCLC. Since OCLC is more likely to be around long term and Voyager is not, I opted for OCLC. The only complication in this is that I have not discussed with a few key people at my institution whether we want to put these records in OCLC or not. My opinion on the matter used to be to catalog locally except for maybe ensemble concerts and/or graduate recitals, but a late great music cataloger once opined the importance of adding this kind of material to OCLC and it convinced me that was the better way to go.  So for now, my templates are living in OCLC as constant data files.

This is what I have done so far:

Template for recital recordings

I am defining recital recordings as any performance featuring one or more individual performers of works mostly for solo instrument. Recitals may include chamber pieces. Some exceptions: chamber recitals in which there is still one primary performer who performs on all works while the other members of the ensembles change. Also lecture recitals which may include a number of performers but the main thrust of the recital is still focused on one individual.

In the template above I have the main descriptive and access fields. I have not yet dealt with the fixed fields or the 007 field. There are other 0xx fields I may add as well. In the rest of this record anywhere that I have text bracketed and in all caps is where I expect information to go. You'll notice in the 245 that I have left the statement of responsibility area blank. I'm still trying to decide how I am going to set that up in conjunction with the 100 and the title portion of the 245. The 260 includes only the year since we are dealing with unpublished material. But that leads me to another question I need to answer as well: I did code the Country code in the fixed fields for "xx" since the 260 does not include a place of publication. However, you'll notice the codes I added to the 033 field which do indicate location. I'm thinking I can use those because the location of performance is cited in the note field and the 033 is linked more so to that than the publication info.  Am I correct on that?

Moving along, I have a standard 300 description field followed by my notes. Compact disc note first and then a note for "Program available." That is a place holder. I hope to have a more detailed note about the program once we make a decision on to house the programs. I have also set up notes in which to add performers, date, time, and place of performance, and a contents note. Finally I've stuck in a couple places for additional performers to be listed.

I skipped subject headings (6xx fields) for now, but I do plan on having them there. Those will differ for each recording, so I do not expect that a student worker or circulation staff member will be adding those fields. So having them in the template was not important to me.

The next step will be putting together instructions for how to properly enter info into these templates.

For comparison purposes, here is the template for ensemble concert recordings:

Template for ensemble concert recordings

I am defining ensemble concert recordings as any recording of a performance by a named ensemble, whether a chamber ensemble of 3-5 players or a large group such as a concert band, symphonic orchestra, or opera production. The individual performers may or may not be named. Generally, conductors and soloists are listed alongside the group names.

Finally, I need to put together instructions. These will include things like how to put a person's name in (last, first), how to structure and what information is included in the 505/Contents field, how to add additional notes, how to create the title, and who to put where when their are many names present. Also little things like how to add a field and other technical stuff.

As I worked through the spreadsheet and then created these templates I can envision now how these records will really get created. I can see a student worker or a circulation staff member getting these recordings, entering the descriptive information and the names for the access points. I can even see training a full-time staff member to do basic searches in the LCNAF on OCLC to get the proper headings for personal and corporate names that may be there. The records would then be saved in an online file in OCLC and the recording and program passed on to either myself or my cataloging staff member for us to do the rest of the authority work and add subject headings as well as checking the overall work in the rest of the record. One of us could also add it to OCLC and our local system or maybe we pass it back to the circulation department for them to handle. Not sure yet of that last step.

And that is all for now! Since there are still many open parts of this project I will continue to keep up this blog as work on this project continues. So stay tuned.

Image source morgueFile

Midwest, MLA Meeting, 2011

This weekend, Oct. 27-29, 2011, I attended the Midwest chapter meeting of the Music Library Association.  It’s always such a fun meeting.  It’s like attending a mini-MLA national meeting.  While attending this meeting I started talking to my colleagues about my upcoming sabbatical project.

When I started asking questions it was at the very end of the Cataloging Committee meeting on Thursday afternoon.  Surveys are on my mind but I’m a bit hesitant about how to do a survey.  While I had a bunch of music catalogers in a room, I figured I’d toss out my project idea and ask for input, suggestions, questions, etc.  I didn’t want to take up time at this particular meeting at this particular time (mostly because I still have too many thoughts swirling around my head that haven’t coagulated into much of anything yet), so I just asked that people find me over the next two days and we’ll talk. 

An interesting thing happened though.  As I approached people and started asking questions about their recital and concert performance recordings, I not only got several ideas, but it also raised more questions for me.  This is the great thing about conferences!!

 
A few things I now have written down include:

• Question: In our Archives department: 
• Do they already hold anything related to recitals and concerts performed by School of Music students and faculty??  If so, what formats are they in?
• Can Archives store/house anything we currently have in the Fine Arts Library?  For example, recordings older than a certain date?  How about the programs, particularly after we get them all digitized?
• Question: Where are the masters of the concerts/recitals?  The School of Music?
•  Template: Someone told me that they have a template; it is a constant data file in OCLC.  My idea was always to create a template in Voyager (our local ILS), but this sounded like a better idea.
• Pro: original record is added to OCLC directly (no importing records from Voyager)
• Pro: by using constant data, we wouldn’t have to redo or change a template if we were  to move to a different ILS system
• Con: someone with access to OCLC would have to do the cataloging (this could also be a pro, depending on your perspective; for me, this wasn’t the plan, but plans can be changed)
• Question: Will we catalog recordings that no longer work?  Cassettes that have deteriorated, CDs that no longer work, etc.
• Reminder: take pictures!!  This came to mind as I talked with some people about how items are housed currently, the condition and preservation needs of items, and other preservation and archival issues I had not thought of yet.  Some pictures of the current set up might be good to have if we end up changing some things for preservations reasons sometime down the road.

I was surprised at the number of people that told me they wanted to know more about what I was doing or how my project goes and what I did, etc.  Several others have a variety of issues and levels of cataloging (or non-cataloging) of their recital and concert recordings and are curious to hear more about this project.

I think my next step is really to figure out what I want to know from other institutions.  I could ask a bazillion questions, but that probably wouldn’t help me out much.  I really need to focus my thoughts and figure out what 2-3 issues I want to learn more about so I can create an appropriate survey. 

It has been a while, but at one time I had done a search on the MLA-L archives and found posts from others who had queried the list with questions about cataloging their recital and concert recordings.  Those questions would be helpful to pull up again.  That’s really what I need to ask about and put together all the answers into one place: one article or something that would be useful for the next person who has the same questions.

This project seems to get bigger and bigger every time I start thinking about it.