What in the World ... Cataloging on an International Scale

REUSE or Rule Harmonization - just a project?

by Monika Münnich, University Library of Heidelberg, Germany

(final version, July 1998. Note: this represents a pre-press version of a paper presented at an ALA pre-conference, held in Washington, D.C., in June 1998. It is intended for internal use and is not to be further distributed).

1 Introduction

German academic libraries acquire more than 60% of their books abroad; 90% of this material is provided by Anglo-American publishers. The bibliographic records of the Library of Congress and the British National Bibliography are offered in most of the German library networks. However reuse of these records without considerable manual and intellectual intervention is appallingly low, especially in the context of networks with linked files. Former retrocon projects of OCLC and the German Library Insitute showed the same results.[1] And vice versa the Library of Congress came to the similar conclusions when trying to import German records to their system as Sarah Thomas reported 2 years ago at the German “Bibliothekartag” [2].

So the REUSE projects emerged in a time when changes toward harmonization with AACR not only were accepted but demanded. This was not only due to resources rapidly getting scarcer but I think just as well due to the fact that the Internet is a mighty international factor which we librarians have to keep up with by using common standards.

At the same time in Germany the call for online alignment of cataloging rules was at least as strong as the claim for internationality. So we catalogers tried to serve both aims - which seems to turn out easier than expected or at first feared.

Before I come to the contents of REUSE and its aftermath, let me delineate the German landscape of rule making committees and the main rule application forum: the regional library networks (LN) and the Authority Files. In Germany all University Libraries (in most cases including their campus institutions) and State Libraries are members of regional library networks. In addition many special collection libraries participate. The serials are cataloged in the Serials Data Base in Berlin and the regional records and holdings are imported (weekly) into the regional LN.

· German Regional Networks (Verbuende)

· Bayerischer Bibliotheksverbund - Bavarian Library Network (Munich)

http://www-opac.bib-bvb.de/

· Bibliotheksverbund Berlin-Brandenburg - Berlin-Brandenburg LN (Berlin)

http://www.dbi-berlin.de/de/ibas/bvbb/bvbb_00.htm

· Hessischer Bibliotheksverbund - Hessian LN (Frankfurt)

http://www.hebis.de/hebis/

· Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund - Common LN (of Central and Northern Germany) (Goettingen)

http://www.brzn.de/

· Hochschulbibliothekszentrum - University Library Center of Northrhine-Westphalia (Cologne)

http://www.hbz-nrw.de

· Südwestdeutscher Bibliotheksverbund - Southwest German LN (including Saxony) (Constance)

http://www.swbv.uni-konstanz.de/index.htm/

· National networks:

· Zeitschriftendatenbank - Serials Data Base (Berlin)

http://www.dbilink.de

· Verbundkatalog: Union Catalog (Berlin, combining all regional LN in one file - no active LN)

http://www.dbi-berlin.de

· National and State Libraries

· Die Deutsche Bibliothek - the German Library (Frankfurt/Leipzig)

http://www.ddb.de/

· Bayerische Staatsbibliothek - Bavarian State Library (Munich)

http://www.bsb.badw-muenchen.de/

· Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz - Berlin State Library

http://www.sbb.spk-berlin.de/

· National Authority Files

· National Authority File for Corporate Bodies at the Berlin State Library (Berlin)

· NAF for Names of Persons (Frankfurt)

· NAF for Subject Headings (Frankfurt)

A little over a year ago the organization of cataloging rules committees was changed. We now have

· a working level - the Working Group for Descriptive Cataloging
consisting of 10 members representing the regional library networks, the Serials Data Base, the German Library and the Library Supply Center [mainly for Public Libraries] and the Austrian LN, and

· a decision level - the Cataloging Rules Conference (i. e. for descriptive and subject cataloging).

German Rules Landscape

Institutions Members Members

Working Level Decision Level

(WG Descriptive Cata) (Cat. Rules Conf.)[3]

Bavaria (Munich)

State Library

Gaby Messmer

Dr. Friedrich Geißelmann

Dr. Klaus Haller

Berlin

LN Berlin/Brandenburg)

State Library

German Libraries Inst.

Günter Franzmeier

Hella Braune

Monika Kuberek

Günter Hädrich

Dieter Höchsmann

Central+North. G. LN (Göttingen)

Dr. Feruzan Akdogan

Reiner Diedrichs

Hesse (Frankfurt)

Hessian LN

German Library

Sieglinde Korell

Christa Zimpel

Dr. Sabine Wefers

Reinhard Rinn

Northrhine-Westf. LN

(Cologne)

Luise Hoffmann

Heinz-Werner Hoffmann

(Chair)

South-West G. LN

(Constance)

Monika Münnich

(Chair)

Dr. Marion Mallmann-Biehler

For the Public Libraries:

Supply Center for Libr.

(Reutlingen)

Petra Friedmann

Albrecht Fischer

German Library Associaton / Section 1-3[4]

Ute Scharmann

Peter Petsch

Angelika Hesse

Austrian LN (Vienna)

Johann Winkler

Dr. Wolfgang Hamedinger (Guest)

Conference of German Swiss Univ. Libr. (Bern)

Dr. Hans Lehmann (Guest)

To complete the German landscape: Four library networks (Bavaria, North-Rhine-Westphalia, the Southwest with Saxony and the Serials Data Base) will migrate to Horizon at the beginning of 1999. This has been and still is a major factor of rapid progress in rule changes, at least for rule changes that can be carried out automatically.

2 REUSE

REUSE and REUSE+ were projects in which

· biblographic data were systematically analyzed in several work packages,

· and codes that underly these bibliographic data were compared.

The close cooperation of rule experts in the US and Germany made the analysis possible. In this context I would like to thank above all Barbara Tillett of LC and Glenn Patton of OCLC.

The close cooperation (and partly personal union) with German rule experts was the prerequisite for realization of rule changes and harmonization.

As time is short I would prefer to summarize the projects from the point of view of rule alignment, and not delineate the methods. The reports of the project can be found under the following URL:

http://www.oclc.org/oclc/cataloging/reuse-project/index.htm

2.1 REUSE

From the standpoint of rules, minor and major differences were defined as follows:

· Minor rule differences:

· ISBD: a few alignments will be necessary

· Main and added entries:

We do have major differences in this context. But regarding the online-world we kept the topic as minor. The Toronto Conference, though, showed the difference. Thus the solution of the German Rules Experts might be of interest.

· Major rule and format differences:

Headings for persons, corporate bodies and titles are different, in some cases definitions differ and in many cases entities do not match, a few examples:

· Main differences in headings for persons:

Modern names are similar though there are still some decisive differences:

· prefixes within a surname are written without any spaces,

· and above all: identical names are not differentiated by qualifiers

Ancient names differ considerably, as we use the Latin or the original form.

· Main differences in headings for corporate bodies:

just to mention a few:

· executive and information agencies are not entered as subdivisions (they are omitted)

· conferences of organizing corporate bodies are not entered as subdivisions (their publications are entered under the organizing body)

· geographic names are always entered under the original and official name, etc.

Within the corporate bodies many entities will not be matched.

A comparison of corporate bodies in AACR2r and RAK has been made by colleagues in Cologne based on a check of all RAK examples by LC colleagues in NAF. See the URL:

URL: http://www.ocl.org/oclc/cataloging/reuse-project/comparison.htm

· Main differences in headings for titles:

In many cases in RAK the title is not entered as it occurs in the item, especially as hyphens, slashes, and other marks are concerned - spaces are added or omitted differently.

A major difference is the so-called “Ansetzungssachtitel” - a kind of a filing title for e.g. volume and author statements at the beginning or the end of a title. In case of author statements AACR-catalogers sometimes enter under a uniform title.

· Multivolume records are treated considerably different:

we use hierachies and links, I’ll refer to this in the next chapter.

· Romanization in non Latin languages is considerably different.

As a result of their work the REUSE working group proposed a number of actions to be taken immediately in Germany:

· Active participation of German libraries and library networks in international authority files. In this context differentiation of identical personal names should be mandatory. The entities of corporate bodies should be equalized as well.

· Changes in the bibliographic record section of RAK:

· The title proper should be the main title. The title should be entered as it appears in the item.

· All form titles (as festschrift, treaties, constitutions and “Sammlung” - collected works etc.) should be encoded. An international standardization should be the aim.

· Multivolume works should be analyzed in a further project (REUSE+). Within this context the hierarchy of separate records for subseries (Abteilungen) should be abandoned.

2.2 REUSE +

In Reuse+ the different types of representations of hierarchical bibliographic structures in the formats USMARC and MAB2 (including the formats of the Goettingen and Constance Library Networks) were to be analyzed.

As the final project report is written in German, with only an English summary currently available, I will give some details and examples. In German library networks we create records for the whole and the parts, i.e. for every volume of a multivolume work regardless whether the title is distinctive or not. Thus it is done once in the central database as a master record for all participants. Local systems reuse these records.

Thus we dutifully follow AACR in applying hierachies in multivolume works:

AACR 13.6A: Divide the descriptive information into two or more levels. Give at the first level only information relating to the item as a whole. Give at the second level information relating to a group of parts or to the individual part being described. If information at the second level relates to a group of parts, give information to the individual part at a third level.

To import German data into USMARC should not be difficult as we differ between parts without distinctive titles (so called Bandaufführung) and with distinctive titles (Stücktitel). The last have the same record structure as monographic series, the first could be imported to 505 with or without further information. The difficulty is to extract the information for multivolume works from American records, especially when using the tags 300 and 505, as 505 is used for other information as well (e.g. TOCs, contents works). The information indicating multivolume works now can only be retrieved by the “v”. in 300.

I would like to demonstrate this:

Structure of multivolume works in Germany

1st level: Collective title record: (item as a whole)

= this record is always made, regardless whether the volumes have distinctive titles or not

author / corporate body

(links to authority files)

title proper

statement of responsibility

publ. place : publisher

notes etc.

2nd or further level

subseries volume record[5]

(if existing)

title of subseries

linkages to volumes

the volumes:

a) volumes with weak, b) volumes with

general or no titles distinctive titles

(Bandaufführung) (Stücktitel)

authors / corp. bodies authors / corp. bodies

(if existing, linked to authority file) (if existing, linked to authority file)

general / weak title (if any) title proper

statement of responsibiblity statement of responsibiblity

edition statement edition statement

publication year publication year

physical description physical description

collective title ; volume collective title ; volume

(upward link to collective title record by ID-number)

Structure of multivolume works - Examples

· Records for a multivolume work with weak title (type a))

OCLC record - one record Record in the SW LN - 4 records

1st level, collective title record

001 ocm28254594 idn 2993008

... BND 3

100 1 aYarwood, Doreen. 200eYarwood, Doreen

245 14aThe architecture in Europe /cDoreen 320*_The_ architecture in Europe

Yarwood 359 Doreen Yarwood

260 aLondon :bBatsford,1992- 410 London

300 av.<1-3 > ;c25 cm 412 Batsford

... 574 mb (indicates the multivolume work)

505 1 av.1 The ancient classical and Byzantine world,

3000... --v.2. The Middle Ages, 650-1550

-- v.3 Classical architecture, 1420-1800 2nd level - 1st volume

idn 2993032

...

440 442 (2993008) _The_ architecture in Europe ; 1

445 The ancient classical and Byzantine world, 3000... - 1992. - VII, 166 S. : zahlr. Ill., Kt.

...

574 od (indicates that it is a volume record type a), without a distinctive title)

records for the 2nd and 3rd volume are equivalent

· Records for a multivolume work with a distinctive title (type b))

In this case a monographic series which is treated identically as finite multivolume records in most German LN

OCLC - 1 record Southwest German LN - 2 records

Record for the collective title:

001 ocm13063011 idn 642075

... ...

100 1 aBrazier, Paul. ...

245 10aArt history in education :ban annotated .. 320* Studies in education

.. /cPaul Brazier ; introduction ... ...

260 aLondon ...,c1985 410 London

300 acii, 72 p. ;c22cm 574 se (Indicator for an - infinite - series)

...

490 1 aStudies in education,x0458-2101 ; Record for the part:

vnew ser. 15

... idn 1395340

830 0a aStudies in education (London, England) ...

;vnew ser. 15 200*Brazier, Paul

320 Art history in education

335 an annotated ...

359 Paul Brazier

410 London

412 Heinemann Educational Books

425 XII, 72 S.

440 442 (0642075) Studies in education ; N.S., 15

...