Talk:Cataloging (library science)

''Article merged with Bibliographic control, August, 2014. See old talk page Talk:Bibliographic_control'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by LaMona (talk • contribs) 21:52, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Sanford Berman / Criticism
The recent addition of a section about the work of Sanford Berman to this article is both interesting and important, but I fear that too much emphasis has been placed on the man, rather than on his ideas. Ideally, other voices could be added to this section, which I renamed “Criticism.” I wish I had the time to devote to researching this topic more thoroughly, but I do not. I am sure that someone will read the article and be tempted to revert the new section completely, which would be unfortunate. Instead, let’s work together to remove some of the biased language and help to make it sound more encyclopedic. —giso6150 (talk) 19:20, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The section on Berman should be subordinate to subject cataloging since that was what he was criticizing, not descriptive cataloging. Also, the article confounds subject headings and classification systems. The whole thing needs a good re-write, to say the least. Perhaps here we could decide on major headings, and then work on them bit by bit. LaMona (talk) 01:22, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposing a re-write
I'm proposing an entire re-write of this article. Please chime in.

Section on history There are good sources for this. Pre-Panizzi could be just a few sentences. Then development of the rules (with a Western bias, so input from other cultures would be greatly appreciated), from Cutter, et al., then ALA, AACR's', and now RDA. Maybe put "Anglo-American" rules in a subhead, and create a few other subheads for French, German... help me out here!

Descriptive Cataloging Not sure what to say here, except to perhaps explain the principles of descriptive cataloging, its purpose, its relation to bibliography. Lois Mai Chan, Gorman (intros to AACRs), Svenonius, ...

Archival Description Can someone tackle that? It has a different nature from library cataloging.

Compared to Metadata Does cataloging differ from metadata, and how? Could include here the rise of the use of Dublin Core (another article desperately needing work!), the use of tools like contentDM, archival usage, scholarly repositories. Link to OAI-PMH and other related standards if there are pages for them.

Also, I would move subject "cataloging" to its own page, and take the Sanford Berman stuff with it. I'd like to call it something like "subject headings" or ... something other than cataloging. And then there is the question of what to do with classification, which is yet another thing.LaMona (talk) 18:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello! Yes, I definitely agree that this article needs some serious re-structuring and revision.  Thank you for bringing up these issues, and for proposing a new structure.  Here are my thoughts:
 * Section on history: I think that a history section would be phenomenal, particularly as you seem to have some good sources in mind.
 * Descriptive cataloging: I think that discussing "descriptive cataloging, its purpose, its relation to bibliography" in this section would be great.
 * Archival description: As you say, this is quite different from library cataloging. Though there are conceptual similarities (and common standards such as LCSH and potentially even RDA, if it starts seeing use in the archives community), most libraries, archives, and LIS programs keep cataloging and archival description completely separate.  There is already a section on archival description here; I think it might be more appropriate to edit that section than to add a new section here.
 * Subject cataloging: I do think that a section on subject cataloging should remain on this page -- the article currently defines cataloging as "listing something for inclusion in a catalog" and "the production of bibliographic descriptions of books." Neither definition is anywhere near perfect, but both would certainly include assigning subject headings.  I feel that an article on cataloging would be inappropriate without a discussion of subject, as well as descriptive, cataloging.  I'd be totally okay with a re-write, though (and willing to put in some work on it).
 * Just my thoughts! Thanks again for getting this conversation started. Sandbergja (talk) 02:03, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for weighing in. I'm fine with keeping subject cataloging here; need to investigate, though, what we have in terms of classification. Note that I also discovered a stub-by article on Bibliographic control. I'm thinking that it should end up being a re-direct to cataloging (since most people won't think to look under Bibliographic Control, but we can mention the term and its definition. LaMona (talk) 00:49, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

References

Merger proposal
The term "cataloging" is much more commonly used than "bibliographic control", yet they refer to similar types of work: the creation, editing, and maintenance of bibliographic data. Since people are unlikely to look for this information under the term "bibliographic control", I think that merging its content into the cataloging article is appropriate. Thoughts? Sandbergja (talk) 03:07, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * That's my take. I just think that few people would think to look under "bibliographic control" - but we can use the concept as the basis for cataloging theory in the cataloging article. It is, in my mind, rather theoretical.LaMona (talk) 15:16, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that the articles could be merged. Both articles are inadequate and unbalanced, but the one on bibliographic control says even less than the other. --JBH23 (talk) 03:50, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

As there have been no negative responses to this, I will attempt the merge.

Merge complete, next steps
I completed the merge (please review). There are some remaining steps: LaMona (talk) 22:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Decide what to do with the Sanford Berman section. Probably should go to his page, and a small link here.
 * Decide what to do with 6 functions of bibliographic control. It's not bad as a section, but it is a single source.
 * Get rid of "cataloging terms" section? We could point to: Library terminology explained
 * Add info about RDA (and point to RDA page)
 * ? more

Transliteration section: I'm trying to decide what to do with this section. I think I will add it to the section on digital formats, and move that section up a heading level. It will be a bit more historical, moving from ASCII to Unicode.

Cataloging codes I don't see these as distinct from cataloging rules, and am looking for any suggestions. It may be enough to change the title to something like "Other cataloging codes", and then describe international codes, like ISBD, and have some mention of special rules for journals, and for archives. Please weigh in if you have other ideas. LaMona (talk) 09:18, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, not quite away - I see above the suggestion by User:Sandbergja that we have sections for archival description, and perhaps another for the description of journal articles by indexing services - ? How does that sound? LaMona (talk) 09:24, 1 December 2014 (UTC)