Essential Cataloguing

Citation

Winch, S. (2005), "Essential Cataloguing", Library Review, Vol. 54 No. 1, pp. 71-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530510574200

Essential Cataloguing states its intended audience as library school students, beginning cataloguers and other information professionals who have forgotten all they ever knew about cataloguing but now find that they have to do it. In approaching this book I fell into the second category, as someone who had never received formal cataloguing training, but was now finding myself involved in cataloguing electronic resources to international standards.

The book provides an introduction to cataloguing using AACR2 with reference to MARC 21 records. It begins with a brief history of AACR2 cataloguing before dealing with: describing works, access points, multipart works, headings for persons/corporate bodies, authority control and uniform titles. Throughout, the layout is very clear with plenty of examples, which usefully include full page reproductions of title pages. References to AACR2 and information about MARC tags are included in the margins allowing quick reference to the primary sources. In addition, all examples in the book are reproduced in MARC format in an appendix.

The book is written in an accessible manner providing a useful buffer to the slightly intimidating set of manuals that confront the novice cataloguer. Bowmen is practical in his advice, which acknowledges the sometimes curious constructions that cataloguing sometimes creates. It is a brief introduction that, rightly, attempts to familiarize the reader with the basic principles, without trying to replace the actual manuals themselves.

I, being in the slightly unusual position of cataloguing electronic resources without having done print based cataloguing, found the book particularly useful despite the fact that it concentrates wholly on book cataloguing. Knowledge about the origins of card catalogues is essential in understanding the principles of main entries, while understanding how printed books are catalogued provides a basis for tackling other more specialized items. The book concentrates on the type of resources that a cataloguer is likely to encounter on a day‐to‐day basis. This focused approach is useful as AACR2 can swamp the new user in the detail that it provides. The success of Essential Cataloguing can be measured by how soon readers feel comfortable enough with AACR2 to leave this book behind. Given the clarity of this introduction it should not take too long.