Cataloging and Organizing Digital Resources: A How‐to‐Do‐It Manual for Librarians

Citation

du Preez, M. (2006), "Cataloging and Organizing Digital Resources: A How‐to‐Do‐It Manual for Librarians", Online Information Review, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 77-78. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520610650327

Cataloging and Organizing Digital Resources addresses the challenging issues of changing collections, management, mediation and preservation of digital information resources. It was written to provide readers with an overview of the scope of online management concerns, the issues that influence bibliographic control in the online environment and the variety of tools that are available for managing bibliographic data. Mitchell and Surratt hope that this volume will reflect their excitement about the future of managing and providing access to online resources, and that it will prove to be practical as well as thought provoking.

Where Byers' Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists (http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub121abst.html) provides guidelines for the storing and handling of direct‐access electronic media, and Chapter 5 in Weber's Cataloging Nonprint and Internet Resources (New York: Neal‐Schuman, 2002) offers instructions for cataloguing these resources, Cataloging and Organizing Digital Resources concentrates on online resources and the issues they raise for bibliographic control.

While Chapter 1 examines issues involved in the management of online materials, Chapter 2 looks at how libraries can perform original or copy cataloguing for individual records. Chapters 3 and 4 explore alternatives to cataloguing and outline strategies for tailoring a library's bibliographic tools. Record content and cataloguing rules involved in organising digital resources are introduced in Chapter 5, while Chapter 6 looks at the bibliographic characteristics of online information. This chapter now serves as a guide for the succeeding chapters that explore and explain various types of online sources:

1. 1.

   online monographs: e‐books and manuscripts (Chapter 7);

2. 2.

   online serials: e‐journals and periodicals in aggregator databases (Chapter 8) and

3. 3.

   Online integrating resources: databases and web sites (Chapter 9).

Each of these chapters provide step‐by‐step cataloguing instructions for different online resources according to the Anglo‐American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition, 2002 revision (AACR2). They also consider aspects such as the challenges posed by title changes and the discontinuance of print editions. The authors describe and show how to catalogue each resource using some well‐chosen examples. Each example includes the full MARC21 record.

Chapter 10, “Online trends to watch”, concludes the volume. It forecasts the impact open‐access will have on library workflows and reflects on the sustainability of the open‐access model. The Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and the significance thereof is also looked at.

The authors have succeeded in conveying their excitement about the future of managing and providing access to online resources in this practical and thought‐provoking book. It is a must for each library looking at ways to satisfy the needs of their users in the 21st century, as well as academics and practitioners involved in the teaching of bibliographic standards.