Date: Tue, 06 May 1997 15:54:30 -0700
From: Mitch Turitz <turitz@SFSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Authority Records for Uniform Title Headings (Rick Gildemeister)

Rick:
  I have been making the same arguments for many years now.  The issues as
I understand them are:

  Serial Uniform titles (130) were never meant to convey information, only
to differentiate seemingly-identical titles. (e.g. Focus (San Francisco)
from Focus (New York) ) without any indication of content, etc.

  The rules for serial uniform titles are buried in the LC rule
interpretations.
This is mainly because AACR2 treats serials as "funny-looking monographs"
and not as never-ending things which need their own unique identifiers.

  The concept of an "authority record" for a uniform title is problematic
at best:  a uniform title for a serial should be unique and not repeated in
any additional records (as a main entry heading), therefore the authority
record for the heading is the bibliographic itself - as it contains all the
information about the heading. To create separate authority records for
headings which will only be used once is way too labor-intensive.

  The Anarchist Serialist and Guerrilla Cataloger's solution ;-0    :

If you are copy-cataloging, make added entries (730) for ALL the meaningful
uniform titles YOU think would be useful.  If the 130 is "Focus (New York)"
make an added 730 for "Focus (American Optometry Society)" and when the
agency changes, add yet another 730 into the record for "Focus (National
Optometry Society)"  Add as many as you think would best help your patrons.
You may even want to consult with some of the more enlightened Reference
Librarians.

If you are contributing original cataloging to a national database, then
create the uniform title according to the cataloging rules, but once you
download the record into your own database, make as many added uniform
titles that you find useful.

Some cataloging purists may disagree with the above, but essentially I am
saying, "You need to catalog in YOUR database however it best serves YOUR
patrons."  Not every library is best served by blindly following that
library in Washington, D.C.

-- Mitch

  _^_                                                 _^_
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-( ___ )
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 |   |     Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian           |   |
 |   |     San Francisco State University Library    |   |
 |   |     Internet: turitz@sfsu.edu                 |   |
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