Relevance of Library Cataloguing

[Madhu Bhatt]

What is the relevance of AACR2 Cataloging rules, with the advent of MARC which is meant for the communication and exchange of Bibliographic details at the International levels. In Marc the fields are defined such as for Personal Author - 100, Title - 245, Publication - 260, Subject - 650. etc. etc. In AACR2 we had to take care of the punctuation, space, case the sequence i.e Title, statement of responsibility, ed. etc.

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Respected Ms.Madhu Bhatt,

Thanks for your post and for expressing your opinion without any reservation.

As I could deduce from your statement, it is filling in the bibliographic details of a document in data entry sheets devised according to some simplistic MARC format (Presumably to prepare an OPAC)

However, as my knowledge goes, the actual (detailed) format of MARC21 is much complicated and requires both skill & zeal besides a good knowledge of the subject to enter the pertinent bibliographic information in the requisite tagged fields! I am sure if you kindly see the site:           http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdlist.html> you will certainly opine with me.

I am sorry if I am mistaken, but what you have proposed, does not require a hard core Library Professional; rather some data entry operator with good common sense and some practical onsite training to incorporate certain elements of a documents will do. 

A couple of months before I have read in this forum itself complains against experts in interview opining to introduce data entry operators in place of professional Library people for doing catalogue which was highly criticized by several forum members including me. Incidentally however, your post seems to suggest sort of same thing as one can perceive. In case it is simple reality, new entrants in Library profession should better forget any service on time scale basis!

(I must add here that my comments above are not meant in any way to hurt the feelings/consensus of any individual. What I have said is my personal perception only.)

Sincerely,

Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Calcutta     

[JAYA RAWAT]

How to enter Bound Periodicals in MARC21