Contents
Foreword to 2007 revision
Since the last revision of these guidelines in 1999, cataloguing technology has progressed and MARC 21 has emerged over the last ten years as the format favoured by libraries and online bibliographic utilities alike, supported by the majority of online library management systems. The British Library has fully implemented the use of MARC 21, has ceased to develop UKMARC, and is using the Library of Congress/NACO Authority File in preference to maintaining the British Library Name Authority File. These rules have been revised with these changes in mind.
This revision has been carried out under the auspices of the recently established UK Bibliographic Standards Committee of the renamed CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group. Comments, questions, and suggestions for further revision, are, as always, welcome, and should be addressed to the Hon. Secretary, UK Bibliographic Standards Committee, CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group, c/o CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE, or can be sent via the discussion list ‘lis-rarebooks’. Information for subscribers can be found at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/LIS-RAREBOOKS.html
The work on this revision has been undertaken by Sarah Wheale, with support from Brian Hillyard and Karen Attar, all members of the Bibliographic Standards Committee. Many thanks are due to both Sarah and Karen for the time they have devoted to this work, and also to the Group’s webmaster Stewart Tiley for his assistance in mounting these guidelines.
Brian Hillyard
Chair, UK Bibliographic Standards Committee, CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group
August 2007
Foreword to 1997 edition
These Guidelines continue an initiative which first came seriously onto the agenda of the Rare Books Group in 1989, when the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries crossed the Atlantic to hold their annual conference at Newnham College, Cambridge. The Rare Books Group was there too, as the occasion offered useful opportunities for joint meetings, one of which was devoted to cataloguing standards and the difficulties faced by British rare book librarians in adapting the UKMARC format to their professional needs. It became evident that some kind of survey was needed, to find out what was being done before recommending what should be done, and the award of a small grant by the British Library Research and Development Department made it possible to carry out just such an exercise, whose results appeared as R&D Research Paper 94, Rare Book Cataloguing in the British Isles, in 1991.
The report revealed wide divergence of practice across British libraries, in almost every area of cataloguing activity — the codes used, the local fields devised for special features, the capability of systems to hold and retrieve information. The limited ability of the UKMARC format to cater for the additional data needed in rare book records was forcing librarians to use individual solutions for common problems, with the inevitable lack of compatibility and reinvention of wheels which follows from such a scenario. The next stage, therefore, was the augmentation of the format to make common standards possible, and this was achieved in 1992 when new fields were added to the format, based mostly on equivalent rare book fields in USMARC.
The adoption of these fields is inevitably a gradual process which is currently ongoing. Although the fields now exist, there is little or no documentation available to help with their application and so these Guidelines have been produced to offer some signposts and suggestions about desirable standard practice. Their compilation was discussed at an open meeting held by the Rare Books Group in November 1995. A draft text was prepared and, after consideration by the Group Committee, this was circulated as a consultative document around 25 selected libraries known to be active in rare book cataloguing. The version of the text presented here takes account of the comments received, and is therefore the product of a collaborative exercise: it is intended to be, as far as possible, by as well as for the rare books community. In some areas of rare book cataloguing there are not, as yet, even among USMARC users with their greater experience, any widely accepted practices. It is essential that these Guidelines retain the status of guidance and are open to revision and augmentation as practice develops.
It remains only to thank, communally rather than individually, the librarians who kindly read and commented on the draft. Suggestions for further revision should be addressed to the Secretary of the Rare Books Group, c/o The Library Association, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE.
Brian Hillyard
David Pearson
January 1997
Foreword to 1999 revision
It has been decided to reprint these Guidelines to meet a continuing demand for them, and the opportunity has been taken to make some revisions: correcting minor errors, updating several references, and, in particular, reflecting some changes in the UKMARC format. Substantially, however, the advice being offered remains unchanged.
The Rare Books Group continues to welcome comments, and is also anxious to see discussion about the use of these Guidelines take place on the Mailbase discussion list ‘lis-rarebooks’.
Brian Hillyard
January 1999