Actually I don't see that the authority record contains any explicit instruction at all about coding. The scope note simply says "Here are entered books set in a type size larger than normal for the benefit of persons with impaired vision, as well as works about such books." The coding (655 vs 650) is determined by the encoding standard, and it's quite clear from MARC that 655 is used, as Adam says below, for examples of a term; the MARC format is perfectly clear that 650 is used for works *about* the term. Just because LC or others have been in the habit of confusing these two fields and coding genre/form in 650 instead of 655 doesn't change the standard definitions (which have been around since the early 1980s).

Bob

Robert L. Maxwell
Ancient Languages and Special Collections Cataloger
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568 

"We should set an example for all the world, rather than confine ourselves to the course which has been heretofore pursued"--Eliza R. Snow, 1842.

-----Original Message-----
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adam L. Schiff
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2015 10:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Large type books as a genre

It is only redundant if you index your 655s in the same index as the 650.  If you have a separate genre/form index for terms describing what something IS rather than what it's ABOUT, then users would expect to find large type books in the genre/form index when what you have is an exemplar of one.  The LCSH scope note notwithstanding, really the only correct coding for an exemplar of a large type book is 655.  650 really ought to be reserved for terms describing what something is about.

Adam Schiff

On Wed, 25 Feb 2015, John Lavalie wrote:

> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:21:49 +0000
> From: John Lavalie <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Program for Cooperative Cataloging <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Large type books as a genre
> 
>
> So, if appropriate, a term such as “Large type books”, which exists in LCSH, can be coded in 655 in a bibliographic record, with second indicator “0” indicating that the term comes from LCSH:
>
> 655 _0 Large type books.
>
> This is true of any form/genre term found in LCSH.
>
> But the authority record for large type books explicity says to use 650 in this case, so 655 0 would be redundant.
>

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Adam L. Schiff
Principal Cataloger
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA 98195-2900
(206) 543-8409
(206) 685-8782 fax
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http://faculty.washington.edu/~aschiff
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