Print

Print


On Wed, 16 May 2012, John C. DeSantis wrote:

> I too disagree with the suggestion to make cross references from 
> non-nominative forms of names.  This is not just a question of Latin-- 
> many language groups have inflected forms, including Slavic and 
> Finno-Ugric.  I would think it would suffice to record the inflected 
> form as usage in the 670.  Unlike some others, I would actually be 
> horrified if I saw an authority record with an inflected form in a 400 
> field; it would suggest to me that the cataloger was not familiar with 
> the language of the item being cataloged.
>
> John DeSantis
> Dartmouth College


And that never happens, does it John?  ;-)  I fear that as we lose people 
to retirement and cutbacks, the truth of the matter is that we will be in 
the situation more and more of having generalist catalogers without the 
broad spectrum of language skills that staff in large academic or public 
libraries might once have had.  To say nothing of smaller libraries that 
might only have one or a few catalogers and might still have to catalog in 
a multitude of languages.  As we all lose staff, how long before no one 
has the ability to catalog well in some languages or in a large number of 
subjects/disciplines.  The copy that I see regularly for natural sciences 
is full of horrific subject analysis and ignorance or inadequacy.

Adam

**************************************
* Adam L. Schiff                     * 
* Principal Cataloger                *
* University of Washington Libraries *
* Box 352900                         *
* Seattle, WA 98195-2900             *
* (206) 543-8409                     * 
* (206) 685-8782 fax                 *
* [log in to unmask]           * 
**************************************