FINAL: CATALOG RECORD AND RATIONAL

FOR A FABRICATED WORK

1)   COMPLETE MAIN ENTRY

010    $a 88346743   

020    $a 1657823546

090    $a NA6233.N5 $b W677 1988                

245 00 $a Reaching to the heavens : $b a photographic history of the  

       World Trade Center / $c compiled by Joseph Aaron and George

       Drapeau from New York City Archives and private collections ; 

       with an introduction by New York City Mayor, Ed Koch.

246 10 $a Photographic history of the World Trade Center

260    $a New York : $b Random House, $c 1988.

300    $a 469 p. : $b chiefly ill. ; $c 27 cm.

504    $a Includes bibliographical references (p. 425-428) and

       indexes.

610 20 $a World Trade Center (New York, N.Y.) $x History $v Pictorial works.

650 #0 $a Buildings $z New York (State) $z New York.

650 #0 $aSkyscrapers$zNew York (State)$zNew York

651 #0 $a New York (N.Y.) $x Buildings, structures, etc.

651 #0 $a New York (N.Y.) $x History.

651 #0 $a New York (N.Y.) $v Pictorial works.

700 1# $a Aaron, Joseph, $e comp.

700 1# $a Drapeau, George, $e comp. 

700 1# $a Koch, Ed, $d 1924-

2) DOCUMENTATION/RATIONALE FROM AACR 2

010  Field for Library of Congress catalog number as per Mannheimers p.53

020  Field for ISBN as per Mannheimers p. 7

090  Field for LC call numbers assigned by a library other than the Library of Congress or a national

        library. Manheimers p. 196 and evidence in CONSULS item NA6233.N5 W6728 2001.

        For discussion of choice of LC call number see below.

245  21.7B Collections of works produced under editorial direction with a collective title

        Placement of “from New York City…;” At first this seemed problematic to me: Was it too

        involved for a responsibility statement?  Was it actually part of the title?  Should it come before

        the compilers’ names in the statement?  In the end I decided to transcribe it exactly the way it

        appeared, though I think one could make a case for moving it to a note.

246  The inclusion of this 246 has to do with assisting the catalog user in finding this work if they

        only have the subtitle, but are under the impression that it is the entire title.  If the user knows he

        doesn’t have the entire title, of course a keyword search would work, but in the case proposed,

        the user might very well assume the library doesn’t have the work and give up.  There is

        precedent for creating a 246 for this reason in CONSULS recent cataloging practice in item

        HV6432. O54 2001.  In this case the second indicator is for the source of the title, not to tell

        the system how many non-filing characters, so the practice is to leave off beginning articles.

260  Pretty straightforward, 1.4C1, 1.4D1, 1.4F1.

300  $a one sequence 2.5B5  $b the title and the fact that the compilers do not give themselves any

         author credit might lead me to believe this is “chiefly ill.” although I suppose their could be

         archived text in it as well.  Especially your emphasis of the history aspect, and your use of the

         word “heavily” made me reluctant to use it.  Also I have no info about color or not so I just

         used “ill.”  $c cm are rounded up 2.5D1

504  2.7B18 and current practice of the Library of Congress to combine the two notes.

6xx  (see discussion of subject headings below)

700  21.30A1, 21.30D1.  The addition of designation is optional 21.0D1.  It is not practice to add an

        entry for someone who writes an introduction

        according to Mannheimers.  Also, I did consider that you might have used real authors that

        would  need a particular authorized name entry, but searching CONSULS, I decided you meant

        them to be fictitious, and so just entered them as on the title page.                      

2) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CLASSIFICATION AND SHELFLIST RATIONALE

     Within CONSULS, works that focus on just the World Trade Center can be located in several places.  A few, studies or hearings looking into reasons for its total collapse, are located in areas by agency or topic i.e. KF27, TH1065.  This work is clearly not one of those.  Several other World Trade Center pictorial works have been placed under a terrorism classification at HV6432, but since there are other choices, this work published in 1988 does not belong there.  There is a precedent for placing single building histories in the guidebook area F128.x, as was done with one on the Empire State Building: F128.8.E46, but since there are not any about solely the World Trade Center in that area, I did not consider it.  The remainder of the works are in the NA6233.N5 area for Skyscrapers—New York.  I believe this is the proper placement for this item.  Two other biography/description books published before September 11, 2001 are there, and indeed there is a CONSULS precedent for placing pictorial works about the World Trade Center published after the bombing there as well, given no Library of Congress-produced call number to the contrary, i.e. NA6233.N5 W6728 2001.  This area is where I chose to place the work.

     The first cutter, N5 designates New York.  The second cutter in this area denotes the name of the building, and in CONSULS W67 is used for the World Trade Center.  The arrangement of works after that is by author, achieved by adding numbers to the W67.  I did have some question about this one since it is a title main entry, but using the University of Washington catalog, I verified that at least there, in regards to works about the Smith Tower in Seattle, title main entries are placed within the a-z author alphabet by title.  Hence this work, whose main entry begins with “R”, must come after the three other works already in the collection whose authors are Bullaty, Darton, and Gillespie, respectively.  The last 3rd cutter in use is W674, so anything after that would work.  I chose to make it W677 to approximate the remainder of the alphabet and leave room for other works. 

3) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT ACCESS (CONSULS)

     The choice of subject access is considerable more difficult than the other part of this final.  Does one go with Library of Congress rhetoric as in H80, which seems to indicate the purpose of subject headings is to describe the work?  This would seem to be adequately done in one or two.  The examples in Mannheimer’s follow this route as well.  On the other hand, if you consider the records of this type of work, even Library of Congress catalogers are still adding headings whose intention seems purely to provide access to these more specific works from somewhat broader categories, a practice, which according to rhetoric is outmoded. 

     The primary evidence used has to be the practice of CONSULS catalogers themselves in order to make subject heading assignment consistent within the collection, particularly in regards to current works or current practices.  Unfortunately, there is not much evidence of these catalogers in the particular records considered because they seem to, for the most part, copy the Library of Congress suggestions, a choice which I, of course, do not have. 

     There is some help with first subject heading(s) because CONSULS catalogers have, on more than one occasion with newer works, changed the choice of first heading to World Trade Center (New York, N.Y.) from a different one chosen by the LC.  In addition, there is one work in this exact classification in which the cataloging was not taken from the Library of Congress.  I can certainly not just copy it because the cataloger used 650 instead of 610, for the WTC headings.  That’s enough to make one nervous about the particular cataloge’s expertise!  In addition I’m not sure what is to be gained from two World Trade Center headings, since a keyword search will get you both kinds of records, and either subject search will get you into the appropriate heading area (in other words to a page where you can see both). 

     My personal tendency would be to just use WTC, but in deference to the Library of Congress instructions to describe the work as shown in the intention of the title, I added the subheadings “history” and “pictorial”.  Personally, I feel this just makes a lot of subheadings with only one item in them, when the point would seem to be to group items.  Rather than create this heading, I could have grouped the work with 5 other in the WTC Pictorial category, or with 1 other in a new WTC History category in which the other items proper fit is questionable.  However, creating the new heading completely described the work in one heading and as I said, it will get you to the page with the other three headings anyway. 

     Also present in the CONSULS generated record mentioned earlier is an inclusion of a NY buildings and structures heading, and since I was leaning in that direction anyway, it makes convenient evidence.  If one admits both that this work might be of use to searchers who are actually addressing a somewhat larger subject, and cataloging practice still seems to provide headings for that purpose, the heading mentioned is one which would connect this work to a broader topic.

     However, consider the “NY building” searcher who attempts to enter the subject listings (using a subject search) without knowing controlled vocabulary.    Entering just “New York” gets them into a list too long to reasonably search.  Entering “New York buildings” doesn’t get them into anything that makes sense. One has to know to enter New York (N.Y.) buildings.   However, entering “buildings New York would get them “Buildings – New York State – New York.”  Now this may be an outmoded heading, but it is effective in drawing the user into the syndetic structure, and would immediately reward them with, not only this work, but 12 others, plus several more headings. There are existing records that support the use of both of these headings within one record (i.e. NA735.N5 and S49 1982).

     The following is a fairly complete list of headings I considered adding.  Of course with the permutations available with adding, subtracting, or combining certain subheadings, the list is longer.

Architecture -- New York (State) -- New York

Buildings -- New York State -- New York

New York -- Architecture -- New York State

New York (N.Y.) – Buildings, Structures, etc.

New York (N.Y.) – Buildings, Structures, etc. -- Pictorial Works

New York (N.Y.) -- History

New York (N.Y.) -- History -- Pictorial Works

New York (N.Y.) -- Pictorial Works

Skyscrapers—New York (State)-- New York -- Design and construction

World Trade Center (New York, N.Y.)

World Trade Center (New York, N.Y.) -- Design and Construction

World Trade Center (New York, N.Y.) -- History

World Trade Center (New York, N.Y.) -- Pictorial Works

For the most part, searching the headings I had already settled on would connect to other works I considered similar in a wider sense.  A few, however, would only be accessed by searching “New York – History” or “New York -- Pictorial Works” and since this work would definitely fit in both categories, I added them.  In this case I did not combine them because selecting “New York (N.Y.) -- History -- Pictorial Works” would put the searcher nowhere near “New York (N.Y.) -- Pictorial Works in the subject list.

My choices of main subject heading would be a new one for the catalog, but a “World Trade Center” keyword search would result in this record in addition to others.  A selection of the heading from the bibliographic record would place the searcher in the headings list next to 1 “WTC History” listing, and very near 5 “WTC Pictorial” items, and the 14 “WTC” items.  Selecting the “Buildings, New York (State), New York” would net the searcher 12 more items plus guide books if that happened to be their interest. “New York (N.Y.) Buildings, Structures, etc” has 38 items with more subcategories around it.  “New York History” has 131 entries with the surrounding ones indicating subdivisions by years.  “New York (N.Y.) Pictorial Works” has 60 items in it.  Now the searcher of course would be the one to decide which of these categories or records met their needs, if any.

    I realize the system does not really intend for a searchers movement through the catalog to be dependent upon the subject headings on individual records, but in current online catalogs, including CONSULS, where cross referencing is non-existent, I don’t know how catalogers can help feeling a responsibility to try to rectify matters as they work on individual records.  I would not choose to work in cataloging, but if I were working in that department for CONSULS at this point, the above is the kind of record I would feel obligated to create.