Home »Library» Currently reading:


The "Super Registration", the value-added information in the library catalog

Biblioteconomía 5 comentarios | Versión Imprimible Monday, April 4th, 2005 Maria Elena Mateo Library 5 comments | Printer Friendly

Like Miss Lemmon, the devoted secretary to the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (unforgettable character in the novelist Agatha Christie), he was always turning a perfect file system for storing and locating all his cases, it also tries to create a catalog of ideal library, which allows access to all his works of the easiest and fastest way possible, especially since the libraries are beginning to harbor a considerable number of works in various formats and is offered freely to the public.

The emergence of automated catalogs has greatly facilitated the work of locating documents in libraries, offering multiple points of access to them much more efficient than manual catalog allowed. But the variety of formats that can now be found in the new hybrid libraries, and identification difficult unified representation of these documents and raises questions such as what is the best way to present the same information as is contained in various formats.

One of the most interesting in the catalog design is that of Rahmatollah Fattahi (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran), who devises a catalog model for hybrid library that focuses on the "content" rather than in " continent. "Fattahi considered to be separate items, or the creation of its physical representation, which can be in print, electronic, sound, audiovisual ... and that is what is usually described in the catalog by bibliographic records for subsequent selection and physical location in the library. The way of linking these two elements, creation and its physical representation, is by creating a dummy record that identifies the item and passes Fattahi called Super Record, dividing into two types, and an author of a work.

The Super Record of an Author is designed especially for highly prolific author, and designed not only to provide a single entry to all works of an author (which already makes any conventional catalog), but also to provide an access point works based on the author.

For instance, under the Super Registration "Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra" would find all his works (individually or grouped in collections) in all its versions (translations), formats, editions, etc.. But all too well works that have been made about him: essays, poems, biographies, bibliographies, web sites ...

In the case of Super Record of a Work, is also designed to work with countless editions and manifestations. Following Cervantes, under the Super Record of his work "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha" we could find: the complete text, different selections of the same, translations into different languages, adaptations to the theater, cinema or musical work on this book and all in different physical formats, different publications or different editions of the same publisher.

Under the Super unified registry entry we have at our disposal all the information that the library has about an author or work, giving us a picture of that item and provide important value-added information on it. Then, taking the decisions that best suit our needs for information, through the various links would go into the catalog moving us up to the necessary document, the physical element, represented in a bibliographic record.



Currently there are "5 comments" in this text:

  1. Interesting but secondary. Before you have to do the job properly with regard to the allocation of descriptors, boundaries (no boundaries) of the access points and implementation of appropriate control of authorities (almost non-existent at present). I speak not only catalogers (also) but the programmers of ILS, standardization agencies, the entire profession as a whole and of the pressure that users should exercise moderately to have drinkable products.

    And after this revolution would come all these things.

  2. The problem, as you well point out, is that the basic principles of catalogs, cataloging, authority control, etc.., Not respected.

    In any case, Fattahi poses an ideal model, based on all that is true. And dreaming is free.

    To me, this model I found very interesting because I think your idea to encompass original documents around that "item" or dummy record, which corresponds to an author or a work (understood as creation, regardless of their translation physical), rather than always talking about the physical description of the document material.

    If you are interested in the topic, Fattahi, in his work "AACR2 AND CATALOG PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY: The Relevance of Cataloging Principles to the Online Environment", goes into much more detail about the online catalogs, bibliographic description, the various access points The concept of main headings, uniform titles, authority control and some other subjects.

  3. Yavannna says:

    Most university OPAC to search by author or title you return multiple references, if these include digital or web formats available to the library ... do not become the ideal but it's something comentas

  4. For me, the main novelty and advantage of this model is to group the documents "of" an author, with documents "on" the author, which can be very useful for someone who needs to study it.
    What is information provides added value.

  5. [...] Ave way. I'm not saying that all my post are like that: no, there are also studied and prepared, as he prepares an assignment for class, with the only [...]

Discuss this text:


Also on Facebook -- The Tangled Up Documentalist

Related articles:

Success stories of Library 2.0: Library of Congress & Flickr

Monday, December 15th, 2008

I think it will lead to surprise anyone if I say that not all librarians have looked kindly on the current Library 2.0 born to the heat of the development of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is based on a new concept on which the Web is a medium to share [...]

The library of books misclassified

Monday, August 20th, 2007

One of the biggest problems is that products require us to make classifications static and too simplistic, as we saw in Wal-Mart. This means that a hunter can be in the "American" or "Sports", but not in the "Cowboys" or "Nylon". Usually, this is not a big problem, as [...]

[X] Close
Powered by ShareThis