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McMaster Thesis Cataloguing July 17, 2007

Posted by bibservatmac in call numbers, cataloguing, electronic, theses.
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In order to keep up with the volume of McMaster theses arriving on the floor for cataloguing, we’ve made some significant changes here as well.

For Masters theses, we will now be creating enhanced brief records, including basic information like:

  • author
  • title
  • department
  • degree and date of convocation
  • pagination
  • supervisor
  • subject keywords

We are including in the 050 a broad LC classification based on the granting department (usually the “General Works” class for that subject) in order to make these discoverable through the Endeca subject browse. The item record will have a call number consisting of that departmental classification, the year of convocation, and a sequential number to be used as a shelving location. For example, the first Psychology thesis catalogued in the 2007 convocation would be: THESIS BF 07 001. These theses will be shelved together as a collection, starting immediately.

For Doctoral theses, we will no longer be retaining a print copy for circulation. The School of Graduate Studies sends PhD theses to ProQuest for digitization. We are currently inputting very brief bibliographic records for new Doctoral theses, containing the author, title, and year. This allows users to request the print copy until the thesis is digitized (it takes several months). Once that is complete, McMaster users will have access to the full text of these dissertations through our DigitalCommons site. A microfiche copy of each thesis is available for interlibrary loan, and a paper copy will continue to be housed in closed storage for preservation purposes.

MARC records for each thesis are supplied by ProQuest. The cataloguers will enrich these records, adding information on the supervisor, granting department, and subject headings, among others. In light of the change in access from print to digital, we have also decided to cease cataloguing Doctoral theses as print materials. Instead, we will treat them as electronic resources. Margaret is preparing a draft of the new procedures and will circulate it for comment when completed.

Endeca and Call Numbers February 8, 2007

Posted by bibservatmac in CODOC, Endeca, call numbers, classification, electronic, pre-1800.
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To support our implementation of Endeca (public launch coming soon!), we have revised some of our call number procedures.

Endeca provides for a subject browse feature, based on the LC and NLM classification hierarchy, which guides users from general to specific topics. NCSU’s Endeca catalogue is a good example.

In order for our e-resources and other “non-LC stacks” materials—such as CDs, the CODOC collection, and pre-1800 books—to be included in these results, they need to be classified. To prevent an LC number assigned to these resources from appearing as a shelving location, we opted to put it in the bibliographic record rather than Horizon’s item record. This also allows us to put a “proper” shelving location, such as a CODOC number or pre-1800 book number, in the item record for display to the user.

Endeca will look for the following fields in a bib record. Only the ‡a will be used; the ‡b will be ignored:

  • 037 [HSL only. The prefix to the number (such as HSSR) will be ignored.]
  • 050
  • 055
  • 060

Because classification numbers in the bib record are used only in searching, there can be more than one number associated with a title. A Canadian history title, for example, might include both F1015 (Library of Congress) and FC74 (Library and Archives Canada). This gives our users multiple paths to the same resource.

The new policy is now available on the Bib Services website. We hope to investigate possibilities for a retrospective fix to update our existing e-resource and other bib records.

While we hope that adding or accepting these class numbers will be helpful to our users, this is one access point among many and we need to be mindful of the time we spend on it. In some cases, we may assign a general class (BC) or class number (E18) if finding a more specific class number is proving too time consuming.

Call Numbers: LC or not? October 13, 2006

Posted by bibservatmac in call numbers, classification.
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Generally, we follow Library of Congress classification practices and apply LC call numbers to our books. Sticking with LC makes the job of assigning a call number and getting the book on the shelf faster and easier.

In a few cases, though, we don’t follow LC. Most of the areas where we depart from LC are Canadian topics where Library of Congress Classification doesn’t give us enough detail. The areas where we follow different practices are:

Canadian History

Canadian Literature

  • Library of Congress numbers between PR9180 and PR9199 (English Canadian literature) are reclassed using Library and Archives Canada’s PS8000 classification schedule.
  • Library of Congress numbers between PQ3900 and PQ3919 (French Canadian literature) are reclassed into PS9000, based on the PS8000 schedule.

Fiction and Juvenile belles lettres

  • Library of Congress numbers between PZ1 and PZ90 are classed with other literary works using the Class P schedule.