Recommendation on Indexing of and Best Practices for Cataloging Enhanced Contents Notes in the I-Share Environment

Consortial Cataloging and Authority Control Committee January 11, 2006

Approved by IUAG on January 13, 2006

There are currently two levels of contents notes (Field 505) in bibliographic records. The first is the basic level consisting of the 505 field with a single $a containing a block of text listing titles, authors, durations, enumerations, etc. as specified by AACR2 rules X.7B18. The second is the enhanced level, which divides the note into subfields according to type of information, as follows:

            $t = Title
            $r = Statement of responsibility
            $g = Miscellaneous information
            $u = Uniform Resource Identifier

An example of basic and enhanced versions of the same note field follows:

Basic:

505 0 Seven sides of a crystal (Peter Takacs, piano) (11:54) ; Beyond the wheel (Gregory Fulkerson, violin ; Oberlin Wind Ensemble ; Larry Rachleff, conductor) (9:28) / Edward J. Miller -- Snap! (Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble ; Larry Rachleff, conductor ) (6:55) ; Blue like an orange (Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble ; Rachleff, conductor) (9:43) / Michael Daugherty.

Enhanced:

505 0 0 ‡t Seven sides of a crystal ‡r (Peter Takacs, piano) ‡g (11:54) ; ‡t Beyond the wheel ‡r (Gregory Fulkerson, violin ; Oberlin Wind Ensemble ; Larry Rachleff, conductor) ‡g (9:28) / ‡r Edward J. Miller -- ‡t Snap! ‡r (Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble ; Larry Rachleff, conductor ) ‡g (6:55) ; ‡t Blue like an orange ‡r (Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble ; Rachleff, conductor) ‡g (9:43) / ‡r Michael Daugherty.

The addition of subfield codes creates the possibility of more specific indexing of contents notes. Currently, all contents notes are keyword indexed in their entirety in the I-Share environment. For enhanced contents notes, $t is also indexed in the title keywords index, and $r is also indexed in the author keywords index.

Recommendation for 505 $t

The Committee recommends that, in addition to the indexes mentioned above, $t also be indexed as a left-anchored title. We believe that this would add significantly to retrieval success, particularly for short tiles consisting of common words, such as “Let it be.”

Unfortunately, there is no provision in field 505 for non-filing characters at the beginnings of titles. The Committee has confirmed with OCLC that manipulating the placement of subfields or omitting initial articles is not acceptable practice. As a result, some titles from 505 $t will begin with indexed articles. The Committee recommends that, for titles beginning with articles, catalogers add 740 fields tracing these titles with the initial articles omitted. An example follows:

505 0 0 ‡t Quark models / ‡r J. Rosner -- ‡t Introduction to gauge theories of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions / ‡r C. Quigg -- ‡t Deep inelastic leptonnucleon scattering / ‡r D.H. Perkins -- ‡t Jet phenomena / ‡r M. Jacob -- ‡t An accelerator design study / ‡r R.R. Wilson -- ‡t Lectures in accelerator theory / ‡r M. Month.

740 02 $a Accelerator design study

Since only one title in the note begins with an article, only one 740 is needed. It will also be possible to search this title by including the word “an” in the search term. The other titles will be indexed from the 505 and need not be re-keyed into 740s. In some cases, catalogers may wish to make 7XX author/title analytics for additional controlled access.

Following implementation of this indexing recommendation, it will be advisable for libraries to search their databases by articles in the most common languages to locate mis-indexed titles and add 740s or make other corrections as appropriate.

Recommendation for 505 $r

Because names in 505 $r are transcribed as found on the piece and therefore are neither inverted nor subject to authority control, we recommend no additional indexing for this subfield.

Recommendation for 505 $g and $u

No further indexing is recommended for these subfields.