Minutes

Bibliographic Standards Committee Manuscripts Working Group

ALA Annual Conference 2009

Friday, July 10, 2009, 1:30-5:30 p.m.

Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Logan Room

Present: Alison Bridger (Folger Shakespeare Library), Diane Ducharme (Yale University), Jennifer Nelson (Robbins Collection, Law Library, UC Berkeley), Margaret Nichols (Cornell University; chair and recorder), Elizabeth O'Keefe (The Morgan Library), Heather Wolfe (Folger Shakespeare Library). Guests: Ellen Cordes (Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University), Randy Brandt (Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley).

In this meeting, we worked on Area 5, version 5. These minutes focus on the decisions we made.

5B1: Basic extent statement

We should not mix pages and leaves in the extent statement (i.e., an item should be described in terms of one or the other, not both).

We added "1 item" to the possible ways of describing a manuscript's extent in 5B1. If the manuscript is bound, describe it as "1 volume." The description needs to mention that it is a volume because this is not the norm for manuscripts as it is for books. AACR2 says to add "bound" after the extent if the manuscript is bound. (A codex is not always bound.)

We decided to deal with microfilm or digital surrogates or copies later.

Unpaginated manuscripts

For a quick and dirty extent statement for a large, unpaginated manuscript, it is all right to describe the extent thus:

Approximately 475 pages

or thus:

1 volume

Considerations: The fact that the volume is unpaged is not as noteworthy for a manuscript as it is for a printed book. Also, we should avoid describing all unpaginated manuscripts as "unpaged," so as to remove the risk that someone could use a search on the word "unpaged" to target pages from these manuscripts for theft.

"Some blank" or "mostly blank" pages or leaves

Use cataloger judgment as to when to describe leaves or pages as "some blank" or "mostly blank," or to give the number of blank pages or leaves. How important the exact number is depends on the significance of the manuscript.

In the case of a two-page letter bound in a 75-page volume (with 73 blank pages added as filler), we discussed whether to catalog the letter only, and describe the housing in a note, since it was added later. On the other hand, if the housing is considered to be historically significant also, should it be an integral part of the extent statement? There may be a difference in this case between the type of extent statement that will be most useful to scholars and the kind that will be most useful to the page for retrieving the item.

A possible bifurcation here would be to keep the housing of the manuscript out of the formal extent statement in a bibliographic description, but to include the extent of the housing in the context of an archival description, e.g. "1 folder" or (in a finding aid) "Box 1 folder 1." In fact, the formal extent statement laid out in Area 5 might not be used in an archival finding aid. We could bifurcate thus:

Area 5

Bibliographic description: this area is required

Finding aid: this area is not always required at the item level, because the extent of the collection has been covered at the collection level.

5B6.3: Manuscript paginated (or foliated) in opposite directions

If a manuscript is numbered both front-to-back and back-to-front, give the total number of leaves, and then describe in a note the two numbering sequences running in opposite directions.

Scrolls or rolls; other artifacts

For manuscripts in the form of scrolls or rolls, give the number of rolls and the dimensions (when rolled or unrolled?). If possible, give both sets of dimensions; if the item is too fragile or too large to unroll, give rolled dimensions only.

1 scroll ; rolled to 6 x 21 cm

We decided to incorporate the description of rolls into 5B1. We also considered how to describe manuscripts such as poems written on artifacts, e.g. a lady's fan, a placard, etc.

Other reorganized sections of Area 5

5B7 will be either moved up to the General section or deleted.

We deleted 5B8. We incorporated 5B8.2 into the General section.

5B9: we changed the heading "Leaves or pages of plates" to "Laid-in materials in a bound volume."

We deleted 5B9.1-5B9.5 (on leaves or pages of plates).

5B11: We were not sure what "double leaves" means, or whether it applies to manuscripts or not.

5B12. Incomplete manuscripts: a manuscript could be incomplete because part of it has been torn away, is missing, etc., or could be incomplete because it was never finished. These are two different types of cases to consider in formulating the extent statement.

We deleted 5B13, which describes things which are special cases for books but not for manuscripts.

For future reference

Additional writing systems or types of writing to consider: shorthand, and crosswriting (as in a letter written when paper was scarce).