Descriptive Cataloging of East Asian Material: CJK Examples of AACR2 and Library of Congress Rule Interpretations
The Technical Processing Committee of the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) agreed in 1996 that the most valuable contribution that it could make to the East Asian library community would be the updating and expansion of the AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed.) workbook for East Asian publications.
The original workbook was compiled in 1983 by Beatrice Ohta of the Library of Congress (LC) and Thomas Lee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Beatrice and Thomas were assisted in their efforts by several other CEAL librarians. Their workbook was intended to provide guidelines and examples for treating materials in East Asian languages, and to supplement AACR2 training institutes by addressing special problems faced by East Asian catalogers. The workbook, covering Chapters 1, 2, 12, 21-25 and Appendix C (Numerals), was widely utilized by catalogers outside the Library of Congress.
In proposing a revision of the workbook, the Technical Processing Committee primarily intended to show non-LC catalogers of CJK material, many of whom are non-native speakers, how AACR2 and the LCRIs (Library of Congress Rule Interpretations) applied to the material they cataloged by providing actual illustrations from CJK bibliographic records, in the same manner that AACR2 and the LCRIs provide examples in western languages. The committee wished not only to update the workbook to reflect changes to AACR2 and the LCRIs, but also to broaden the scope to include the rules that govern specific types of material. Therefore, this revision includes examples of maps and atlases (Chapter 3), music and sound recordings (Chapters 5-6), motion pictures and videorecordings (Chapter 7), electronic resources (Chapter 9), and references (Chapter 26). Examples were to be presented in a format that would be informative to catalogers.
The committee asked that the revision be undertaken as a joint project by CEAL and LC. Committee members were confident that they could compile examples, but felt that the finished product could only be considered authoritative if it were reviewed by staff at the Library of Congress. Because the Library strongly discourages cataloging by example, the Director for Cataloging agreed to make the revision a joint project only if the examples were clearly intended to be illustrative and informative, in the same manner as the examples that appear in AACR2 and the LCRIs.
The committee decided that a digital version of the examples should be posted on the Web, rather than printing them in book or notebook form, to make them conveniently available to a wide audience.
An impressive number of CEAL members and LC employees contributed to the workbook. Examples for individual chapters of AACR2 and related LCRIs were initially compiled by ten CEAL members from outside libraries:
- Yu-lan Chou of University of California-Berkeley: Chapter 26, References
- Vickie Fu Doll of Kansas: Chapter 23, Geographic Names; and Chapter 24, Corporate Bodies
- Tomoko Goto of British Columbia University, Chapter 2, Books, Pamphlets, and Printed Sheets; and Chapter 7, Motion Pictures and Videorecordings
- Wen-ling Liu of Indiana University, Chapter 22, Headings for Persons
- Hideyuki Morimoto of University of California-Berkeley and Columbia, Chapter 9, Electronic Resources
- Seunghi Paek of Harvard University, Chapter 25, Uniform Titles; and Appendix C, Numerals
- Meng-fen Su of Harvard University and University of Texas, Chapter 25, Uniform Titles; and Appendix C, Numerals
- Amy Tsiang of UCLA, Chapter 1, General Rules for Description; and Chapter 12, Serials
- Reiko Yoshimura of the Freer Gallery, Chapter 5, Music; Chapter 6, Sound Recordings; and Chapter 25, Uniform Titles
- Abraham Yu of University of California-Irvine, Chapter 21, Choice of Access Points
CEAL members continued to contribute to the project after the initial compilations had been completed. Ai-lin Yang of UC-Berkeley keyed in the Chinese portion of Chapter 25, Uniform Titles. Hisami Konishi Springer and her colleagues at the University of Hawaii reviewed the text of Chapter 22, Headings for Persons.
Chapter 12 was originally compiled by Amy Tsiang of UCLA. Because the revision of AACR2 in 2002 involved such extensive changes to Chapter 12, I asked the CEAL Technical Processing Committee to use Ms. Tsiang’s draft as the basis for the compilation of examples appropriate to the revised version. It was several years before the committee could assemble a group of people willing to undertake the task. Finally, Julie Su of San Diego State University agreed to coordinate the effort. She assembled a group of strong catalogers: Erica Chang of the University of Hawaii; Erminia Chao of Brigham Young University; Iris Liu and Mari Suzuki of the University of Michigan; Hideyuki Morimoto of Columbia University; Setsuko Noguchi of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Hisami Konishi Springer of the University of Hawaii; and Ai-Lin Yang of Stanford University.
The first draft of each chapter was then reviewed by a Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cataloger from LC's Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division (RCCD): Beatrice Ohta, Sumiko Takaramura, Youngsook Park, Young Ki Lee, Sook Hee Weidman, Elaine Kim, Sonya Lee, and Sarah Byun. Appropriate chapters were also edited by specialists in the Geography and Map Division (Richard Fox, Tammy Tak-Yee Wong, and Min Zhang); Special Materials Cataloging Division (Jungja Yoon); Serial Record Division (Peter Kwon, Takako Whitwood and Nancy Yu); and by staff of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.
How the work was accomplished
Work began in early 1997. Compilers consulted with their colleagues in order to provide a wide range of examples in all three of the CJK languages. The last of these compilations was sent to LC in December 1999.
It took more than one year to find software with an extensive character set that produced compatible CJK scripts, and a platform on which to use it at LC. In the year 2000, the combination of Twinbridge CJK Partner, running on Windows NT, gave us the compatible scripts and extensive character sets needed for the project. Because the compilers had used the hardware and software that was available to them, their compilations were incompatible not only with each other but also with Twinbridge. Therefore, in most cases, LC staff were able to use only the roman text that they had provided. All non-roman text and a great deal of romanization had to be keyed in manually here at LC (by Young Ki Lee, Sook Hee Weidman, Sonya Lee and myself). Fortunately, when it came time to switch to Microsoft with Unicode, most of the text converted successfully. It was easier to create non-roman script on Microsoft with Unicode, but dealing with the indentations on existing text was highly time-consuming.
The examples provided by the compilers formed the basis of this work. Their contribution was supplemented by LC staff, so that there would be a rough balance between languages. All examples have been taken from Korean, Japanese, and Chinese language bibliographic records. Because the intention is to show just what CJK cataloging looks like, some repetition may have occurred; so an edition statement in an electronic resource may be transcribed in the same manner as one on a map or monograph.
Examples were checked for accuracy and appropriateness. Some examples appear only in roman form, just as they do on bibliographic records. The examples follow the text of AACR2 and the LCRIs themselves. Efforts were made to find examples of each and every rule, so that a rough balance in coverage would occur within each chapter. But sometimes an example of a given rule or LCRI could not be located. The absence of an example for a given rule or LCRI does not imply that the rule is not applicable to East Asian material, nor that there may be no examples of that rule in the corpus of bibliographic records of East Asian material. Notes were added by the compilers and reviewers.
No provision was made for updating the examples to keep current with changes to the LCRIs and AACR2. With the introduction of the Rules for Description and Access (RDA) scheduled to take place in less than two years, it seems to be impractical to begin doing so now.
The project to add non-Latin data to authority records began on July 14, 2008. At present, non-Latin forms of name are being added to the appropriate authority records. Please note that the Chinese, Japanese and Korean references that appear among these examples do not necessarily reflect Library of Congress policies or procedures for non-Latin references on authority records.
At the time of this writing (July 17, 2008), examples in Chapters 12 and 24 conform to the Library’s guidelines for spacing of Korean text. Examples in the remaining chapters will be checked to assure that they too adhere to this standard.
July 17, 2008
Revision/update in 2010
(Partially reviewed by LC/PSD)
In 2010, the CEAL Committee on Technical Processing (chaired by Sarah S. Elman at Columbia University) launched a project to review and update the rules and examples to reflect changes in cataloging practices since the original version was released. Major changes include Korean romanization rules, MARC tags for series titles from 440 to 490/830, updated LC practices, and corrections of typographic errors, etc. The revised documents were partially reviewed by LC/PSD in 2011-2012.
Contributors for the revision project:
- Erica Chang (University of Hawaii) -- Korean examples in all chapters
- Shi Deng (UC San Diego) -- Chinese examples in Chapters 5-6, 12, 21, and Appendix C
- Sarah Elman (Columbia University) -- Chinese examples in Chapters 1, 23, and rule changes in all chapters; proofreader
- Shuyong Jiang (University of Illinois) -- Chinese examples in Chapter 9 and 25
- Hyoungbae Lee (Princeton University) -- Korean examples in all chapters
- Hideyuki Morimoro (Columbia University) -- Japanese examples in all chapters
- Jee-Young Park (Columbia University) -- Korean examples in all chapters
- Yue Shu (Smithsonian Institution) -- Chinese examples in Chapter 2, 22, and 24
- Jia Xu (University of Iowa) -- Chinese examples in Chapter 7 and 26
Chapter 1 - General Rules for Description (PDF, 833 KB)
Chapter 2 - Books, Pamphlets, and Printed Sheets (PDF, 711 KB)
Chapter 3 - Cartographic Materials (PDF, 304 KB)
Chapter 5 - Music (PDF, 418 KB)
Chapter 6 - Sound Recordings (PDF, 360 KB)
Chapter 7 - Motion Pictures and Videorecordings (PDF, 427 KB)
Chapter 9 - Electronic Resources (PDF, 354 KB)
Chapter 12 – Continuing Resources (PDF, 1.2 MB)
Chapter 21 - Choice of Access Points (Part 1) (PDF, 687 KB)
Chapter 21 - Choice of Access Points (Part 2) (PDF, 568 KB)
Chapter 22 - Headings for Persons (PDF, 335 KB)
Chapter 23 - Geographic Names (PDF, 180 KB)
Chapter 24 – Corporate Bodies (PDF, 491 KB)
Chapter 25.1-25.14 - Uniform Titles (PDF, 857 KB)
Chapter 25.15-25.35 - Uniform Titles (PDF, 886 KB)
Chapter 26 - References (PDF, 520 KB)
Appendix C - Numerals (PDF, 680 KB)