[13084] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Cataloging of Multimedia E-Journals
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gerry Mckiernan)
Wed Aug 18 20:03:07 1999
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 14:16:19 -0600
From: Gerry Mckiernan <GMCKIERN@gwgate.lib.iastate.edu>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
Message-Id: <s7bab60b.052@gwgate.lib.iastate.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
_Cataloging of Multimedia E-Journals_
I recently searched the OCLC database for bibliographic records for each of
the titles in my registry of multimedia electronic journals, M-Bed(sm).
M-Bed(sm) is available at:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/M-Bed.htm
Of the 41 titles currently listed, 34 had records. Of these, only five (5) -
less than 15% of those with records - had a mention of the availability of a
multimedia component in the record!! To say the least I was surprised and quite
perplexed that a major component of such journals has been completely ignored in
a vast majority of cases.
I am further perplexed that while a number of records make note of the need
for the Acrobat plug-in there is no mention of the other
plug-ins required for using the associated multimedia.
From this brief survey, I've concluded that catalogers in general are not
aware of the multimedia dimensions of such journals and that journals such as
these would be difficult to identify due to the lack of standard and uniform
description of the multimedia.
This raises several issues, namely the current status of standard terminology
within the cataloging community for such multimedia, the appropriate location
with the catalog record (the five records which mentioned multimedia did so in
the 516, 520, 538 MARC fields) and the appropriate General Material Designation
(GMD)
for such 'publications' In this case, all had 'Computer file' as the
GMD. Would it be more appropriate to use 'Interactive Media'
as the GMD for multimedia e-journals? [This approach would be
an extension of the _Guidelines for Bibliographic Description of Interactive
Media_ published by the
American Library Association in 1994 and authored
by the Interactive Multimedia Guidelines Review Task Force chaired by Laurel
Jizba, now of Portland State University]
I'd very much appreciate my colleagues thoughts and reactions to my
observations and conclusions
regarding the cataloging of multimedia electronic e-journals (or any other
issues that this posting may inspire regarding multimedia e-journals).
As Always, Any and All comments, contributions,
questions, queries, critiques, etc. etc. are Most Welcome!
/Gerry McKiernan
Theoretical Librarian
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011
gerrymck@iastate.edu
