-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: New cartographic genre/form terms
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:28:05 -0500
From: Grabach, Kenneth A. Mr. <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]>


    To answer Michael Fry's questions:
I began to implement the new headings shortly after the Library of
Congress directive was implemented in September of 2010.

    * If you aren't planning to implement f/g, why?
    * If you are, are you doing so fully or selectively? For new records,
      or retrospectively, too?
I am implementing them for new records.  Retrospective changes will have
to be done as a system change.

I haven't really worried about full compliance, because several forms of
materials covered by the form/genre headings are not represented in the
collections.  I have used each form that authority control in the OCLC
Connexion system accepts.  Or to put more precisely, I have used each
one where the old form is no longer accepted by the authority control
function.  This leads to the specific and particular exception,
addressed by your last question...

    * Finally, are you using the generic "Maps" heading so that each
      record has at least one genre heading?

I am not greatly worried that each record have at least one form
heading.  And the way to accomplish it, with the generic "Maps" is to me
redundant and useless.  It seems to me that having a heading that reads
simply "Maps" is imprecise in the extreme.  The entire collection in all
its parts comprises "Maps".  "Thematic maps" is nearly as imprecise, so
I generally haven't bothered with that one either.  However, specific
themes or formats do have some utility as searchable terms.  Physical
maps, Tourist maps, Topographic maps, Remote-sensing maps,
Remote-sensing images, as examples, seem useful to me, as they were
useful as $v sub-headings.
Since they are not applicable that way, but as 655 headings, that is how
I now use them.

"Maps" and "Thematic maps" as genre headings seem, to my mind, to
clutter the records and the searchability of the database needlessly.

Ken Grabach                           <[log in to unmask]>
Maps Librarian                          Phone: 513-529-1726
Miami University Libraries
Oxford, Ohio  45056  USA


-----Original Message-----
From: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angie Cope, American
Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 11:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: New cartographic genre/form terms

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: New cartographic genre/form terms
Date:   Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:23:07 -0500
From:   Fry, Michael <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
<[log in to unmask]>



Hello,
I'm not a cataloger, but I'm curious about Paige's comment last week
that "not everyone agrees [that form/genre headings are] useful or
needed". We plan to start implementing f/g soon, going forward and
retrospectively, so I'm interested in what the controversy (maybe too
strong a word?) is. Questions for the crowd:

    * If you aren't planning to implement f/g, why?
    * If you are, are you doing so fully or selectively? For new records,
      or retrospectively, too?
    * Finally, are you using the generic "Maps" heading so that each
      record has at least one genre heading?

Thanks.
mf

--
Michael Fry
Senior Map Librarian
National Geographic Society
1145 17th St. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
202.857.7098 <tel:202.857.7098>
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