For the first assignment in Organization of Information, we had to catalog a resource in MARC & Dublin Core. In MARC, we were required to use certain fields, such as 007/8, 1xx, 245, 5xx, 65x. Obviously, we weren’t allowed to just go to another library and look at what they’d done. I decided to challenge myself a bit and catalog Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom, volume 4 in a graphic novel/comic series by Joe Hill (writer) and Gabriel Rodriguez (illustrator).
Challenges using Dublin Core
I did the first record in (qualified) Dublin Core, since its documentation wasn’t as extensive as MARC. I also thought that starting there would give me a good record to adapt into the MARC format. I ran into a handful of challenges (which also proved challenges in MARC), most of which I solved.
- This is the 4th book in a series.
- The book has two creators (writer and illustrator), whom I wanted to give shared authorial credit. This may not be appropriate on all graphic novels, but for this series, it seemed like the best choice.
- The book has two other major contributors (letterer and colorist) who should get some degree of credit.
- Dublin Core doesn’t seem to have a way of indicating page numbers.
1) I used both Locke & Key v.4 and Locke & Key to indicate the series it was part of and its place in the series. I’m not sure if dcterms:isPartOf needed more information, but I worried putting in more than the series name could create problems for automatically-generated links.
2 & 3) I was only able to half-solve these. On the one hand, I indicated a kind of hierarchy between the two sets of creators/contributors by using the Dublin Core terminology dc:creator and dc:contributor. I listed the writer & illustrator as creators and the letterer & colorist as contributors.
Unfortunately, there was no easily-apparent way to designate each of their roles. It would probably require creating an alternative xml schema to augment DC. That would only be an appropriate step if one were creating a catalog of comics and graphic novels or working in a context where the user had a need to know these specifics. Still, I was disappointed. I considered trying to include it in the description, but that didn’t look right.
4) I wasn’t able to solve this issue at the time. Since turning in the assignment, I realized that I should’ve used dcterms:sizeOrDuration. The name made me think of physical sizes, of electronic record sizes, & of AV materials. The definition talks of defitions, extents, and times to play/execute. But the comment is:
Examples include a number of pages, a specification of length, width, and breadth, or a period in hours, minutes, and seconds.
which fits quite well. I’ve updated the record below to include this.
Some other choices I made on the record include:
- including “young adult” as one of the subjects, even though the book suggests that it’s for mature audiences and making “graphic novel” a subject;
- including a table of contents, despite this being a work of fiction;
- including
dcterms:isFormatOf to indicate that it was originally published in 6 issues;
- and calling the format a graphic novel instead of a book or any other more generic term.
1) The book contains mature themes and definitely has adult appeal, but the main characters are teenagers (and a child). It’s not more “mature” than many other books shelved in YA and the teens may be able to identify with feelings of loss and identity as experienced by the characters. My biggest concern was that this might make it harder for adults to come across a copy while browsing.
I used “graphic novel” as a subject, because it seemed like it could be useful in certain OPACs. I’m hoping to get feedback on this one way or another from the professor.
2) Because the book was originally published as comics, it seemed useful to create a table of contents reflecting the title of each comic (which are retained as chapter titles in the book, though the last chapter is indicated as part 1 & part 2 and not as dramatically delineated as the rest). Readers may have previously encountered single issues.
3) See above.
4) Other than the debatable subject field I used, there wasn’t any explicit statement that this was a graphic novel. “Comic” and “comic collection” didn’t seem appropriate. It might be useful in an OPAC which allows one to search by format.
Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom — cataloged using Dublin Core
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<qualifieddc xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/qdc/2008/02/11/qualifieddc.xsd"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
<dc:title>Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom</dc:title>
<dcterms:alternative>Keys to the Kingdom</dcterms:alternative>
<dcterms:alternative>Locke & Key v.4</dcterms:alternative>
<dc:creator>Joe Hill</dc:creator>
<dc:creator>Gabriel Rodriguez</dc:creator>
<dc:contributor>Jay Fotos</dc:contributor>
<dc:contributor>Robbie Robbins</dc:contributor>
<dc:subject>graphic novel, comic, horror, fantasy, young adult</dc:subject>
<dc:description>The Locke children have grown accustomed to the myriad of magical keys discovered within the ancestral family home of Keyhouse. They have also grown accustomed to tragedy. What they may not be prepared for is just how closely danger stalks their every move as Lucas Caravaggio, alias Zach Wells, continues his relentless quest for the key to the black door.</dc:description>
<!--description taken from back cover material-->
<dcterms:tableOfContents>Sparrow; White; February; Casualties; Detectives: Part 1; Detectives: Part 2</dcterms:tableOfContents>
<dcterms:sizeOrDuration>160 pages</dcterms:sizeOrDuration>
<dcterms:issued>2011-06-01</dcterms:issued>
<dcterms:isFormatOf>Originally published as Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom issues #1-6.</dcterms:isFormatOf>
<dcterms:isPartOf>Locke & Key</dcterms:isPartOf>
<dc:publisher>Idea and Design Works, LLC</dc:publisher>
<dc:format>graphic novel</dc:format>
<dc:identifier>URN:ISBN:9781600108860</dc:identifier>
</qualifieddc> |
Challenges in MARC format
I ran into some of the same challenges in MARC as in Dublin Core, and a few new ones.
- MARC allows one to include creative roles, but doesn’t seem to allow for co-equal authorship by writer and illustrator.
- The first indicator of the 245 field, specifying whether or not this was an “added entry,” didn’t make sense.
- I don’t have access to LC subject headings.
1) I used the 245 field to spell out the role each person played in the book (and called Joe Hill the “writer” vs. the “author,” based on the title page). I then put Joe Hill, as the more traditional author, in the 100 field. Based on the OCLC definition, it seemed like it should only be done for a primary author and I wasn’t sure whether or not it could be repeated. I put Gabriel Rodriguez in the 700 field and used |e to specify his role as illustrator (ill.). I decided that by not including the colorist & letterer in 700 fields, I was asserting the creative importance of Mr. Rodriguez.
2) Thanks to catalogers I asked on Twitter & via email, I learned that the first indicator is a leftover from the days of card catalogs, in which the primary entry would be under the author’s name. Thankfully, I’m from what was probably the last generation to get any practical card catalog experience, so this immediately made sense. I think it’s also an example of the legacy formatting which MARC needs to drop, or which is part of the reason it’s a good thing that libraries are developing new formats.
3) I discovered on OCLC that 655 is a genre term and decided to use it in place of 650. I made the subjects very broad—fantasy & horror— under fiction and then “graphic novels.” [Edited to add: I also learned from a cataloger at work that I should try authorities.loc.gov next time.]
Additionally, I had to generate my own 008 field in its entirety, which wouldn’t normally happen when using library software. I used online tutorials for understanding the 008, though I’m not sure it’s entirely correct. I took a small liberty in the 300 field and added “(extensively)” after ill. because, as a graphic novel, the piece is illustrated on each page.
Some advantages to MARC included the designated field for ISBNs (it took some Googling for examples to find the proper syntax for ISBN in Dublin Core), the inclusion of all creators in the 245 field as mentioned above, the series fields (although, I still need to talk to a cataloger about the difference between 490 and 830).
Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom — cataloged using MARC
008 __ 111009s20112011caux
020 __ |a1600108865
020 __ |a9781600108860
100 1_ |aHill, Joe
245 10 |aLocke & Key : |bKeys to the Kingdom. / |cJoe Hill, writer ; Gabriel Rodriguez, illustrator ; Jay Fotos, colorist ; Robbie Robbins, letterer |nvol. 4
246 30 |aKeys to the Kingdom
260 __ |aSan Diego, CA : |bIdea and Design Works, |c2011
300 __ |a160 p. : |bill. (extensively), col. ; |c25.5 cm.
490 1_ |aLocke & Key ; |vv.4
500 __ |a"Originally published as Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom issues #1-6."--t.p. verso.
505 0_ |aSparrow -- White -- February -- Casualties -- Detectives: Part 1 -- Detectives: Part 2
520 __ |a"The Locke children have grown accustomed to the myriad of magical keys discovered within the ancestral family home of Keyhouse. They have also grown accustomed to tragedy. What they may not be prepared for is just how closely danger stalks their every move as Lucas Caravaggio, alias Zach Wells, continues his relentless quest for the key to the black door." -- back cover.
655 04 |aHorror |vFiction.
655 04 |aFantasy |vFiction.
655 _0 |aGraphic novels.
700 1_ |aRodriguez, Gabriel, |eill.
830 _0 |aLocke & Key ; |vv.4 |
(Since my library uses Millenium and pipes, I used | instead of $ for delineation.)
