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HEADLINE: NINCH Database Project:
Phase 1 Data Entry/Revision Guidelines

Procedures For Completing Records

  1. The Database Coordinator will divide up the records in the database among the participating catalogers, and each cataloger will be notified of the records for which he or she is responsible.
  2. The Project Contact Coordinator will email site contacts informing them that their projects' records are available for elaboration and correction and specifying the URL through which the site contacts may modify the records.
  3. When a site contact has updated the record for his or her project, email will be sent automatically to the list of catalogers and to the Project Contact Coordinator.
  4. When a cataloger is notified per step 3 that a record for which he or she is responsible has been updated by the site contact, the cataloger will review and complete the record according to the guidelines in the table below.

Use of AACR2

AACR2 is the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2ED, 1998 Revision. For the purposes of this project, AACR2 should be viewed as a aid to quick & consistent decision-making about choice & form of entry, and sources of information, to be applied with a light and pragmatic touch where needed, rather than as a comprehensive system for all aspects of bibliographic control.

Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRIs) may also be adduced where useful.

Responsibility:
(R) = Required at time of submission
(O) = Optional
(CR) = Required on the part of the cataloger

1. Fields we check/enter authoritatively:

Field: Identifier

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes:

Set 'type' attribute to one of:

  • URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
  • ISBN (International Standard Book Number)
  • ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)
  • URN (Uniform Resource Name)
  • URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
  • DOI (Digital Object Identifier)

Field contents: For web-based projects, enter the URL of the main project page. Avoid using URLs that are simply redirected or refreshed to another page, except for PURLs and the like. For published CD-ROMs or other electronic media, use the standard number (e.g. ISBN, ISSN) appearing on the object or its case. For some projects, it may be more appropriate to use a URI, URN, or DOI (Digital Object Identifier).

Field: Title

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: AACR2

MARC analog: 9.1B-E

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: For web-based projects: Transcribe title from between in HTML head, or from typographically prominent text (e.g. from between

tage) at the top of the body of the main page. Prefer the more complete form of title.

Field: Other title

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: AACR2

MARC analog: 9.1B-E

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: For web-based projects: Transcribe title from between in HTML head, or from typographically prominent text (e.g. from between

tage) at the top of the body of the main page. Prefer the more complete form of title.

Field: Author

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: AACR2

MARC analog: 21, 22 & 24

Attributes: Indicate whether the author is a person or a corporate body.

Field contents: Use the form of name from the OCLC name authority file, if available. Otherwise, use AACR2 for guidance regarding choice among variant forms of name and choice of entry element for personal names, and in selecting and constructing corporate names.

Field: Other Agent

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: AACR2

MARC analog: 21, 22 & 24

Attributes: Indicate whether the other agent is a person or a corporate body.

Field contents: Use the form of name from the OCLC name authority file, if available. Otherwise, use AACR2 for guidance regarding choice among variant forms of name and choice of entry element for personal names, and in selecting and constructing corporate names. Apply AACR2 21.30A1 in this way: if three or fewer other agents are named and deemed worthy of entering in the database, name all of them. If there are more than three other agents, enter only the first-named of the other agents. Alternativeely, if there are more than three other agents and it is deemed important to enter more than one, apply AACR2 21.29D in choosing up to three other agents to enter.

Field: Subject

Responsibility: (CR)

Scheme: LCSH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Select one or more topical, chronological, or geographical LC subject headings to describe the resource. Use no more than one subdivision under the first heading.

Field: Subject Classification

Responsibility: (CR)

Scheme: LCC

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Select or more alpha portions of the adapted LC class numbers. Enter each class number on its own line.

Field: Publisher

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: AACR2

MARC analog: 9.4D

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: The publisher is the specific agency responsible for making the resource available in the current format. E.g. The Middle English Compendium, the publisher would be University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative.

Field: Object type

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Enumerated Options:

  • Collaborative Spaces
  • Numeric Datasets
  • Reference Tools
  • Teaching Materials
  • Software
  • Research Materials (Editions, Collections in all media)

Field: Cataloged

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: If the project is cataloged in OCLC, enter OCLC Record Number.

Field: Language

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: ISO 639-2

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Enter names of the languages of the project, whether the languages of presentation or the languages of the source material of the project.
Select names for languages from the list at Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages. For multiple languages, enter the name of each language on its own line.

Fields we check/enter tentatively, prompting project contacts to amend or complete:

Field: Project Contact Information

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Enter or transcribe contact information for the project director, or for the person designated by the project director as project contact.
Transcribe information from the project's main page, from the project's "Contact Us" page, or from the parent department's/institution's main or contact pages.

Required:

  • Name
  • Telephone
  • Email

Optional:
  • Fax
  • Mailing address
  • URL (other than project URL, e.g. personal or institutional web page)

Field: Description

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: 1-4 paragraphs that give potential users the best idea of what the project is and is about.

Field: Date

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: AACR2

MARC analog: 1.4F8

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Adapt and apply AACR2 98 REV. 1.4F8 in this fashion: give the date of creation of the project (probably the date the project was begun) as the first of two dates, and the date the project was considered to be no longer in progress as the second date. If the project is considered to be still in progress, leave the second date open.

Field: Source

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Enter the source, if any, from which the project is derived.
The project could be derived from

  • a single work
  • the works of a particular author
  • works of a particular genre, period, national or ethnic group,
  • literary or philosophical circle.

Field: Coverage

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Enter one of:

  • dates covered by project material (e.g. 1100-1450, in the case of an encylopedia of modern articles about the Middle Ages)
  • dates of origin of project material (e.g. 1100-1450, in the case of a set of texts from the Middle Ages)
whichever is deemed more apt, given the nature of the project.
Enter as a single year (XXXX), a range of years (XXXX-YYYY), a single date in ISO 8601 full date format (YYYY-MM-DD), or as a range of dates in ISO 8601 full date format.

3. Fields we ask project directors to complete by email/fax/online submission, in response to our contact (catalogers enter this info into the registry when it is received):

Field: Subject Keywords

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Prompt project contacts for 2-5 topical keywords to aid in free-text retrieval of project record.

Field: Status

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog:

Attributes:

Field contents: Enumerated Options:

  • YY (available and in progress)
  • YN (available but not in progress / complete.)
  • NY (not available and in progress)
  • NN (not available but complete)
These will perhaps be expressed in the catalog form as two pairs of radio buttons

Field: Computational info

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: NINCH AACR2 (?)

MARC analog: 9.5, 9.7B8, 9.7B10-11

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Project contacts are prompted to supply information for this field under the six following heads:

  1. Data formats
    • File formats (e.g. JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, Postscript, LaTeX)
    • Character encoding (e.g. ASCII, EBCDIC, ISO 8859-1, UTF8)
    • Text and metadata encoding schemes (e.g. TEI, MARC, HTML 4.0, XHTML; note SGML/XML DTD where appropriate)
    • Filesystem (for projects distributed on CD-ROM, floppy, or other removable media) (e.g. ISO 9660, FAT16, HFS, NTFS)
  3. Tools used for creating or authoring project resources
    • Software used to create project resources (e.g. Adept Edit, PhotoShop, Emacs)
    • Programming and scripting languages used to create project resources (e.g. C/C++, Perl, Python, Java (applets, servlets, beans), JavaScript, PHP, Cold Fusion, ASP)
    • Platform & Operating systems (e.g. Mac, Solaris, Linux, WinNT)
  5. Tools used for publishing the project
    • Software used to publish project resources (e.g. Apache web server, MySQL, DynaWeb)
    • Programming and scripting languages used to publish project resources (see above)
    • Platform & Operating systems (see above)
  7. Requirements and parameters for using project resources
    • Mode of access for use (e.g. networked (Internet, restricted intranet), CD-ROM and single workstation)
    • Software needed to use (e.g. web browser & version, proprietary distributed client, X-Windows client, Java virtual machine, plugins such as ShockWave or RealAudio)
    • Platform & Operating systems (see above)
    • Filesystem support (see above)
    • Hardware requirements for use (e.g. how much RAM, video RAM, disk space)
  9. Software tools provided to the end user (e.g. tools for search & retrieval, tools for analysis, tools for display)
  10. Availability as open-source or free software (e.g. under GPL) of above tools created by the project or distributed by third parties (see also Rights field)

Field: Funding

Responsibility: (R)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Prompt project contacts for:

  • General funding information (e.g. "Funded in part by anonymous contributors")
  • Particular funding sources

Field: Rights

Responsibility: (O)

Scheme: NINCH

MARC analog: N/A

Attributes: N/A

Field contents: Prompt project contacts for:

  • Rights of end-users to re-use material or software from the cataloged project, e.g. in teaching or in research
  • How the project itself gained rights to use the material (e.g. whom they asked, how royalties