Rare Book Study Group Report

Group Members:- Sarah Elman, Columbia University- Shuwen Cao, Princeton University

CEAL CTP RDA WorkshopMarch 23, 2015

Communications with NCL/NLC

In summer 2014, Sarah Elman met with the rare book catalogers at the National Central Library (Taipei, Taiwan) and Shuwen Cao met with rare book experts at the National Library of China (Beijing, China) to discuss their plans to implement RDA.

Sarah and Shuwen met in late August 2014 to compare notes from these meetings.

National Central Library (NCL, Taiwan)

RDA has been used in cataloging of English language materials.

A group of catalogers have been studying RDA rules, preparing documents, and translating terminology into Chinese.

Basic principle: All Chinese books will be cataloged in Chinese and Western language will follow international standards.  

Even if RDA is adopted, they are not likely to use English terminology in their Chinese bibliographic records.

For example, they will probably use Chinese terminology for the relationship designators and perhaps 37X fields, etc.

National Library of China (NLC)

Published RDA Chinese translation version on 2014. We can use it as RDA Chinese/English term reference.

Workshop on Chinese Rare Books co-sponsored with CEAL CCM in Beijing, June 25 - July 1, 2014. NLC would like to join and co-operate on RDA rare book cataloging guidelines with CEAL.

Project of Chinese Rare Book Union Catalog on North America (北美中文善本古籍目录 ). ◦ CCM’s Subcommittee on Rare Books formed for

this project: Susan Xue, Sarah Elman, Shuwen Cao, Yuan Zhou, and Haihui Zhang.

Preliminary ProposalTry to incorporate RDA into the

"Cataloging Guidelines for Creating Chinese Rare Book Records in Machine-Readable Form“ (2009 revision).

Relationship designators: ◦Chinese field: Record as found.◦Romanized field:

Use appropriate English terms found in the RBMS list.

Propose new terms if necessary. When it’s not possible to have an English

equivalent, use romanization.

Variable Data Fields245 $c: Do NOT transcribe the

entire statement as found on the piece because many rare books have lengthy statement of responsibilities. Follow AACR2 practices and record only primary creators and contributors.

264 field: Use a single 264 to record everything 

Variable Data Fields33X fields: Use English

terminology? (For machine manipulation only?)

Linking to other editions/versions: Not required

Preferred titles (i.e., uniform titles): Not required

Dates in authorized access pointsFor newly created authority

records, if no birth/death dates are found, but the jin shi/ju ren (進士 /舉人 ) dates are available, add them even if there is no conflict.

For existing authority records that do not have dates, add the date to a cross reference in 400 field.

Seeking CommentsSee complete report at: http://

rdaandcjkworkshop.pbworks.com/w/file/94124174/CEAL%20CTP%20Rare%20Books%20Study%20Group%20Report.docx

Send your comments to:◦Shuwen Cao <scao@princeton.edu>◦Sarah S. Elman

<sse2109@columbia.edu>