Joni Lynn Cassidy is President/Co-owner/Founder of Cassidy Cataloguing Services, Inc., a small quality-driven company providing contract cataloguing and technical services to law firm, bar association, corporate and special libraries throughout the U.S. and Europe. She founded Cassidy Cataloguing in 1985 and was joined full-time by her “computer wiz” husband, Michael, in 1988. A professional and support staff of 12 serves 75 libraries. Recent projects include the reclassification of the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School to Library of Congress classification. Cassidy Cataloging Services, Inc. is proud to be unveiling a new service: MOLEhill ’98. MOLEhill ’98 will provide libraries with reasonably-priced desktop access to their online public access catalog (OPAC) via the Internet. Contact Joni Cassidy at [email protected] or 973-481-0900, for more information.

(Archived June 15, 1998)

While I readily agree that there are many, many subtle nuances and finer points to cataloging Internet resources, I think the basic process can be summarized. My goal is to provide you with a quick-guide, or cheat-sheet, for adding these resources to your online catalog in a timely manner. I do this with the warning that you may want to do additional research or take a continuing education course on this subject before feeling totally confident with the process.

Here’s the nuts and bolts.

The chief source of information can be the title screen or a similar display, the “Readme file,” the “About” screen, the TEI (text encoding initiative) header, a separate documentation file, or internal menus, labels, subject line, or program statement.

Unique MARC fields you’ll probably use include:

007 position 00 use “c” for computer file.

007 position 01 use “r” for remote.

245 $h use [computer file]

256 FILE CHARACTERISTICS – Required for remote access files. AACR2Rev. term choices are “computer program(s),” “computer data,” “computer data and program(s).” ISBD(ER) term choices are more specific and include “computer text and image data,” “computer online service(s),” and “computer journal(s).”

There is NO 300 FIELD (physical description) in a remote access record.

500 NOTE – The source of the title is always given in a note.

506 RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS NOTE.

516 TYPE OF REMOTE ACCESS FILE NOTE – This field contains information that characterizes the computer file. Examples are “electronic journal” or “computer programs” or “text (law reports and digests).”

530 ADDITIONAL PHYSICAL FORM AVAILABLE NOTE.

538 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS NOTE – Could include information about programs needed for access.

538 MODE OF ACCESS NOTE – Examples are “Mode of acess: World wide web” or “Mode of access: Internet.”

556 INFORMATION ABOUT DOCUMENTATION NOTE – Record documentation available in a separate file here.

856 ELECTRONIC LOCATION AND ACCESS – This field is defined to contain all the information required to locate and use an electronic item. Some online catalog software now contains a “hot link” from the 856 field in the bibliographic record to the actual electronic item.

MARBI recently approved changes to the indicator values as follows:

Ind 1 (Access method) [blank] No information provided
	0 E-mail
	2 Telnet
	3 Dial-up
	4 HTTP

Ind 2 (Relationship) [blank] No information provided
	0 Resource
	1 Version of resource
	2 Related resource
	8 No display constant generated

Subfields
	a b c d f g h i j k l m n o q r s t u v x z 3	Host name Access number Compression information (i.e. use PKZIP) Path Electronic name of file URN Username Instruction or command Bits per second Password Logon Contact for assistance Name of location of host in subfield a Operating system Electronic format type Settings File size Terminal emulation URL Hours of access Nonpublic note Public note Part of the bib item to which the 856 field applies

Sample Record

007		crocnu
090		QE521 $b.B65
245	00	VolcanoWorld $h [computer file] : $b the web’s premier source of volcano info.
246	3	Volcano world
256		Computer text and image data
260		[North Dakota] : $b University of North Dakota, $c1995-
500		Updated frequently
500		Title from home page.
500		“Supported by NASA.”
538		MODE OF ACCESS: World Wide Web via Internet
538		SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Web browser, color monitor, color printer.
650	0	Volcanoes $x Databases
650	0	Volcanoes $x Research $x Databases
710	2	University of North Dakota
710	1	United States. %b National Aeronautics and Space Administration
856	4	$ n Univeresity of North Dakota, Aerospace $ u http://volcano.und.edu
997		(c) 1998 Cassidy Cataloguing Services, Inc.

The most useful resource I’ve found for this kind of cataloging is Nancy Olson’s Cataloging Internet resources: a manual and a practical guide, 2nd ed. It is accessible through the Interactive Electronic Serials Cataloging Aid (IESCA) at http://www.library.nwu.edu/iesca/ and at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/man/9256cat/toc.htm.

To discuss this, or any other cataloging issues, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].