Local Collections

When material is acquired by the Beinecke Library as “collections” (e.g., books, serials, ephemera by Rudyard Kipling), curators quite often want this material to be searchable by one common access point. Past practice has usually been to class such collections under a unique name (e.g. Richards Kipling, Betts Collection, Dickens Collection, etc.) and/or providing provenance tracings in all the cataloged records (e.g. “From the library of Samuel Beardsley”). Because there is quite often a wide variety of formats in such collections, classing all items as a “name” collection becomes problematic; broadsides must be classed in the broadsides classing scheme; folio-size items classed in the folio classing scheme; and so on. To more effectively “bring together” material in such collections, catalogers should always add the following tracings within each catalog record for the collection.

Note: this phrasing may vary according circumstances; e.g. “From the Joseph Brodsky Papers.”

Collection names and phrasing to be used in local notes will be determined by curators, Head of Printed Acquisitions, and/or Head of Rare Book Cataloging and should be provided prior to the cataloging of the collection and added to the list of special provenance instructions for collections in the manual. A list of locally created collections is also maintained. Collection names are recorded in field 710 ‡a, followed by the qualifier: (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library). Part names for collections, if applicable,  are recorded in ‡b. The field ends with: ‡5 CtY-BR. Note: ‡b is preceded by a period even when a closing parenthesis is present; ‡5 is preceded by a closing parenthesis or a period.

Examples:

Collection-Level Records

Generally, follow the instructions as given in the Collection Level Records manual page (based primarily on Appendix B. Collection-Level Records of Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books)).