Page Comparison

^{Extremely preliminary notes - November 2021}

Use in conjunction with our Art Book Cataloging workflow for now.

Dueling definitions

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“Books that are produced by artists and intended as visual art objects.”--Library of Congress Genre/Form Headings

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See also our attempt to further pin Artists' Books (and their near relatives) below (Artist’s book, Private press, Small press, or Livre d’artiste?)

Draft Workflow

Fixed Fields : most commonly cataloged as Monographic Book or Visual Materials format

Book format:

• The item’s primary content is textual (or wordless with relatively flat pictures)

• The item’s format is that of a “regular” book (has page(s) of some kind)

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• Use cataloger’s judgment

• Also, don’t completely redo another catalogers judgement in format when copy cataloging

050/090 LC call numbers:

• N7433.4.A-Z (Special artists), A-Z
  Under each artist:
  .xA7-.xZ6 Individual artists' books. By title, A-Z

• or N7433.3 (general works) for several artists working together or artist unknown?

100 and 700 artists and other creators:

Common relationship designators include:
Work-level:

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• $e engraver

• $e lithographer

• $e papermaker

• $e printer

• $e publisher
  

Item-level:

• $e binder

3xx Description and format fields

Artists' books can be difficult to describe concisely, especially more the more unusual items. The unusual aspects of the Artist’s book can be obscured by brief 300’s. So, give lots of detail in the 500 Artefactual details notes (see below). Often dealer’s websites or publisher’s description sheets are a useful source for 500 artefactual notes which can be quoted in full or part.

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• 245 10 Biosphere.

• 300 1 volume (unpaged) ; ǂc 12 x 9 x 3 cm + ǂe 4 sphere books + custom box (24 x 11 x 6 cm)

• 500 "Box divided into two sections by wooden piece. Sections contain coptic bound book on left side and four wooden spheres with accordion books on right side ... Spheres measure 1.5" diameter with each a different color. Each sphere is halved to contain an accordion structure book and has a magnetic closure"--Vamp & Tramp website, viewed on September 30, 2019.

336/337/338 fields format/type - add more 33x terms for other formats, as needed. In many cases text is minimal and the content is driven more by the illustrations. And other types might be enclosed such as sound or video discs.

Specific example:

• 245 10 Celsius 233 / ǂc Philip Zimmermann.

• 300 40 unnumbered pages : ǂb illustrations, ǂc 17 x 23 cm ǂe 1 Blu-ray HD DVD in box.

• 336 text ǂb txt ǂ2 rdacontent

• 336 still image ǂb sti ǂ2 rdacontent

• 336 two-dimensional moving image ǂb tdi ǂ2 rdacontent

• 337 unmediated ǂb n ǂ2 rdamedia

• 337 video ǂb v ǂ2 rdamedia

• 338 volume ǂb nc ǂ2 rdacarrier

• 338 video disc ǂb vd ǂ2 rdacarrier

• 500 "[H]andbound using a multi-needle coptic stitch with sewn-on hard covers made of acid-free solid-core black museum board. The paper is acid-free Pop-Tone French Paper. The images are printed using archival inkjet ink with three-color foil stamping on the cover, the title page and back cover. The interior flame sheets are loose-inserted in a slot in each interior folio. It is printed in a signed and numbered edition of 50 and comes in an acid-free phase box. A DVD is included with a one-channel video that can be used to create a viewing environment"--Publication information sheet

500     Artefactual details

Often dealer’s websites or publisher’s description sheets are a useful source for 500 artefactual notes which can be quoted in full or part. But briefer notes may be all that is needed.

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• 245 10 Spring opens the mountain green : ǂb a poem for Yosemite ; with a quote by John Muir / ǂc Peter and Donna Thomas.

• 500 Four original watercolor paintings of named locations in Yosemite on handmade paper, mounted on double leaves, accompanied by text or maps on alternating leaves. Lettering in black, with illumination in blue and green.

• 500 Nested double-leaved accordion-fold book; endpapers attached to bound covers, double leaves not attached to spine; marbled paper strips woven into page edges. Covers bound in brown leather with colored leather inlays depicting mountain landscape, front and back. Issued in blue-grey paper-covered clamshell box with watercolor title label mounted on top.

500     Number in/of edition

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590 Utah State University Special Collections and Archives has number 12. ←for SCA items.

Subject and Genre

Artist’s book, Private press, Small press, or Livre d’artiste?

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655 Genre and Format terms:

In the past we have used Rare Books Binding & Genre Thesaurus (for SCA) https://rbms.info/vocabularies/index.shtml or the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, but there are many newer sources available, such as Library of Congress Genre and Format Terms (available in Classification Web) https://classweb.org/ or in OCLC authority files (sca ge: artists' books)

On occasion, we have used our own Local lists of genre terms, usually for SCA items.

Artists' books genre terms (just a few):

       655   7   Artists’ books. |2 lcgft ←in general, prefer lcgft for non-SCA items, if the term exists in there

655 7 Artists' books. |2 rbgenr ← Rare Books Genre Thesaurus

655 7 artists' books (books) |2 aat ← Art and Architecture Thesaurus

We don’t need three identical 655 fields for the same term, but we can have 650/655 combos in the same record. Also, leave in all OCLC fast subject headings even though they often duplicate the 650 text (by their very nature being LCSH-derived)

• 650 0 Artists' books |v Specimens.

• 650 7 Artists' books. ǂ2 fast ǂ0 (OCoLC)fst00817660

• 655 7 Specimens. ǂ2 fast ǂ0 (OCoLC)fst01423861

• 655 7 Artists' books |y 20th century. |2 lcgft

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The name of the producer of the Artists book is useful to add to records, if missing. Sometimes it is difficult to find. If there is no publisher information on or with the item, check the title in dealer’s catalogs; they will often have the publisher/press and other useful details listed.

710 2 Midnight Moon Press, |e publisher. ← check for authorized form, if available

Selection of training resources

Lewis, N., McCormack, A., Skeen, B., Wiederhold, R. (2019, May 15). Beyond Books: Cataloging Special
Format Items [Pre-conference training workshop]. Utah Library Association Annual Conference, Sandy, UT

USU Digital Commons copy here: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1143&context=lib_present – see slides 36-66 for Cataloging Artists’ Books by Allison McCormack.

Opening Artists' Books to the User: an example with potential approaches / Ann K.D. Myers and William Andrews Myers, 2014.

Cataloging Artists Books / Nina Schneider. 47th Annual RBMS PreConference, June 21, 2006. Still useful and very detailed, downloadable PDF here: https://ninaschneider.com/Nina-Schneider-Cataloging-Artists-Books.pdf and online reading version here: https://ninaschneider.com/presentation.html

Artists' books : a cataloguers' manual / by Maria White, Patrick Perratt and Liz Lawes ; on behalf of ARLIS/UK & Ireland Cataloguing and Classification Committee. London : ARLIS/UK and Ireland, 2006/reprinted 2012. Dated (no RDA), but still has a good workflow to adapt.

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