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IESR Cataloguing Policy

Agent Properties

Agent: Description

Descriptions should not refer to any particular collection owned by, or service administered by, the agent.

Collection Properties

Collection: Title

The formal, or commonly used, title of the collection. Preserve the original wording, order and spelling. Do not introduce additional spaces, for instance CrossFire not Cross Fire. Personal names may be entered in any order: Surname/family name, Forename; or Forename Surname.

Enter any alternative name, sub-title, or any form of the title, that is commonly used as a substitute for the main title, as an Alternative Title. Explain title abbreviations in full using Alternative Title. For example: ONS Time Series Data (Title); Office for National Statistics Time Series Data (Alternative Title).

For collections with a non-English title, enter the native language title as the Title; include the language of the title using a language attribute. Enter the translation or transliteration as an Alternative Title. Please transliterate titles written in non-Roman scripts (for example, Greek, Russian, Hebrew) into ASCII characters using a recognisable transliteration scheme (for example, Beta encoding for Greek).

Alternative Title

Any alternative name, sub-title, or any form of the title, that is commonly used as a substitute for the main title. Preserve the original wording, order and spelling. Do not introduce additional spaces, for instance CrossFire not Cross Fire. Personal names may be entered in any order: Surname/family name, Forename; or Forename Surname.

Explain any abbreviations used in the title in full using Alternative Title. For example: ONS Time Series Data (Title); Office for National Statistics Time Series Data (Alternative Title). Enter sub-titles using Alternative Title.

For collections with a non-English title, enter the native language title as the Title; include the language of the title using a language attribute. Enter the translation or transliteration as an Alternative Title. Please transliterate titles written in non-Roman scripts (for example, Greek, Russian, Hebrew) into ASCII characters using a recognisable transliteration scheme (for example, Beta encoding for Greek).

Description

Enter the description as a single paragraph of unstructured text. It should not be longer than 150 words and should be written in complete sentences. Formatting tags, such as italics, and carriage returns must not be included. Do not use (X)HTML tags. Enclose normally italicised words within single quotes. Non-keyboard characters are not currently available. If a list is required it should be preceded with a colon, with list items separated by semi-colons. Abbreviations may be used but should be explained in full.

The first couple of lines of the description are the most important. Start the description by writing what you would if you were only allowed to describe the collection in one sentence. The rest of the description provides progressively more detail. After reading the first part of the description the end-user should know about the collection, not everything about only part of the collection. Indeed the end-user should be able to stop reading the description at the point they feel they have reached the level of detail they need. This journalistic writing style is sometimes called the inverted pyramid structure.

Please use the title of the collection in the first sentence. The first sentence should also state what the collection is. For example:

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Industrial Demand Supply databases are annual time series data.

The rest of the description may describe:

  • the type or form of the collection
  • broad subject coverage
  • broad temporal coverage, and whether this is specific to certain time periods
  • broad spatial coverage, and whether this is specific to certain geographical areas
  • the language of the collection
  • the audience for the collection
  • the strength of the collection
  • who commissioned the collection and why
  • why the collection is important and/or useful
  • any use that may be made of the collection

For example:

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Industrial Demand Supply databases are annual time series data for the period 1981-2003 for ISIC Revision 2, and 1990-2003 for ISIC Revision 3. Coverage is over approximately 80 countries and areas worldwide for ISIC Revision 2 and over 70 countries and areas for ISIC Revision 3. Coverage varies country to country. Data cover domestic output, apparent consumption, imports from the world, developing countries and industrialized countries, and exports to the world, developing countries and industrialized countries. Data are broken down by manufacturing sector corresponding to the ISIC 4-digit level categories. All the data are measured in current US$.

Do not include:

  • a description of the organisation that owns or provides the collection; this is covered in the Owner (Agent) record.
  • the format of the collection; this may be covered in the Item Format property
  • copyright, licensing and registration agreements; these are covered in the Copyright, Use Rights and Licence properties
  • any software required to access the collection; this is not part of the collection's properties and is covered in the Service record(s)

You may want to avoid information that is likely to date quickly, for example: the collection contains 8,000 records. Ensure that the description matches other properties in the record.

Language

The depth of analysis is at your discretion, but you should attempt to capture all languages represented by the intellectual content of the collection.

The value en, for English, may be qualified by country. This is optional and should only be used for countries where English is the native language. This is mainly for use with UK English (en-gb) and American English (en-us). Do not qualify en by country of origin where English is not the principal language. For instance, do not use en-es for Spanish English. If in doubt use en only.

Terms should be entered in lower case.

Subject

The set of terms used under each controlled vocabulary must describe the collection fully, except in the case of Subject (Local Keyword), which may be used to describe only a part of the collection.

Do not use terms that only describe the type, form, spatial coverage or temporal coverage of the collection, as the term will not describe the subject of the collection. For example, if the collection is a database, it should not be indexed with the LCSH term Databases, as this describes the type of the collection only, not the subject of the intellectual content. The type, or form, of the collection is indexed separately under Collection Type and Item Type. Spatial and temporal coverage are indexed separately under Spatial and Temporal. The exception to this rule is Subject (LCSH). LCSH terms that include this information as subdivisions may be used, for example: History--20th century.

If the collection is a catalogue, index or hierarchical finding aid, then the value for Subject describes the intellectual content of the collection the catalogue describes (not the intellectual content of the catalogue, index or hierarchical finding aid records themselves). For example, Copac is a catalogue. The subject coverage is the intellectual content of the books, manuscripts etc described by Copac.

Use up to three related terms which are under the same broader term. If more than three terms in the same tree are needed then use the broader term instead. The depth of analysis is at your discretion, but it is suggested that five or more subject terms are entered, unless the collection's subject coverage is very specific.

Multidisciplinary resources may be indexed using the highest level subject terms in the chosen controlled vocabulary. Do not use terms that only describe the type or form of the collection. For example, Copac is indexed with the following Dewey terms:

  • 000
  • 100
  • 200
  • 300
  • 400
  • 500
  • 600
  • 700
  • 800
  • 900

as the intellectual content of the collection covers all of these subject areas.

Subject (Dewey)

Use of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC, or Dewey) is under licence. Organisations with a licence for Dewey should use one or more full Dewey terms.

Organisations without a licence to Dewey should enter one or more terms from the DDC Summaries. These have a separate licence agreement (http://www.oclc.org/research/researchworks/ddc/terms.htm). If no Dewey terms are entered then one or more terms will be assigned by the IESR Content Manager.

Subject (HASSET)

Terms may be entered in any case, for example: LABOUR ECONOMICS, Labour economics or labour economics.

Subject (JACS)

JACS terms are usually four characters, for example: A200, but letters on their own are also valid terms. For example: A is a valid term.

Subject (LCSH)

If geographical subdivisions are used in a term, and if the geographical subdivision used represents the spatial coverage of the collection, then this spatial coverage should also be recorded using one of the Spatial properties. Note that this geographical coverage does not have to be entered using Spatial(LCSH); any of the controlled vocabularies may be used.

If chronological subdivisions are used in a term, and if the chronological subdivision used represents the temporal coverage of the collection, then this temporal coverage should also be recorded using Temporal. Note that LCSH terms can not be simply pasted into Temporal; values under Temporal must be entered in the correct format.

If form subdivisions are used in a term, and if the form subdivision used represents the form or type of the collection, then this should be recorded using Collection Type and/or Item Type.

Subject (Local Keyword)

In addition to subject terms entered under the controlled vocabularies, a subject term may be used for a specific local keyword that is not in any controlled vocabulary. This is intended to be used only if the term is not found in the chosen controlled vocabulary. The set of term(s) entered under Subject (Local Keyword) do not need to fully describe the collection.

Spatial

Use as many terms as required to fully describe the collection. There is no limit on the number of related terms used which are under the same broader term.

For example, imagine a collection that covers the following countries in Europe (country terms used are from HASSET):

  • Belgium
  • France
  • Republic of Ireland
  • Portugal
  • Spain
  • United Kingdom

All these terms are related, and the broader term in HASSET is Western Europe. All the individual country terms may be used. The broader term may also be used if it is relevant.

Spatial (LCSH)

Use LCSH geographical terms on their own only. For example: Wales, South. Do not use terms that include sub-divisions, for example: Wales, South--History--20th century or Technology--Online library catalogs--Great Britain.

Temporal

If the collection is a catalogue, index or hierarchical finding aid, then the value for Temporal describes the intellectual content of the collection the catalogue describes (not the intellectual content of the catalogue, index or hierarchical finding aid records themselves). For example, Copac is a catalogue. The temporal coverage describes the intellectual content of the books, manuscripts etc described in Copac. This is not known for Copac.

Centuries and decades start at year 1, and end at year 0. For example, the 19th century is from 1801 to 1900. A collection with temporal coverage of the 1960s would be entered as 1961/1970.

Note that BC/BCE dates cannot currently be recorded.

Contents Date Range

If the collection is a catalogue, index or hierarchical finding aid, then the value for Contents Date Range describes the intellectual content of the collection the catalogue describes (not the intellectual content of the catalogue, index or hierarchical finding aid records themselves). For example, Copac is a catalogue. The Contents Date Range is the creation date of the books, manuscripts etc described by the catalogue, not the creation date of the catalogue records themselves. Therefore the Contents Date Range for Copac is 1100/, as this is the date the first items described in Copac were created.

It is possible that the value for Contents Date Range and Temporal might be the same. For example, for a collection of satellite images, the temporal coverage and contents date range are the same, as the satellite image itself is created at the same time as its intellectual content.

Centuries and decades start at year 1, and end at year 0. For example, the 19th century is from 1801 to 1900. A collection with temporal coverage of the 1960s would be entered as 1961/1970.

Note that BC/BCE dates cannot currently be recorded.

Uses Controlled List

This is relevant for direct machine-to-machine searching of the collection.

Do not enter a value for this property if the collection does not use a vocabulary, or is not searchable in any way. Use the value LOCAL, for Collection uses its own local vocabulary, if the collection uses a locally defined vocabulary, or the vocabulary used is natural language.

Please contact us if the collection uses a defined thesaurus or classification scheme that is not listed.

Is Part Of

The URL should point to information that primarily describes the parent collection.

Has Association

The URL should point to information that primarily describes the associated collection.

Is Referenced By

The URL should point to information that primarily provides more information about the collection.

Service Properties

Service: Title

This should be different from the collection title. If a collection has several services then the services should not have the same title.

Explain title abbreviations, subtitles, translations or transliterations in full within Title if they have not already been explained within the collection properties.

Service: Description

Generally a service description will be provided for a transactional service only. For collection-based services the description of the collection is within the collection properties. However, a description of the service may be provided for a collection-based service where there is significant further service-related information.

Service: Language

This is intended primarily for transactional services, but may be entered for collection-based services.

The depth of analysis is at your discretion, but you should attempt to capture all languages offered by the service.

The value en, for English, may be qualified by country. This is optional and should only be used for countries where English is the native language. This is mainly for use with UK English (en-gb) and American English (en-us). Do not qualify en by country of origin where English is not the principal language. For instance, do not use en-es for Spanish English. If in doubt use en only.

Terms should be entered in lower case.

Output

This may be provided for OpenURL and Web-cgi services only. It is significant if the output format of a service is XML. Enter all output formats offered by the service.

Service Help

The URL should point to a page that primarily describes help for this particular access point to the collection or transactional service.

Service SLA

The URL should point to a page that primarily describes the service level agreement (SLA) for this particular access point to the collection or transactional service.

Administrative Metadata

Creator

This is the name of the person who creates the record. The information is not shown publicly and is used purely for the contributing organisation's own administrative purposes.

Contributor

This is the name of the person who creates the record. The information is not shown publicly and is used purely for the contributing organisation's own administrative purposes.

Version: 1 March 2006.

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