[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Considering court records cataloguing



This past week I've had occasion to discuss the description of court records 
with several individuals.  It has been some time since I've worked 
extensively with (local) court records and my brain has been running round in 
circles and cycles over several issues that keep coming back into my 
thoughts.  I thought I'd throw them out to the list for comment, and perhaps 
some of y'all can give me an idea as to current thinking is re: description 
of court records.  Please note that these are wandering thoughts that have 
wandered for quite a while and quite a ways.

Cataloguing of court records in USMARC

In theory, one should be able to create MARC records for various record 
groups (and series) within a court system.  Generally (local) courthouses do 
not use library management systems, and rarely do they create and maintain a 
body of catalogue records.  Has anyone encountered a situation in which 
records of a local court were described in MARC and the records loaded into 
the local public library?  Presumably an 852 would be employed to note the 
location of the courthouse, in order to ensure that users would be able to 
tell that the material described was in the courthouse, instead of the public 
library.

A search of LC's new online database, MARC Code List for Organizations (at 
http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/organizations/ ), shows that a number of 
courthouses in Iowa have applied for such codes, and my take on it is that 
they would be using them in MARC records to code the 85x's.  I'm aware that a 
number of state libraries and archives employ such a system, but does anyone 
know of anyone doing this at the local.  Can someone tell me if this is what 
happening in Iowa, or anywhere else?  

I do expect to get responses from state libraries saying they discourage such 
programs of local government records cataloguing preferring to encourage 
local governments and courthouses to transfer local records to the state's 
designated repository.  But does the existence of a cataloguing record at a 
local level prevent same from later being "transferred" to the state level 
when the records are transferred?  

Realising that this opens the Pandora's box re: transfer of records 
(acceptable for records management, but among archivists the concern is 
generally that records that reach an archival repository are a permanent 
thing), I suppose one could argue that cataloguing local records that are not 
yet in an archival repository should not be considered an appropriate object 
for the APPM descriptive standard.*  But the presence of the 583 field in the 
now superseded MARC AMC format (was Format Integration in 1995? I don't 
recall…) and the 851 would make this a possibility, i.e. that the 583 would 
be used to note transfer of records as an action (didn't the idea that there 
could be a thesaurus of standard terms for "actions" come up last year 
sometime?) and the (current) location of the records in the 851 allow for 
such description? 

And re: a thesaurus of standard archival actions-does someone out there in 
MARBI land know if this has come up for discussion?

* By this I mean a literal interpretation of APPM, or Archives Personal 
Papers and Manuscripts.  According to APPM's indication (2nd edition, SAA, 
1989) in the preface (p. vi), the definition of archival material generally 
considered textual formats in its original edition, while in the second 
edition APPM considered archival material in a broader scope-a greater 
variety of formats.  But the prefatory comments seem to refer to physical 
format, as opposed to (intellectual) genre.  Are records that have not yet 
reached the archival stage of their life cycle also being considered for 
treatment in APPM?  I feel like I'm splitting hairs on this point… perhaps 
someone should tell me to lighten up!

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>