This document discusses access points in library catalogs. It defines access points as units of information in bibliographic records that users can search and identify items. Traditionally, access points included main entries, added entries, subject headings, and classification numbers. The document provides examples of personal name, uniform title, and geographical heading access points. It explains how libraries organize information through access points to help users find materials.

1. LIB 630 Classification and Cataloging
Spring 2012
Searching for
Easter Eggs:
Access Points

2. 2
Access points?
• access point
– A unit of information in a bibliographic record
under which a person may search for and identify
items listed in the library catalog or bibliographic
database. Access points have traditionally included
the main entry, added entries, subject headings,
classification or call number, and codes such as the
standard number, but with machine-readable
cataloging, almost any portion of the catalog record
(name of publisher, type of material, etc.) can serve
as an access point.

3. 3
Plain English, please?
• An access point
– is a feature of a work that someone might
be likely to choose in order to be able to
find that work
• e. g. Title, author, other names associated with
the work (publisher, corporate body, etc.),
subject, keyword, classification number, etc.

4. 4
Access point: Main entry
• Comes from card catalog days
– One card designated as the one to
have all the information about a book
• ODLIS:
– “The entry in a library catalog that
provides the fullest description of a
bibliographic item, by which the work
is to be uniformly identified and cited.
In AACR2, the main entry is the
primary access point.”
• main entry

5. 5
Form of the main entry
• Traditionally by author
– The most important thing about a book
was that there was a person responsible
for it.
• Thus, card catalogs were arranged first and
foremost alphabetically by author (where one
could be found)
• e.g.

6. 6
Main Entry
Example
• Siegenthaler, Kathrin
– Hopper‟s Easter surprise / by
Kathrin Siegenthaler and
Marcus Pfister ; illustrated by Marcus Pfister ; translated by
Rosemary Lanning. - New York : NorthSouth, 2009, c1993.
1 v. (unpaged) : col. ill. ; 30 cm.
 See Standard format for a card catalog entry ,
part of Idaho‟s Alternative Basic Library
Education (ABLE) Course 5: Introduction to
Technical Services and Cataloging for
other examples

7. 7
A “real” main entry card
OCLC Catalog Cards 8 Card Appearance and Card Packs

8. 8
Main entry as source for
Cutter
• What is a “Cutter number”?
– Cutter numbers primarily distinguish among books
by the same author. A librarian uses a table (e.g., the
Cutter-Sanborn Three-Figure Author table that the
Cutter family owns) to look up the correct Cutter.
– Cutters usually consist of the first letter of the
author‟s last name and a series of numbers that
makes sure books end up placed on shelves
alphabetically, usually by title.
• Catalogers decide numbers following the Dewey
Decimal

9. 9
Cutter numbers
• Cutter?
Among his other contributions to the
wonderful world of librarianship,
Charles Ammi Cutter devised a way to assign
an alpha-numeric code for authors' last
names. Use of this system allows all books
within a particular Dewey Decimal number
to be arranged alphabetically on the shelf,
usually by title.
Catalogers try to assign distinct numbers for
each name.
The Cutter Number from Dewey Decimal in the
UIUC Bookstacks

10. 10
Let’s go Cuttering!
• Cutter numbers
The cutter number for a book usually consists of the first
letter of the author's last name and a series of numbers.
This series of numbers comes from a table that is designed
to help maintain an alphabetical arrangement of names.
Conley, Ellen C767
Conley, Robert C768
Cook, Robin C77
Cook, Thomas C773
What if the library has several works by the same author?
How do we keep the call number unique? To do that a
work mark or work letter is used to distinguish the various
works of a single author.
Cook, Robin Acceptable Risk 813.54 C77a
Cook, Robin Fever 813.54 C77f
– http://frank.mtsu.edu/~vvesper/dewey2.htm#Cutter

11. 11
Do school librarians go “Cuttering”?
• Depends on the size of the LMC
– Most often they will use just the 3-letter
abbreviation (or something similar).
Cutter

12. 12
Why do they call it a
Personal names heading?
Because the “access
point” on a catalog card
• How do we write them? was the heading, or the
header on the top of the
– Concise AACR2: card, by which they
were filed in the catalog
• General Rule: cabinet.
– Rule 31A Choose, as the
basis for the heading [i.e.
access point], the name by which the person is
commonly known. It may be the person‟s real
name, pseudonym, nickname, title, name in religion,
initials, or any other type of name.

13. 13
A personal subject
• Easter Bunny
– People believed that Easter Bunny or Easter rabbit or
Easter hare is said to reproduce very quickly and
hence, they were the symbols of fertility and
fruitfulness.
– In fact, they represented „new life‟ during the spring
festival—Easter. Easter Bunny History has a non-
religious face since its conception as a holy celebration
in the second century. This festival was celebrated by
the ancient Anglo-Saxons, in order to commemorate
their Goddess, Eostre or Ostara, of offspring,
fruitfulness and of springtime.
• Easter Bunny History

14. So what’s the actual subject 14
heading?

15. 15
Titles as access points
• Problem of varying titles for essentially the same
work:

16. 16
Solution?
• Create a “uniform title”
– “A uniform title is the specific title by which all
variations of a work that has appeared under varying
titles and which has no identifiable author are to be
referred to for cataloging purposes. A Uniform Title
Main Entry search can be useful in finding such
works. Examples include the Bible, the Bhagavad-
Gita, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Aesop’s Fables, the
Arabian Nights, etc.”
• Uniform Title Main Entry Search: Help

17. 17
Uniform title rule
• Concise AACR2:
– Rule 59 Individual Titles
• 59A. If you use a uniform title,
choose the title by which the work is best known.
Decide this by consulting reference sources (including
other catalogues) and other manifestations of the
same work. If you are in doubt as to which title is
best known, use the earliest title.
• 59B. Choose the title in the original language, unless
you are cataloguing an older work originally written
in a nonroman alphabet language [Greek, Russian,
etc.]

18. 18
Uniform title for our 1997
New Testaments?

19. 19
AACR2 Rule for Uniform
Title and Bible?
AACR2: Summary of rules on personal and geographic names

20. 20
Other access points
• Keywords vs. subject headings
– Keywords: the actual words used in the record
(from the title, author, notes, etc.), where the
meaning of the words is less important, just
that they‟re there.
– Subject headings: Words selected from an
official list that indicate what the record is
about, where the meaning is important (the
words used in the subject headings may not
even appear in the record).

21. 21
Differences
• Keyword search on Easter Bunny
Notice the numbers!

22. 22
Using a subject heading search
• Easter Bunny as the subject
Notice the numbers!

23. 23
Geographical Headings
• Difficulties with geographical names:
– Firstly, there are a number of homonym geographical
proper names
• e.g. out of the seven most important cities called London,
three are located in the U.S. [ and one in Ontario, Canada]
and there is an island called London too
– Secondly, there is a great variety of types of
geographical names
– Thirdly, the same geographical place can have
[different] names in different languages
• Geographical names as access points for retrieving database records.
Theory and practices of a library regulation Abstract from Hungarian
Library Review.

24. An Irish geographical 24
dilemma
• Ireland, Eire or what?
– Concise AACR2 rule 46A:
• Give the name of the place found in (in
this order of preference):
1) current English-language
gazetteers and atlases
2) other current English-language
reference sources
–

25. 25
Example
• Ireland, not Eire

26. 26
Access points in Follett Destiny
• Basic search:
Possible access points

27. 27
Access points in Follett Destiny
Dropdown boxes enable you to choose or
• Power search: combine access points of Keyword, Title, Author,
Subject, Series, or Note

28. 28
Access points in Follett Destiny
• Visual, providing selections of topics:

29. The End