For the purposes of selection at Yale University Library, remote electronic resources can be divided into three types. Each type has a corresponding cataloging action. The core question to be decided is whether or not the resource is durable. The baseline criteria used here is whether or not there is credible institutional support for the electronic resource under consideration.
If there is, one may select it for inclusion in the collections by requesting cataloging. Determining whether or not a resource has credible institutional support is not straightforward.
Following the discussion of the three types of resources, this document gives some guidance that may be useful when weighing the credibility of an institutional commitment.
Part I: Three types of materials
Type I: Material that Yale or Yale Library is committed to maintaining or maintaining access to for its readers.
Actions: Catalog type I materials using minimal, core, full, or collective levels of cataloging as appropriate.Selector notifies acquisitions and catalog staff.
Examples of commitment include:
a. YUL or Yale created the resource; YUL has committed to preserving the resource
b. YUL or Yale has an agreement licensing access to the resource
c. YUL is obliged to provide access to the resource (e.g. as a Federal Depository Library).
Resources examples of commitment include:
a. The Yale University School of Medicine heart book (Yale created)
b. The Yale C/AIM Web style guide (Yale created)
c. The Cambodian Genocide Program (Yale created)
d. The Yale UN Scholar's Workstation (Yale created)
e. IDEAL project titles (Yale licensed)
f. materials digitized in Project Open Book (Yale created; committed to preserving)
g. U.S. government documents (Yale obligated)
Type II: Material that other institutions are committed to maintaining or maintaining access to for their readers or members.
Actions: Catalog type II materials per selector's judgment using minimal, core, full, or collective levels of cataloging as appropriate.
Selector notifies acquisitions and catalog staff when two criteria are met:
1. Selector judges this material to be of value for research and teaching at YaleAND
2. Selector judges this material is supported by a reliable institutional commitment to accessibility that ensures it is a stable and sustainable remote access
In addition to the usual reasons for selecting a resource for the YUL collections, remote access electronic resources must be clearly identified, consistently available, regularly maintained, and freely accessible to the Yale community. Additionally, responsibility for the resource must be stated in the resource, and the integrity of any original source must be reasonably preserved.
Types of other institutions include:
a. consortia
b. libraries
c. museums
d. universities
e. research institutes
f. non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
g. associations
h. state or local governments
i. national governments other than U.S.
Examples of such an institutional commitment include:
a. Cornell U. commits to the preservation of certain digital materials
b. LC digitizes materials for its American Memory project
c. the Bibliographical Society of Virginia and UVA publish Studies in Bibliography
d. material published by the United Nations
Type III: Material that lacks the commitment of institutional support that is common to type I and type II.
Actions: Do not catalog type III material.
While this material will not be cataloged you may find that its potential utility to the Yale community for research or teaching may warrant placement on your subject web page. Examples of such a lack of commitment include:
a. all personal web sites
b. sites maintained by a person or group with no credible institutional support
Part II: Criteria for determining credible institutional support
1. Declarations of institutional support on the web resource with clear linkage to sponsors or creators; may include institutional seal or other marks, copyright notice by institution, etc.
=>Yale UN workstation site
http://www.library.yale.edu/un/=>Studies in bibliography
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/bsuva/sb/=>The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies
http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/labyrinth-home.html
2. Multiple institutional partners or sponsors with clear linkage to sponsors, partners; mirror sites, etc.
=>Yale UN workstation site
http://www.library.yale.edu/un/=>Liblicense site
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml=>The Valley of the Shadow: Living the Civil War in Pennsylvania and Virginia
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow/vshadow.html
3. Appropriately current information; may include recent date of updating
4. History of site or project
5. Commitment to maintaining stable URLs or use of another technique for persistent naming instead of reliance on URL for the resource; e.g. PURLs, handles
American Memory (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
The Handle System (Corporation for National Research Initiatives, CNRI)
http://www.handle.net/
Persistent Uniform Resource Locator or PURL (OCLC)
http://www.purl.org/
Part III: determining the size, scope, and content of what one selects for cataloging
This document can offer little firm guidance on the issues of size, scope, and content, but it is most useful to think about these issue in terms of the print world. Web documents that are roughly equivalent to articles, or promotional pamphlets if they appeared in print may not receive cataloging. One can think of some of the materials appearing on organizational web sites as grey literature or newsletter type materials or community information. If the information would be filed in a hanging file or pamphlet collection and not formally cataloged in print, then the same could apply to the digital equivalent.
Material that individually is perhaps too specific to catalog, may collectively warrant attention. For example the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry produces nomenclature recommendations that are article-length statements. Each recommendation is probably too short and specific to catalog.
==> Recommendations on Organic & Biochemical Nomenclature, Symbols & Terminology etc.
http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iupac/
draws together all the electronic versions of these recommendations and is a strong candidate for cataloging.
On the other hand, sites which are too large and amorphous, may not warrant cataloging. Specific portions of those sites may. Usually we catalog resources that have research value: images, sounds, documents, things, etc. and not organizations. Currently, we do not catalog home pages of corporations, universities, government agencies, and other corporate bodies. However, we may well catalog many of the subordinate parts of a corporate body's web site.
July 31, 1998
Matthew Beacom
Kim Parker
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