DCRM(MSS) response to DCRM Steering Group concerning use of square brackets in
manuscript cataloging
DCRM(MSS) is a standard that bridges the bibliographic and archival worlds. It was
originally developed at the request of the archival community after the adoption of
DACS, an ISAD(G) descriptive standard that replaced APPM. Noting that DACS focuses
almost exclusively on manuscript and archival collections, SAA approached RBMS
about creating a cataloging standard for individual manuscripts, with the idea that itemlevel description of manuscripts would benefit from a standard that bridges the gap
between the ISBD framework of DCRM and the ISAD(G) framework of DACS. Unlike
other DCRM modules, DCRM(MSS) must provide guidance for the creation of both
catalog records and finding aid entries. The rules we provide must be acceptable to the
archival community, our primary constituency, as well as to rare materials catalogers
more generally. Descriptive conventions and principles based on the characteristics of
published resources are not necessarily appropriate for the description of manuscripts.
For these reasons, DCRM(MSS) does not rely on transcription as a core principle for
resource description, nor does it ordinarily prescribe the use of brackets as a convention
for indicating non-transcribed information.
Transcription is the prescribed method for describing printed books and other published
resources, because these resources come prepackaged with a meaningful description of
the resource that is uniform across all copies of a particular manifestation. This
description often takes the form of a title page with title, statement of responsibility, and
imprint. Transcribing this information provides a mechanism for distinguishing between
different manifestations of a work and produces a description useful for finding,
identifying, selecting, and obtaining the resource. Brackets are used to signal information
that was not present in the prescribed source for the item.
Manuscripts typically do not contain a pre-packaged description of the resource. Rarely
does a manuscript have a title, let alone a title page bearing that title. In addition,
manuscripts are unique objects, so transcription, even where a title exists, does not help
to distinguish between different manifestations. Users do not expect descriptions of
manuscripts to consist of a literal transcription of information from the item, and they do
not rely on a description based on literal transcription to find, identify, select, and obtain
manuscripts. Instead, they rely on a meaningful description supplied by the cataloger or
archivist. Following customary practice for manuscript description, DCRM(MSS) directs
catalogers to construct a description based on information within the manuscript, when
present, but also derived from other sources: housing and accompanying material and
published sources, such as finding aids, inventories, manuscript catalogs, and the like.
Information within the item is not privileged over information in other sources when, in
the cataloger's judgment, it does not provide a meaningful description. The cataloger may
record the presence of this information, if this is judged to be helpful to a user.
For these reasons it has been the practice in mainstream manuscript cataloging not to use
brackets when constructing a description of the manuscript (brackets are used when
quoting, but this is a different matter). Finding aids containing descriptions of individual
manuscripts or manuscript groups do not use brackets, nor do published descriptions of
medieval manuscripts in standard catalogues and inventories.
Brackets were introduced to manuscript cataloging by AACR, a mainstream
bibliographic cataloging code that sought to apply bibliographic principles to all formats
commonly found in library collections. APPM and AMREMM, manuscript cataloging
codes seeking to remain in synch with AACR while providing additional format-specific
guidance, also prescribed brackets, but deviated from AACR and from each other in
when and how brackets were to be used. APPM required brackets for supplied dates, but
not for devised titles that took the form of a genre or form ("Diary", "Will"). APPM also
expanded the AACR definition of a prescribed source of information to include finding
aids; hence, a title taken from a finding aid need not be bracketed, while a devised title
for the same manuscript, if cataloged for the first time, would be bracketed. AMREMM
bracketing rules are much stricter than either AACR or APPM: any information in
transcribed areas that does not appear within the manuscript in a contemporary hand must
be bracketed. With DACS, the standard that replaced APPM, we have come full circle, to
a standard that not only does not require brackets for any information in a description but
prescribes: "Do not enclose devised titles in square brackets" (DACS 2nd ed., 2.3.3, at
http://files.archivists.org/pubs/DACS2E-2013.pdf).
We understand the concern about commingling records that employ different bracketing
conventions in OPACs and utilities that contain descriptions of both published and
unpublished resources. But this horse is long out of the barn. Bracket-free descriptions of
manuscripts and cultural objects have for decades coexisted with printed resource
descriptions in OCLC and in the OPACs of major research libraries (e.g., Harvard, the
Folger, the University of North Carolina, Yale, Berkeley, Cornell, The Morgan Library).
Although based on different cataloging conventions, the descriptions achieve the purpose
of providing effective access to their respective materials. Manuscript catalogers and
archivists have long worked in an environment where bracketing is inconsistently
applied, depending on which cataloging code is followed. The adoption of DCRM(MSS),
which prescribes bracketing only in a small, well-defined set of circumstances, will
ultimately lead to greater overall consistency in manuscript cataloging.
The DCRM(MSS) editors believe that the square-bracket issue presents an opportunity
for BSC to go beyond providing guidance on rare printed materials and to truly represent
all types of rare materials in its standards. This will require flexibility, since different
formats have different characteristics, which dictate the policies appropriate to their
description. It will also require acknowledging that although cataloging objectives are
similar for all the modules, descriptive conventions and principles may vary. The
descriptive principles for DCRM(MSS) (see attached excerpt from the latest version of
the Introduction) vary in several respects from the descriptive principles for DCRM(B).
We believe that the tent of DCRM is big enough to accommodate these principles; the
alternative is that DCRM will remain a standard that applies only to published materials.
We also believe that we share the essential purposes and goals of the DCRM suite, and
that it will be valuable to catalogers to work within a common descriptive framework,
although the rules within that framework necessarily conform to the nature of the
materials described and the expectations of catalogers and users.
The DCRM(MSS) editorial team's charge instructs us to "endeavor to make the rules
acceptable to as wide a constituency as possible without unduly sacrificing internal
coherence or consistency." Because our natural constituency consists of both archivists
and librarians, and our standard was intended as a bridging standard, we are genuinely
concerned that DCRM(MSS) will meet with widespread rejection if its rules do not
acknowledge longstanding practices in archival description. Unlike other DCRM
modules, DCRM(MSS) must blend the practices of two different professions if it is to be
widely adopted. If, instead of bridging the bibliographic and archival worlds, it clings to
the bibliographical shore, it will fail. It is our hope to make it succeed by truly bridging
its two worlds-as an outlier within the DCRM suite, perhaps, but still as an integral part
of that suite.
From the latest draft of DCRM(MSS)
(http://mssworkinggroup.pbworks.com/w/file/68201498/DCRM%28MSS%29_20130701
_MASTER.doc)
III.2. Principles for describing manuscripts at the item level
To meet the objectives listed above, DCRM(MSS) relies upon the following six
principles. These principles are influenced by the general principles of archival and
bibliographic description. For overarching principles relating to the DCRM suite of
manuals in general, see the introduction to DCRM(B), III.2.
III.2.1. Rules provide guidelines on constructing an accurate description of a manuscript
Most manuscripts are not self-describing, and when they are, the information appearing
on the item is often illegible, incomplete, misleading, inaccurate, or recorded in an
abbreviated or non-standard form. It is generally necessary for the cataloger or archivist
to supply a description rather than to only transcribe identifying information from the
item. The supplied description is based on a combination of internal and external
evidence. The primary elements in a description of a single item manuscript are a title,
creator (if known), date (if known), and contextual information relating to its content or
physical attributes.
III.2.2. Rules provide guidance for describing a manuscript as a unique artifact
Manuscripts are unique artifacts. Manuscript description focuses on the nature and
purpose of the manuscript as a unique item rather than distinguishing it from other
manifestations. Therefore, transcription plays a much smaller role in manuscript
cataloging than in the cataloging of published materials.
III.2.3. Rules provide guidance for the inclusion of physical descriptions
There is no such thing as a typical manuscript. Manuscripts vary widely in their physical
characteristics such as material type, medium, support, script, extent, and housing. An
accurate physical description is important for finding, identifying, selecting, obtaining,
and interpreting manuscript materials.
III.2.4. Rules provide guidelines for describing subject matter, genre/form, and
biographical, historical or administrative context
Manuscripts are often of an ephemeral nature, generally not intended for publication, and
frequently separated from the context of their original production. Additionally, the
creators or compilers of manuscripts are often unidentified or not well known. Therefore,
an accurate description of a manuscript often must include not only elements of
bibliographical significance (e.g., subject matter, genre/form), but also the manuscript's
biographical, historical, or administrative context.
III.2.5. Rules provide for the description of an individual manuscript within different
discovery environments ( i.e., finding aids or bibliographic records in a catalog)
DCRM(MSS) can be used to create item-level descriptions of individual manuscripts in
the form of either elements in a hierarchical finding aid or stand-alone bibliographic
records.
III.2.6. Rules are adapted from DCRM(B) and DACS
DCRM(MSS) draws upon the relevant aspects of DCRM(B) and DACS whenever
possible, deviating from them only to the extent required by the fundamental difference
between published and manuscript materials on the one hand, and between individual
manuscripts and archival and manuscript collections on the other.