Since 1967, Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules has served the profession with highly developed content standards for cataloging the resources that come into your library--from clay tablets to books to CD-ROMs. It has been the one-stop gold standard. In the digital world of 2002, with the process of cataloging more complex than ever, the joint Steering Committee has come together to present an up-to-the-minute, forward-looking revision that will equip you to catalog and type of resource, print or electronic. Now in a completely redesigned loose-leaf format, AACR2 is more user-friendly than ever. With 8.5" x 11" pages (that fit a standard 3-ring binder), separately numbered chapters (for easy integration of future updates), and brand new text design (that clearly distinguishes the rules from the examples), the 2002 Revision is the powerhouse for resource description and access. This revision literally walks you through the process--with clearly defined rules and practical examples--of organizing catalog records using standards that apply to all metadata formats.
Would be a five if it contained information on subject headings and analysis. Good companion piece to the online documents available at cataloger's desktop and the OCLC bibliographic format.
textbook for LIS507A Cataloging and Classification I
I give this a high rating because, in my limited experience, it actually has been able to lay out rules for every possible circumstance, even if it does so by repeatedly invoking cataloger's discretion. When I started cataloging, I saw the AACR2 as parallel to various citation style guides: MLA, APA, Chicago, etc. But while those style guides always and repeatedly fall short of explicating all possibilities (it is really so hard to understand that people mostly have trouble with the different types of websites? every style guide ever gives like 2 examples and then moves on to talking about the 30 different ways to cite monographs) the AACR2 hasn't failed me yet. Of course, I'm not cataloging websites, and that failure is much of the reason why RDA is being created. But I digress...
This was a key text for my cataloging class. Given that it's a set of rules, I didn't read it so much as use it. The AACR2 is useful, even if it dry as a bone and written in a plain yet technical style that is familiar from my days doing procedural documentation at a biotech company. I think the most useful part of it is the numerous examples of how the rules are applied to different materials. Despite it's usefulness, I'm giving it only two stars for being about the most boring thing I've ever had to read, and because it is soon to be obsolete. Plus, it was very expensive for an unbound sheaf of hole-punched pages (binder not included).
Dense, impossible to read and wholly indispensable. It's a handy resource to have, as it will lay out pretty much everything you need to know about cataloging, but trying to read it as a text (as we're assigned to do in my Cataloging class) is impossible. After reading one or two of the individual rules I can no longer absorb any more information. That said, it is the foremost reference for anyone who is in the field of cataloging, and possibly librarianship.
What, no one is going to review the AACR2? What we called in our cataloging class the "enormous white binder," but never the AACR2. At any rate, the rules in the AACR2 are, indeed, very helpful for the in-depth cataloger, but some of them are just confusing. I think the verbiage could be tidied up a bit, and maybe the whole thing can be switched to an electronic version so that the enormous white binder monstrosity would cease to exist.
This is not a book to be reviewed; it exists to communicate the AACR2 rules, and it does that. Other than that, there is not much to say. It is large. It smells good.