Descriptive Cataloging Issues for Non-Western Corpora: A Case Study of Late Imperial Chinese Books

Wenyi Shang, Jacob Jett, Ted Underwood, J. Stephen Downie

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Full-text digital libraries (DL) like the HathiTrust open new analytic opportunities for digital humanists and those studying language-specific corpora such as late imperial Chinese books. These analyses rely on DL metadata records to contextualize and validate findings. However, historic Anglo-American cataloging practices introduce difficulties. Our comparative case study of HathiTrust MARC records for Chinese (1,534), English (25,866), and German (7,872) books (the 1500s–1700s) reveals significant problems: data spread across fields; essential data lacunae; lack of normalization; and information transcribed from sources without translation nor explanation. Cataloging practices need updating to support scholars working with Chinese and other Asian materials.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1-19
Number of pages19
JournalCataloging and Classification Quarterly
Volume61
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Bibliographic metadata
  • HathiTrust digital library
  • MARC records
  • book history
  • cataloging for digital resources
  • internationalization of cataloging
  • late imperial China

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Library and Information Sciences

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Descriptive Cataloging Issues for Non-Western Corpora: A Case Study of Late Imperial Chinese Books'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this