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 language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-19 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Cataloging and Classification Quarterly |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | Dec 31 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 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