Movin on up!

Week 3

After three weeks of correcting multiple errors on my VHS records and getting to a point where the errors are dwindling, it looks like I am ready to start to tackle some more complicated formats.  This week I will take a stab at DVD’s and documentaries. My site advisor informed me the same movie in DVD form is going to much trickier to catalog than in VHS because of the added features and options that are available in DVD’s such as; commentary, deleted scenes, and subtitles. Documentaries may not have many more fields than a regular full length feature movie, but when it comes to subject headings, it becomes much more important that your headings are correct.  Unlike a fiction move where you can add multiple subject headings to describe general themes of a movie, a documentary is usually about a specific thing or person.  Bring it on!

I had the privilege of cataloging a movie last week called “Nasty Rabbit” aka “Spies a Go-Go”.  Produced in 1964, this is a B movie about a Russian spy who unleashes a nuclear bunny in the Wild West (see green glowing bunny to the left).   I watched a good portion on the movie while trying to determine the subject headings and credits and enjoyed how completely silly it was.  It did make me wonder though, how likely it will be that anyone would ever want to check this movie out of a university library and if it is pretty unlikely, is cataloging and processing this move worth the effort being put into it? I can understand that it is rare and that the particular copy we had did not have a great record.  I get the importance of cataloging and archiving objects of popular culture and am glad that someone is doing it. 

Upon doing some additional research on the importance of cataloging movies (or moving images) I came across The AMIA ( Association of Moving Image Archivists) website, which puts forth a very convincing argument on why it is important to catalog even what might appear to be the most ridiculous looking movie.

    “More than a reflection of society and culture, moving images are primary documents that can serve a wide range of research purposes. The director Sydney Pollack has said that cinema is “the most vivid and valuable record of who we were and what we were, and what we thought and what we believed. " (retrieved from http://www.amianet.org/)

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, but…

My concern is that, when the time comes that I would be responsible for deciding on adding an item such as this, a) would I feel it worthy of the labor that needs to be invested to make it a good record and b) why go to great lengths to catalog a format that is essentially dead (VHS)? The University of Washington is one of the rare exceptions in that while struggling financially, they have a school of library science which provides a plethora of free labor (such as myself-even though I don’t attend the iSchool). Cate did explain that the only reason that VHS tapes are still cataloged is because the titles have not, and probably will never be, released in DVD. (Side note: this particular movie had been released in DVD format, both on it’s own and part of a double feature along with a gem called “ Prehistoric Women”). Maybe this falls back into the catch all category of cataloger's judgement. There are so many factors to consider when building a collection and deciding what to catalog. On top of that, each library, institution, collection and user base has it own distinct needs. More than learning the ins and outs of the skill of cataloging, I believe it is these factors that would be the most important to learn when transitioning from technician to cataloging librarian.