Introduction

The Library of Congress (LC) published the first edition of Standard Citation Forms for Published Bibliographies and Catalogs Used in Rare Book Cataloging in 1982, prepared by Peter VanWingen and Stephen Paul Davis of LC and endorsed by the Standards (now Bibliographic Standards) Committee of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS), Association of College and Research Libraries. After a decade of use, Standard Citation Forms was ready for revision. VanWingen, along with Belinda Urquiza of LC and members of the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee, began work on a new edition.

The 1996 second edition was nearly double the size of the first, thanks to the addition of subject and name/title indexes and many new bibliographical citations. The scope for inclusion had been left largely unchanged. Principles governing the construction of citation forms also were largely unchanged, with an important exception. Single-surname citations (such as Adams or George) are so cryptic as to be incomprehensible and all but impossible to track down for those without Standard Citation Forms handy. The editors agreed not to create any new such citation forms, but left unchanged those already existing.

Single-surname citations have not been the only source of confusion, however; construction principles called for sometimes severe omissions and abbreviations, rendering many bibliographies difficult to track down by their citation alone. For example: Cox, Edward Godfrey. A Reference Guide to the Literature of Travel was to be cited as Cox, E.G. Travel. Library of Congress. Rare Book Division. Catalog of Broadsides in the Rare Book Division became LC Broadsides. To address the ongoing frustration created by obscure citation forms,  head of LC Cataloging Policy and Support Office (now the Policy and Standards Division) Barbara Tillett met with Elizabeth Robinson, leader of LC’s Rare Book Team, and Deborah J. Leslie, Head of Cataloging at the Folger Shakespeare Library and RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee chair. The objective: to devise new principles so that the cited resources would be easily findable. Tillett, Robinson, and Leslie proposed that citations be formed using the main entry and unabbreviated title proper from the bibliographic record for the resource. They recommended that single-surname citations be revised according to the new principles, but that most remaining citation forms stay as they are. The proposal was presented in January 2006 and approved by the Bibliographic Standards Committee later that year.

A working group created in 2008 under the direction of Elizabeth Robinson explored various possible sets of rules for making the citation forms simple, consistent, and easily understood. By 2010 the working group had decided to revise all existing citation forms, in the process creating a thoroughly revised third edition.  Marcia Barrett took over as chair in 2011, and building on the results of those early efforts, she and team members Valerie Buck, Jane Carpenter, Ellen Cordes, Emily Epstein, Francis Lapka, Christine Megowan, and Ann Myers, drafted a new set of working principles and created new citation forms for more than 800 bibliographic entries. Their guiding principle at all times was to provide a citation form that would allow a cataloger or researcher to retrieve a bibliographic record for that resource.  

Importance of Standard Citation Forms as a cataloging and research tool

Standard Citation Forms has always been a valuable resource for rare book catalogers, dealers, collectors, and researchers. It includes those bibliographies which have been used most widely and most successfully to describe the holdings of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, as well as titles suggested by members of the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee, the American Antiquarian Society, and other members of the rare book community. It includes standard citation forms for each of these resources and also a set of rules for consistently constructing citation forms for works not included in the list. 

Citations play an important role in bibliographical research: they lead catalogers and researchers to a bibliography which can verify and identify a work or a particular edition of a work.  A bibliography may also provide them with a detailed physical description of a book, or at least a reference to another resource that does.  Bibliographical citations consistently associated with a certain type of book can also help catalogers and researchers identify the principal reference works for a particular area of study. The use of an established or standard citation form allows different groups of users to easily identify a resource and to cite it consistently.

Not surprisingly, in all of its format-specific Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (DCRM) cataloging manuals, the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee has recommended the inclusion in special materials records of references to published citations using the forms prescribed in Standard Citation Forms. The rare materials guidelines in both the RDA CONSER Standard Record for serials and the RDA BIBCO Standard Record for textual monographs also endorse the use of Standard Citation Forms.

Changes to Standard Citation Forms for Rare Book Cataloging

Although the importance of Standard Citation Forms as a cataloging and research tool remains unchanged, its scope has been expanded, and its title, format, working principles, and arrangement of entries have been completely revised.

Audience

The title has been changed to Standard Citation Forms for Rare Materials Cataloging, in order to more accurately reflect its use by catalogers of rare materials in all formats. Although the needs of rare book catalogers provided the original impetus for the creation of Standard Citation Forms, the editors chose to broaden the scope of the title and recognize the usefulness of the list for catalogers and researchers working in other formats, especially as new format-specific DCRM cataloging manuals continue to appear, all of which endorse using Standard Citation Forms. 

Working principle: the bibliographic record

The most significant change has been the revision of all the citation forms to conform as closely as possible to the bibliographic record.  Following the organization of the bibliographic record, the editors devised a set of rules that resulted in entries notable for intelligibility, consistency, and simplicity (if not brevity).  This was the set of rules which resulted in the fewest possible deviations.

Intelligibility

Rejecting citation forms based on “how the work is popularly known,” the editors have used a simple name/title format whenever possible, where the title is the full title proper, rather than a truncated or keyword form.  For a work entered under title, the citation form will be the full title proper; part title or other title information is included only when absolutely necessary to distinguish between similar titles. With this bibliographical information at hand, the user should be able to identify the resource quickly and easily.  In the interest of clarity and easy identification of resources, the new edition of Standard Citation Forms has also abandoned abbreviations and acronyms used alone.

Simplicity

Although the new citation forms are longer than previous entries--and in a few cases, unavoidably very long--the editors have tried to simplify their construction as much as possible. For example, if there are multiple authors, only the first author’s name is included.  In the case of a corporate name/title entry, only the main element is used; subordinate corporate bodies have been dropped. If a personal or corporate body name also appears in the title, the title alone suffices as the citation form.

Part titles and other title information are transcribed as part of the citation only to the extent needed to distinguish between otherwise similar titles.  Parenthetical qualifiers are included  to designate editions, supplements, indexes, tables, addenda, etc. only when needed to distinguish between otherwise similar titles. Reprints that contain new material are treated as new editions. 

An early proposal to “identify” a new citation form by adding the old form in parentheses at the end was ultimately abandoned. Previous citation forms are included with the bibliographic information for each entry from the 2nd edition and are searchable by keyword in the database.

Consistency

The editors have sought to be consistent in the construction of the entries in the list and in the application of the rules, even if it meant having to create a very long citation form, or, in some cases, having to enter a work and its related supplements, continuations, etc. at separate points in the list, widely distant from each other.

Bibliographic entry

The bibliographical entry provided for each citation is taken from information in the bibliographic record.  The entry includes the same data elements as in the  2nd edition as well as some new information:

• Previous citation form
• OCLC number of the best bibliographic record for that resource
• Subject headings from the bibliographic record
• Permanent URL for an electronic version of the resource, if available, excluding subscription-only resources. Catalogers can use this link in $u of the 510 field to provide access to either an electronic bibliography ($u follows $a), or to the citation within an electronic bibliography ($u follows $c)

Scope

The editors envision Standard Citation Forms as an open-ended resource and thus have removed the second edition’s exclusion of bibliographies of individual printers and publishers and bibliographies below the national level. Such bibliographies--indeed, any bibliographies--may be added to the database of citation forms if they are specifically requested and shown to be frequently included in bibliographic records or bibliographic descriptions by a fairly broad class of users.  

Delivery format

There will be no print version of the third, revised edition of Standard Citation Forms. Instead, it will be freely accessible as a searchable, browseable database on the RBMS website. Although the Library of Congress will no longer host Standard Citation Forms on Cataloger’s Desktop (CD), it has agreed to provide a direct link on CD that will take the user seamlessly to the RBMS site. The new address will allow the editorial team more control over maintaining  Standard Citation Forms; it can be edited more frequently, and can be easily updated with the addition of new citation forms; and, perhaps most importantly, it can be made available to all without a subscription. 

Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed their time and effort in bringing Standard Citation Forms for Rare Materials Cataloging to life in this online edition. Deborah J. Leslie, Elizabeth Robinson, and Barbara Tillett began the initial revision process before the Working Group was formed in 2008. Our especial thanks to Elizabeth Robinson, who chaired the Working Group from 2008-2011. Early members of the group included Jason Kovari and Phyllis Payne. 

Throughout the course of the project, members of the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee have offered helpful comments and advice at meetings. Special thanks to members of the committee and the larger community who offered valuable feedback during the close reading in December 2013 and at the public hearing at ALA Midwinter 2014, including Jeff Barton, Annie Copeland, Lori Dekydtspotter, Matthew Haugen, Linda Isaac, John Lancaster, Deborah J. Leslie, Michelle Mascaro, Margaret Nichols, Richard Noble, Iris O'Brien, Allison O'Dell, Audrey Pearson, and Stephen Skuce. Jain Fletcher also assisted at various stages with editing, feedback and advice.

The online database would not be possible without the expert assistance of the RBMS Web Team, in particular Melissa Hubbard and Kelli Hansen, who have put in countless hours responding to our requests for changes and making sure everything works smoothly on the back end.

Finally, we are deeply indebted to our colleague Francis Lapka, who worked with us through the majority of the current revision and who was instrumental in helping to set up the online database.

Signed,

The Standard Citation Forms Working Group:

Marcia Barrett, chair

Valerie Buck

Jane Carpenter

Ellen Cordes

Emily Epstein

Christine Megowan

Ann K.D. Myers

October 2014