We do not have a satisfactory way of cataloguing in-analytics
here at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. For those of
you who are not cataloguers, in-analytics are articles in magazines
acquired by a library because the author or subject of the article is
of research interest. These articles may be intact in the magazine
issue or ripped out of it. Often these articles come to us as part
of larger collections devoted to the author or subject.
A very thorough approach is to catalogue each article of this
kind with a separate record, and link this record, electronically or
otherwise, with the holdings record for the magazine. We have
thousands of in-analytics and this method of describing and
classifying them is just beyond us right now. A bare-bones approach
is to put such things with newspaper clippings, loose illustrations,
menus, and other odds and ends in what we call our vertical file --
the articles then would be put with other material by or about the
author or subject and would not be catalogued individually. Although
we have used this approach in the past it is quite skimpy and I'm not
sure that the researcher is well-served.
But I write this note not to describe what we're doing, but in
hopes of hearing of fresh approaches to cataloguing this vexing class
of material.
John B. Thomas, III, The University of Texas, Austin.