AACR2, the International Standard Bibliographic Descriptions (ISBDs) and the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Manual are presently undergoing significant revision with emphasis upon addressing user needs.⁵ This therefore seems an ideal time to reconsider some of the underlying precepts and principles of cataloging.

The cardinal principle of AACR2 Rule 0.24 is the foundation for manifestation-level cataloging, which results in record displays that confuse and frustrate users. From AACR2’s initial publication in 1978 until 2002, Rule 0.24 read (with minor wording changes):

It is a cardinal principle of the use of part I that the description of a physical item should be based in the first instance on the chapter dealing with the class of materials to which that item belongs… . In short, the starting point for description is the physical form of the item in hand, not the original or any previous form in which the work has been published.⁶

Many believe this focus upon the physical carrier expressed in Rule 0.24 has resulted in the MulVer problem.⁷ For example, Graham concludes, “the logical extension of this cardinal principle is the prescription to create a unique record for almost every variant manifestation of a work.”⁸ Others are convinced that nowhere in AACR2, neither in Rule 0.24 nor anywhere else, does the code mandate that catalogers build a separate descriptive record. Attig has written, “This rule does not tell [catalogers] whether or not they must describe each manifestation.”⁹

The 2002 AACR2 rule revision significantly changed Rule 0.24 for the first time. This revision was in response to the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) Task Force on Rule 0.24 recommendations, and as Beacom points out, represents a “solid improvement.”¹⁰ The current Rule 0.24 reads:

It is important to bring out all aspects of the item being described, including its content, its carrier, its type of publication, its bibliographic relationships, and whether it is published or unpublished. In any given area of the description, all relevant aspects should be described. As a rule of thumb, the cataloger should follow the more specific rules applying to the item being cataloged, whenever they differ from general rules.¹¹

Despite revision, it is difficult not to read this rule as an instruction to continue cataloging physical carriers. The phrase “item being described/item being cataloged” appears twice, and “carrier information” is second in the list of enumerated attributes. Carrier information is not unimportant; yet according to user studies it is not the most important manifestation-level attribute to be described.

Manifestation-level cataloging has become the default norm within AACR2 cataloging for two reasons. The first centers upon cooperative cataloging. In a cooperative cataloging environment in which individual libraries exchange surrogate descriptions to facilitate and enhance user access to their collections of manifestations, describing those shared surrogates at the manifestation level is logical. Within today’s shared cataloging environment in which millions of records are available to libraries through bibliographic utilities such as OCLC and RLIN, it is critical that cataloging and acquisitions librarians be able to select specific manifestations to import into their library catalogs. Describing resources at the manifestation level enables library personnel to do so. The second reason for using manifestation-level records is that libraries need bibliographic records to serve duties beyond their most visible role as surrogate descriptions within the OPAC. Many of the administrative functions librarians perform such as ordering, check-in, and claiming are manifestation specific. Librarians need today’s integrated library management systems (ILMS) to utilize records serving both purposes. Software designers developing ILMS systems must understand this duality of purpose.

By the early 1980s, libraries recognized what is now known as the Multiple Versions, or MulVer, problem (also sometimes referred to as the format variation problem). In 1989, Graham wrote a seminal paper addressing the reasons for its emergence and identifying the problems MulVer has wrought upon catalogs.²⁰ Some argue that the MulVer problem stems primarily from strict adherence to the cardinal principle of AACR2 (Rule 0.24). Additional factors have contributed, as well. Mandel indicates that technological advances within the publishing industry and especially electronic publishing, coupled with the preservation reproductions commissioned by libraries, have contributed to numerous versions of many works.²¹ In today’s era of digital manifestations, the MulVer problem has only increased. Weiss states, “Since electronic data can be republished at almost no cost, multiple versions, many with only minor changes from the previous version, are [today] the rule rather than the exception.”²² As early as 1989, the MulVer problem had grown to such an extent that a meeting of experts was convened by the Library of Congress and the Council on Library Resources at the encouragement of the CONSER Policy Committee.²³ The Multiple Versions Forum was held December 5–8, 1989, in Airlie, Virginia.

Participants at the forum considered four distinct proposals for addressing the MulVer problem:

1. A composite, or single-record approach;
2. A two-tier hierarchical model;
3. A three-tier hierarchical model; and
4. A separate record model.

Each technique was evaluated based on a specific set of criteria including, but not limited to, clarity and ease of access for end users, ability to create and maintain records, ability to implement the proposed technique within the existing hardware and software environment, and cost effectiveness. Forum participants recommended the two-tier hierarchical model, in which “equivalent versions” should be attached to a single bibliographic record in the OPAC. The bibliographic record should describe only the “original” version.²⁴ To this bibliographic record are appended MARC Holdings records, each describing the physical version of the attached items.

In retrospect, the 1989 Airlie Multiple Versions Forum had little lasting effect.²⁵ Howarth notes that while the report was widely known and cited, its recommendations were never implemented. Multiple versions remained a problem within the automated environment mainly because in 1989 library automation vendors were not equipped to pursue the Airlie recommendations.²⁶

During the early 1990s, ALA’s CC:DA continued to grapple with the MulVer problem by assembling a Multiple Versions Task Force. In reference to calls for abandoning AACR2’s cardinal principle, Attig, one of the group’s members, noted the major obstacle of reconfiguring both bibliographic databases and user interfaces to accommodate two-tier records. Attig wisely cited not only the infrastructural need of systems to support these records as libraries move ever onward, but also the need to somehow reconfigure the millions of existing records in library catalogs to function properly within this new world order.²⁷ Attig concluded, “It is my feeling that it would be a mistake to abandon [Rule] 0.24… . I think that it would be a mistake for catalogers to get into the business of textual scholars.”²⁸ On the other hand, librarians do have the responsibility to develop user-friendly mechanisms for grouping displays for the related works, expressions, and manifestations that textual scholars may identify and select to study—in other words, to ensure that catalogs fulfill Cutter’s second objective.

The MulVer problem persisted throughout the 1990s, and in 1999 CC:DA assembled the Task Force on Rule 0.24, which revised Rule 0.24 to lessen its emphasis upon the physical carrier.²⁹ In so doing, the Task Force was certainly aware of the precedent set by the recently revised and republished International Standard Bibliographic Description, Electronic Resources (ISBD [ER]) of 1997.³⁰ Therein, Weiss writes that for the first time, an international standard allows:

The inclusion of all physical forms of the content on the same bibliographic record [thereby enabling] the record to focus on the content of the work. The physical forms of the work become subordinate instances of the intellectual work, which clearly shows the influence of research done on bibliographic relationships by Barbara Tillett and others (including the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Study Group on the Functional Requirements of the Bibliographic Record). In this case, works that have what Tillett refers to as “equivalence relationships,” e.g., works where the authorship and intellectual content are identical, were grouped together on a single record. Conceptually, this was a shift from AACR2 1988 (with its emphasis on specific item description) to the notion that the physical carrier of the information was of only incidental interest to users, who first and foremost would want access to information in whatever form it was available [emphasis added].³¹

What exact role AACR2 Rule 0.24 may eventually play in the new cataloging code, Resource Description and Access (RDA) is unknown. The CC:DA Task Force on Rule 0.24 Final Report has called upon the JSC to add an introductory chapter to the cataloging code that specifically will address a number of big picture topics, including the format variation or MulVer issue.³² In response, the JSC assembled the Format Variation Working Group (FVWG), and charged it with exploring expression-level cataloging. After realizing how few definable and transcribable attributes exist for the expression level, the FVWG group shifted focus to expression-level collocation, or bringing together all disparate manifestations of a particular expression within a catalog. This led to an exploration of uniform title authority records as a means of distinguishing specific works and expressions within catalogs and of collocating manifestations of the same work and expression.³³ The emphasis moved from the records themselves to the display of the records.³⁴ This transition itself represents a FRBR influence, as the group went from focusing upon the minutiae of individual catalog records to considering the larger issue of catalogs and displays.

Based on the abilities of today’s library catalogs, the continuing development of the MARC 21 communications standards, further advances in technology and computing, and increasingly sophisticated users, libraries need to reexamine the MulVer problem and the AACR2 principle from which it arises. First, the automation environment in which libraries and information professionals operate today is almost completely different from what it was at the time of the Multiple Versions Forum recommendations in 1989. Today most large libraries have fully automated their processing and have migrated to a second-generation ILMS available from one of only a handful of library automation vendors. This consolidated automation environment facilitates not only the recognition of new functionality and usage models such as FRBR, but also the implementation of innovations considered beneficial to the shared mission and cooperative efforts of libraries around the world.

Second, as the international library automation marketplace has consolidated, libraries and users have benefited from developing standards, harmonization efforts, and cooperative cataloging. Today, the MARC 21 Format for Holdings Data has matured into a robust carrier fully supportive of significant descriptive and encoded information.³⁵ The development of the MARC 21 standards and a general move away from local processing eccentricities has provided cost efficiencies for library budgets. Meanwhile users have benefited from harmonized OPAC result displays. Each of these initiatives has been furthered by enhanced cooperative cataloging efforts.

Third, the Internet and wireless technology have fundamentally transformed the manner in which users access information and conduct research. Howarth has demonstrated that continuing development since the 1989 Multiple Versions Forum has resulted in a generation of catalogs capable of displaying individual records featuring dynamic linking fields able to link across records and across databases.³⁶

Finally, users today have no patience for confusing OPAC displays with multiple hits for equivalent resources. Antelman points out, “In order to make our bibliographic data valuable to scholars and others who seek [serial] works, asserting bibliographic control over a higher level of abstraction than has been our practice is necessary.”³⁷ Marcum of the Library of Congress goes further in admitting, “the detailed attention that we have been paying to descriptive cataloging may no longer be justified.”³⁸ Howarth and others see a need for bibliographic records or displays that present all manifestations of a work, making the carriers of the manifestations secondary.³⁹ Resolving the MulVer problem is in libraries’ vital interest as we endeavor to redefine the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules for a new generation of users.

In 1998, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ Section on Cataloging published the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR).⁴⁶ This document notes, “The study has two primary objectives. The first is to provide a clearly defined, structured framework for relating the data that are recorded in bibliographic records to the needs of users of those records. The second objective is to recommend a basic level of functionality for records created by national bibliographic agencies.”⁴⁷

FRBR is not a draft standard, nor is it intended to replace AACR2 or any other cataloging code. FRBR is a systematic, international examination of automated catalogs and the records that comprise them. The study takes the form of a conceptual model and focuses upon three areas:

1. Bibliographic entities and the attributes necessary to describe and access them as well as to distinguish them unambiguously;
2. Relationships between and among bibliographic entities and the relationships bibliographic descriptions share with other external entities such as people, corporate bodies, and subjects; and
3. How users navigate among bibliographic records to find, identify, select, and obtain bibliographic resources within a national bibliography or a library catalog.

The first two focal points allow the model to establish recommendations for “a basic level of functionality for records created by national bibliographic agencies.”⁴⁸

To date, the bulk of intellectual effort on the part of library constituencies worldwide has been upon the first FRBR area, bibliographic entities and their attributes. Of these, the Group 1 entities (work, expression, manifestation, and item) have received by far the most attention. Despite this disproportionate interest in the FRBR lexicon and specifically the Group 1 entities, the FRBR model holds promise in two additional areas. First, FRBR is a conceptual model intended to help librarians consider the catalog more broadly, i.e., how individual records and the relationships among them contribute to the utility of the overall catalog.⁴⁹ In essence, the FRBR model encourages librarians to think about catalogs rather than individual records. The second area of promise within FRBR now being more widely recognized is a renewed emphasis upon users and their needs. Tillett and Smiraglia’s work on bibliographic relationships will play a vital role in database design as libraries and ILMS systems implement FRBR-aware catalogs.⁵⁰ Most librarians envision FRBR-aware catalogs based on these underlying relationship structures to be far easier and more intuitive for users to navigate and interpret.

FRBR is not the only option for libraries intent on improving today’s OPAC displays in response to user needs. For all of its potential, any significant and widespread implementation of FRBR precepts into cataloging codes and integrated library systems remains years away. Meanwhile, other ways of adopting work and expression-level displays in library OPACs offer potential improvements. The MARC 21 authority, bibliographic, and holdings formats provide one alternative. The MARC 21 authority format represents one possible medium for communicating and exchanging work and expression identifiers. Work and expression identifiers are critical for colocating manifestation-level descriptions, descriptions that multiply to create the MulVer problem. The current Library of Congress Action Plan contains the following near-term goal as one of the recommendations suggested at the November 2000 Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control in the New Millennium: “Develop [the] functional requirements to enable the interchange of manifestation records that support internal [i.e., ILMS OPAC] configurations for FRBR (IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) displays for multiple versions; determine supportive cataloging practices; determine any needed MARC 21 enhancements; communicate these to the vendor community.”⁷³ Yee’s article addressing FRBR-aware displays offers specific guidance to ILMS software designers for assembling work and expression identifiers from existing MARC 21 data elements in the bibliographic and authority records in today’s library catalogs.⁷⁴ Yee’s proposed OPAC displays for these identifiers bear little resemblance to how these MARC 21 fields and subfields are stored and exchanged, providing further evidence of the important distinction between data storage and data display.

Some complexities are inherent to developing serial identifiers, and varying interpretations remain regarding how these identifiers should be formulated. For the purposes of this paper, presume that the FVWG uniform title approach is selected. Frequent overlap among serial bibliographic and authority records describing the same work or expression occurs, notably with regard to monographic series, which are by definition also serials. Many of these titles have a serial record in the bibliographic file and a corresponding series authority record (SAR) in the Library of Congress, Name Authority File (LC/NAF). In theory, the citation/primary access point on these two records should match, but for reasons previously cited and having to do mostly with the current acceptance of several contradictory serial entry guidelines, this is not always the case. For example, see figures 2 and 3, representing an LC/NAF series authority record (figure 2) and a CONSER bibliographic record for the same work (figure 3). The qualifiers in the uniform title headings do not match. In FRBR terms then, these two headings intended to cite a single work represent two separate works. Such inconsistencies in work and expression headings foster confusion for both internal and external library users.⁷⁵ While this poor heading construction is not a direct result of the MulVer problem, it certainly represents one indirect consequence. Within liographic utilities and catalogs where uniform title entries are required to collocate and distinguish numerous serial works and expressions, the potential for inconsistent heading assignment and construction increases. Inconsistent uniform titles then fail to fully collocate the multiple serial expressions within our intricately constructed catalogs. The resulting failure of library OPACs to clearly fulfill both the collocating and distinguishing roles required of uniform title work and expression identifiers leads to user confusion. As libraries move toward work and expression-level OPAC displays, these inconsistent work and expression headings must be corrected. As with the uniform titles previously discussed, many of these inconsistencies between bibliographic uniform titles and series authority records may require human review. Looking ahead, the IFLA Functional Requirements for Authority Records (FRAR) document currently being drafted must emphasize the importance of keeping such headings in accord.⁷⁶

If libraries choose to resolve the MulVer problem by pursuing a multi-tier approach, creating work and expression-level OPAC displays with manifestation-specific details appended within holdings records, each of the MARC 21 formats will require further development. As Eversberg has indicated in response to the FRBR model, “If it comes to a work-oriented approach, the whole dichotomy of bibliographic vs. authority records [must] be re-evaluated.”⁷⁷ Referring to the potential of her proposed multifunctional record, Coyle says, “It is reasonable to assume that a future cataloging structure will embody some degree of hierarchy, especially in the need to express the relationships between multiple versions of the same work.”⁷⁸ Two serial-specific issues currently under consideration will be critical if libraries pursue this path toward resolving the MulVer problem: the existence of multiple serial entry guidelines and proposals to approve multiple 1XX fields within authority records.

Though most libraries have followed Successive Entry cataloging since 1981, Latest Entry and pre-AACR2 serial records continue to reside with Successive Entry records in library catalogs and bibliographic utilities. Pre-AACR2 serial records and their effects upon creating serial work and expression identifiers were discussed previously. In Latest Entry cataloging, the latest known title is entered in the 245 field (Title statement). Previous titles are in 247 fields (Former title). One could reasonably argue that even though these title entries exist at the bibliographic as opposed to the authority level, Latest Entry records currently serve as serial work identifiers in documenting and indexing each known title change for entire serial runs. Whether a user searches the current title or a former title within a catalog containing Latest Entry records, a properly indexed ILMS will retrieve the requested record. As such, the AACR community could make the policy decision that these Latest Entry records will remain intact, and that catalogers will not create authority work or expression identifiers for the titles they represent. A cataloging community policy decision of this sort would have little or no impact on MARC 21 format development.

A second important serial-related issue regards the ramifications of authenticating multiple 1XX fields within series authority records. When trying to reconceptualize library catalogs as user-friendly interfaces, one of the fundamental flaws with Successive Entry serials cataloging is the ability to link and display only to the immediately preceding and succeeding titles. The resulting displays make it difficult for library users to navigate among the manifestation records representing a serial run. Yee characterizes this limitation as a series of precarious stepping stones—if any of the titles, or stones, is missing within the catalog being searched, the serial run cannot be assembled.⁷⁹

This practice is paralleled within name authority records (including series headings). The records contain one 1XX field and, potentially, one preceding 5XX entry and one succeeding 5XX entry. If the MARBI Committee were to approve series authority records containing multiple 1XX fields, catalogers could represent entire serial runs upon a single work/expression record. This redefinition of the series authority record would eliminate the need to delineate earlier and later titles through the 5XX stepping-stone mechanism, and would simultaneously decrease the number of authority records required to represent serial title runs. By linking the appropriate authorized 1XX field to each bibliographic manifestation of a serial work or expression, all would be clustered and displayed for selection by the user. OPAC users searching the serial title from article citations would retrieve a single work/expression entry displaying all linked manifestations available within the catalog, greatly facilitating navigation through complex serial displays. Whether these serial manifestations are described in MARC 21 bibliographic or holdings records is another area requiring further study. The format could develop to support either, but one scenario, presented by Tillett at a 2005 IFLA FRBR Review Group Workshop, completely removes the bibliographic entity from the catalog.⁸⁰ Works and expressions are formulated through MARC 21 authority records. Manifestation and item information is represented through the MARC 21 holdings format, and these holdings records are then attached directly to authority records.⁸¹

This scenario has generated interest because it would provide a more clearly defined communications standard for the attributes common to serials. Serial bibliographic records in today’s OPACs contain an array of data elements representing FRBR work, expression, and manifestation attributes. Describing serial work and expression attributes in authority records in a central, shared catalog such as LC/NAF would allow individual libraries to attach their specific manifestation and item information in locally maintained but universally-accessible (i.e., viewable) holdings records. As Tillett says:

If we had a clear way of identifying the attributes for a particular work/expression/manifestation/item combination, we could theoretically [present] all such combinations for the same work in a single record, and display [only] the needed elements as the application or user specified. There are many ways this could work.⁸²

The MulVer problem could be resolved with the MARC 21 authority, bibliographic, and holdings formats. By authenticating multiple 1XX fields in series authority records, the format also could help resolve the cumbersome display and navigational shortcomings of today’s AACR2 Successive Entry serials record displays. In order to optimize such a proposal, further development would be required in at least three areas:

1. MARC 21 format development to provide greater flexibility in how libraries distribute bibliographic attributes among authority, bibliographic, and holdings record structures;
2. ILMS and systems development to facilitate the indexing and display of data elements across MARC 21 structures; and
3. Utility (i.e., OCLC) and ILMS development to allow libraries to exchange complex, multi-tier records.

Frustrated with the lack of concerted development initiatives on the part of both the library community and ILMS vendors, some libraries have adopted practices and policies enhancing OPAC displays and addressing user needs within their local catalogs. For instance, the UCLA Film and Television Archives creates expression-level records for moving image materials and attaches holdings records to represent separate manifestations. In response to strong user and subject bibliographer preferences, New York University (NYU), routinely attaches all serial manifestations held by or accessible through the library to a single serial work or expression description. Each equivalent manifestation is then recorded and displayed through a separate MARC 21 holdings record. Every serial holdings record in NYU’s catalog contains at least the first two bytes of a 007 tag so the specific material designation (SMD) or carrier information of each is clearly displayed for users (e.g., text, online, CD-ROM, microfiche, and so on). Figure 4 represents an example serial record from NYU’s OPAC. Note the use of multiple “Library has” statements detailing numerous holding locations and formats directly on the print bibliographic description. In the MARC record, these “Library has” statements are generated through multiple 866 fields (Summary Holdings Statement). NYU’s ability to pursue this aggressive single-record technique for serial resources is facilitated by the Geac ADVANCE ILMS’s capability of attaching multiple serial receiving records to separate holdings records upon a single serial bibliographic description. In other words, for a serial title that NYU holds current subscriptions for print, online, and microfiche manifestations, ADVANCE enables our Serials Receiving Unit to order, receive, and check in the individual manifestation issues upon separate holdings records attached to a single bibliographic description. This receipt history is displayed in detail for OPAC users through the separate MARC 21 Holdings records attached to the single bibliographic description.

If librarians are prepared to reconsider the AACR community’s approach to cataloging manifestations and simultaneously demand revolutionary OPAC displays from ILMS vendors, it may be possible to avoid the requirement of exchanging complex, multi-tier records. When Attig and Yee independently proposed this idea several years ago, its realization seemed decades away.⁸³ Yet computing has rapidly become so powerful, so ubiquitous, and so much less expensive that implementing such a system may be closer than we think. In his paper for Svenonius’s Conceptual Foundations of Descriptive Cataloging, Attig implicitly referred to the idea of a single, centralized catalog, envisioning an Elysian future wherein all catalogers would contribute to the same authority files and a single bibliographic catalog.⁸⁴

While most AACR2 libraries today take advantage of the centralized authority database represented by the LC/NAF, each library’s individual catalog, made up of contextually specific authority, bibliographic, and holdings records, remains completely disparate, and therefore isolated—connected and networked, but alone. As the AACR community moves toward implementing a cataloging code based largely upon the FRBR conceptual model and mindful of displaying the relationships among records and entities, this tension, as Attig calls it, between work input cooperatively and shared at the national or international level, and work that must then be replicated locally, will become increasingly redundant and frustrating.⁸⁵

In her contribution to the 1995 ALCTS preconference, “The Future of the Descriptive Cataloging Rules,” and again in her paper for the 1997 Toronto Conference, Yee sounds a more explicit call for a single shared catalog.⁸⁶

The real problem with all linking devices in a shared cataloging environment, however, lies with the shared cataloging environment itself … The real solution … is that instead of sharing cataloging records, we need to reexamine the possibility of sharing a catalog! … If the development of the information superhighway eventually means cheap and ubiquitous telecommunication, could we not begin to envision a single catalog, accessible to all users, and updatable by all catalogers?⁸⁷

The practical appeal and cost-effectiveness of a centralized, shared interface are difficult to ignore. During the serial rule revisions that followed the 1997 Toronto Conference and culminated with the revision of AACR2 Chapter 12 for Continuing Resources in 2002, the goal of just such a catalog was raised several times. Cooperative cataloging pushed to individual holding libraries is especially attractive for serials catalogers because of the ongoing bibliographic and holdings maintenance required by title changes and the issuance of serial resources over time. The centralized, distributed catalog envisioned by Attig and Yee would make such updating automatic. Each time users retrieved a serial title within this shared, centralized catalog, they would receive the most current bibliographic and holdings data available regardless of whether the latest updates were input locally or by another cataloger across the country or globe.

Further demonstrating how change remains the only true constant and just how quickly change occurs, recent merger announcements between OCLC and RLG and the subsequent consolidation of the Endeavor and Ex Libris ILMS systems will certainly have far-reaching implications for library workflows and processing.⁸⁷ Exactly what these combined interfaces may offer future librarians will take months or even years to determine. With a single, shared bibliographic utility in place though, the feasibility of this centralized, shared catalog interface remains one possibility.

Incorporating one of the MulVer solutions presented in this paper within this centralized catalog would produce an interface offering a win-win situation for all library players. Library administrators would like the lower cost structure, catalog librarians would feel empowered by entering real-time contributions in a single, shared catalog, and reference librarians and users would enjoy access to all available cataloged resources. Probably the only current players likely to be displeased with this new central catalog would be the ILMS vendors. Had ILMS vendors shown the initiative necessary to provide libraries with technologically enhanced ILMS systems and OPAC displays during the last fifteen years, libraries would not still be seeking solutions to display problems endemic to the automated catalog environment.

If many of these recommendations and proposals seem familiar, they should. In his 1989 paper titled, “Descriptive Cataloging Rules and Machine-Readable Record Structures: Some Directions for Parallel Development,” Attig called upon the AACR and MARC communities to codify the necessary principles and to explore the systems design required to enable the cataloging code and the then newly developed USMARC Holdings format to resolve the MulVer problem.⁸⁹

Schottlaender has discussed calls for Rule 0.24 reform on behalf of the AACR2 community dating back to the earliest multiple versions discussions.⁹⁰ This reform movement reached a new high at the 1997 Toronto Conference wherein “it was clear that ‘The Cardinal Principle’ was a basic and pressing problem.”⁹¹ As this paper illustrates, the JSC has now received similar messages from several user communities regarding this pressing problem for several years. The 1989 Multiple Versions Forum was a faint rumble. At the 1997 Toronto Conference, several papers and many presenters expressed continuing and mounting displeasure with AACR2’s cardinal principle. Then, within fairly rapid order, two additional publications expressed dissent within the cataloging community: ISBD (ER) sanctioned multiple manifestations on single bibliographic descriptions in 1997, and the FRBR model in 1998 demonstrated an eagerness to consider overall catalogs in new ways with specific emphasis upon the needs of users.⁹² In 2003, the IFLA Cataloguing Section responded with a series of referenda in the form of International Meetings of Experts designed to solicit input and feedback on the feasibility of an internationally coordinated cataloging code.⁹³ In something of a disappointment to librarians advocating the potential of FRBR and a more radical dismantling of the AACR2 Rule 0.24, the first International Meeting of Experts for an International Cataloguing Code (IME–ICC) held in Frankfurt among the European and American cataloging experts reaffirmed an insistent adherence to manifestation-level cataloging.⁹⁴

As for the MulVer issue within the AACR community that today’s primitive, manifestation-level OPAC displays perpetuate, this paper has explored three approaches to the problem, two long-term and another that could be explored and perhaps implemented more quickly. First, the revision of AACR and the eventual role Rule 0.24 may play within RDA is a long-term solution, for the expected publication date of the new cataloging code is 2009. Second, FRBR and its eventual impact upon the cataloging code are linked with this 2009 AACR/RDA timeline. Nonetheless, FRBR is already exerting influence on user interfaces and the future development initiatives ILMS vendors are considering. It seems quite likely that while the new cataloging code in 2009 will continue to instruct catalogers to build manifestation-level bibliographic descriptions, FRBR’s greater influence may be upon how ILMS system designers develop OPACs to cluster these manifestation-level descriptions into work and expression-level displays for users.

The third and more immediate resolution to the MulVer problem may reside with the MARC 21 communications formats. Libraries are constantly exploring this option within their local ILMS systems. Local resolutions to these ongoing problems are exemplified by initiatives at NYU and the UCLA Film and Television Archives. Within today’s cooperative cataloging environment containing shared bibliographic utilities, centralized authority files and distributed, separate institutional catalogs however, these initiatives stand out and, in some ways, prove problematic. These solutions are not perfect, but the current obstacles to fine-tuning them result more from a lack of development by ILMS designers in their indexing and OPAC display capabilities than from significant conceptual problems with work or expression-level displays.

Ultimate resolution to the MulVer problem resides with ILMS OPAC displays. For a number of practical reasons described in this paper, not least of which is the need to preserve the link between the OPACs of tomorrow and the millions of manifestation-level bibliographic records populating catalogs today, manifestation-level descriptions will remain the data packets libraries use to store and exchange records. The necessity for libraries to store and exchange data as cohesive manifestation-level descriptions though in no way forces OPACs to display data in the same way. ILMS vendors do so because it is easy and because librarians have not uniformly insisted they do otherwise. Librarians must cease this passive acceptance of the inferior OPAC displays bundled with today’s ILMS systems. Nonetheless, librarians must also bear partial responsibility for the failure of ILMS OPAC displays to develop further during the last twenty-five years. While it is easy to point the finger at library ILMS vendors, librarians have failed to present ILMS software designers with a cohesive vision of how OPAC displays should be improved. That time must end now. The pace of technological innovation across an array of professions and industries during the last fifteen years has been astounding. Libraries cannot afford to be left behind. Librarians must demand smarter displays from ILMS vendors, but they must be prepared to provide software designers with the direction necessary to develop such displays. Each of the millions of bibliographic and authority records in our catalogs represent rich data mines awaiting exploration and greater utilization. Yee’s recent analysis using existing MARC 21 records to generate work and expression identifiers in order to clarify OPAC displays for users is exemplary and should be required reading for ILMS designers, librarians, and library school students.⁹⁵

Are these issues complex? Of course they are, but complex issues should not require UCLA’s Film and Television Archives to process moving image materials differently, or NYU to process serial resources differently than other library materials in order to fulfill their user’s needs. Historically, cataloging solutions within local settings have driven national and international policies. For example, the CONSER single-record approach and the aggregator-neutral record grew out of individual libraries solving complex problems for users in practical ways through local OPAC displays. It is time for librarians to determine if solutions to issues like the MulVer problem are complex because they have to be, or complex because librarians perpetuate practices that make them complex. What users need is simple. They need consistent access to content. Within today’s world of proliferating information carriers, providing consistent access to the content users seek is inherently complex, but to users it must appear simple. The job of today’s librarians is to apply complex solutions to attain apparent simplicity—call it the Zen of librarianship. For librarians to require or expect users to continue to learn or assimilate anachronistic procedures based on antiquated practices is unrealistic and threatens to render library catalogs and collections irrelevant. In fact, such expectations violate the purposes of the catalog formulated by Cutter and furthered by Lubetzky. In considering simple, consistent OPAC displays for users of our increasingly complex bibliographic catalogs, librarians and catalog designers would do well to consider the words of Dempsey:

The benefits of a more consistent [OPAC display] are clear: [Librarian’s] time and resources should be freed to think about collection and use of the collection, not consumed by the messy mechanics of acquisitions and processing; and the user experience should be shaped by learning and research needs not by the arbitrary constraints of interface and format. [Libraries] need to achieve the [economies] of consistent treatment as well as the benefits of consistent access.⁹⁶