3a: Operational Definitions: A Thought Experiment This document examines the types of information and guidance that will be needed by catalogers in order to create, enhance, correct, and maintain work/primary expression records for moving images, which we have often referred to as work records for short. It discusses five pieces of information that describe moving image works (title, director, original language, original date, and original aspect ratio) in an attempt to assess a representative sample of work-level data elements. It includes names, recommended usage (core, recommended, optional), operational definitions, guidelines for usage, and subelements for each data element. Subelements were included to try to address the need for data about data in a cooperatively-maintained, shared database.
3b: Data Sources This document examines a number of primary and secondary sources that include information about moving images works and provides brief annotations of coverage, assessment of reliability, and a list of elements covered in each source. Print, and free and subscription online sources are included. Information about these sources is being entered into a relational database in the hope that it can be made available on the web in a flexible manner (e.g., by element covered, types of works covered, level of reliability, online vs. print).
4 Appendix: Comparison of Selected Extracted MARC Data with External Sources This document compares the work-level data we extracted from MARC records for ten works with data in five online reference sources. The extracted data was generally accurate. The more prevalent problem was lack of data. It also examines the variation in metadata practice and fullness of data available from the external sources.