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SECTION III:
DESCRIPTION OF THE MAP
Main Entry and Statement of Responsibility
Contemporary maps and atlases, those created from the midnineteenth century and later, typically are produced by government agencies or private companies. That said, it is understood that one or more individuals actually do the cartographic work involved. However, the cartographer(s), or combination of persons who actually create the map, the “author” of the map it could be said, usually is not named on the majority of those maps produced in this country or in others. Rather, recognition in the form of a statement of responsibility, when it is provided, is given to the company or agency “formally” named on the map. This is a major departure from most monographs, for which the individual(s) responsible for the work is (are) usually named as author of the work.
MAIN ENTRY UNDER PERSONAL AUTHOR
The Basic Rule area of Chapter 21 in AACR2R outlines the process of determining which of three possibilities for access to a work may be used: personal name, corporate body, or title. First, Rule 21.1A2 tells us to
Enter a work by one or more persons under the heading for the personal author (see 21.4A), the principal personal author (see 21.6B), or the probable personal author (see 21.5B). In some cases of shared personal authorship (see 21.6) and mixed personal authorship (see 21.8–21.27), enter under the heading for the person named first. Make added entries as instructed in 21.29–21.30.
Note that in Rule 21.1A1 a definition for “personal author” is given, stating that “[a] personal author is the person chiefly responsible for the creation of the intellectual or artistic content of the work.” This is all well and good, except for the circumstance mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, and that is that the majority of maps do not explicitly name an individual as being “responsible for the creation of the intellectual … content of the work.”
However, if an individual is formally named as being responsible for the map (see the later section Terms That Indicate Responsibility for a Map for guidance), even if one or more corporate bodies are also prominently named, be sure to make the main entry for that named person. Or, if a person's name is part of the title of the map but this person is not formally named elsewhere, consider this a formal statement of responsibility as outlined in Rule 1.1F13 and enter the person's name as the main entry. If an individual is not named as being responsible for the map, then we must look at the next part of the Basic Rule, i.e., when to enter the map under corporate body.
MAIN ENTRY UNDER CORPORATE BODY
Unfortunately, in Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition (AACR2), published in 1978, Chapter 21, “Choice of Access Points,” did not include in its list of types of corporate bodies under which main entry was allowed a section on those for maps. Rule 21.1B2 in AACR2 stated, “[e]nter a work emanating2 from one or more corporate bodies under the heading for the appropriate corporate body if it falls into one or more of the following categories:…” but the five categories listed did not include cartographic materials. (We'll deal with “emanating” and its meaning shortly.) This meant that if a person was not named as the author of the map, then the primary access point was by title.
This situation simply did not allow for what was a reality with the vast majority of maps. We know that with contemporary maps attribution of responsibility most usually is given to a company or government agency. Therefore, the lack of an explicit category in 21.1B2 among those categories for corporate bodies meant that many maps were being cataloged using the title as the main entry. Or, when it was clear that mixed or shared responsibility for the production of the map was involved, either an individual or, in certain cases, a corporate body was given main entry status. Those were the choices left for the cataloger at that time.
The map librarianship community simply could not live with rules that did not allow the cataloger to provide main entry status for such common and well-known map producers as the Rand McNally Company or the U.S. Geological Survey. During the process to update AACR2, representatives from the Library of Congress and the various Anglo-American cartographic associations made it clear that a change to the rules was needed to rectify the existing situation. As a result, a final category was listed in Rule 21.1B2, that being category “f”, which first appeared as a formal instruction in the Library of Congress Cataloging Service Bulletin (CSB), No. 14, Fall 1981 edition, as a revision to Rule 21.1B2. The CSB version states, “f) cartographic materials emanating from a corporate body other than a body that is responsible solely for the publication and distribution of the material.” This was also incorporated into Cartographic Materials, published in 1982, as Appendix A, which included a valuable explanation of the decisions needed to determine corporate main entries for maps. Once published in AACR2R in 1988, the wording changed slightly to read, “… other than a body that is merely responsible for their publication or distribution.” This finally allowed catalogers to apply main entry headings that parallel real-world circumstances. But what should you do if neither a personal name nor corporate body is given as being responsible for the map?
MAIN ENTRY UNDER TITLE
Rule 21.1C1 outlines four circumstances in which the cataloger must provide main entry by the title of a work. The second circumstance, the work “is a collection or a work produced under editorial direction” might apply to cataloging maps but under rare circumstances. The fourth circumstance might never apply to maps as it talks about works that are “accepted as sacred scripture by a religious group.” However, the first and third circumstances do apply to maps.
The first circumstance in the rule is the one that most often means that a map is given title main entry status: “the personal authorship is unknown (see 21.5) or diffuse (see 21.6C2), and the work does not emanate from a corporate body.” The first and third parts of this statement are straightforward, but “diffuse” must be understood in order to apply this rule. Rule 21.6C2 explains that diffuse means four or more persons or corporate bodies are named in the statement of responsibility as playing a role in the creation of a work, and principal responsibility is not attributed to any one, two, or three of these. In such a case, title main entry applies.
The third circumstance, “it emanates from a corporate body but does not fall into any of the categories given in 21.1B2 and is not of personal authorship,” could possibly apply but likely would not happen with a map, since corporate bodies associated with a map usually play an “emanating” role and may be considered to fall into category “f” in 21.1B2.
“EMANATING FROM” AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY
Another important aspect of the revision to Rule 21.1B2, published in the Fall 1981 CSB, is the interpretation of the phrase “emanate from.” The discussion was presented in three steps and those are given in Box 8.1. This further gave recognition to the circumstances surrounding the entities typically involved with the creation of cartographic materials. A corporate body is often named as the responsible party on the map, explicitly or implicitly, and so part (f) was added to rule 21.1B2 for choosing a corporate body as the main entry for cartographic materials. It specifies that “cartographic materials emanating2 from a corporate body” permits corporate body main entry in the bibliographic record. Footnote 2 for this rule explains what “emanating” means in this case: “Consider a work to have emanated from a corporate body if it is issued by that body or has been caused to be issued by that body or if it originated with that body.”
Using the agency that produces the largest number of maps in the United States as an example, if the statement of responsibility reads “mapped, edited, and produced by the United States Geological Survey,” then the main entry will be:
110 2 Geological Survey (U.S.)
because the map “emanates” from this agency, no matter how many unnamed individuals played a role in the production and outcome of the specific map. This concept is difficult to grasp at first for the cataloger who is used to working with monographs, but the rule itself, and, more important, the LC Rule Interpretation for 21.1B2(f), does provide the needed information to clarify this unique situation.
BOX 8.1. What “Emanating from” Means in Rule 21.1B2
“a) The corporate body has issued (published) the work. Normally this means that the name of the corporate body appears in a position indicative of publication (e.g., for books, the imprint position) in the chief source of information or appears elsewhere as a formal publication statement.
b) Corporate body A has caused the work to be issued (published). Generally, the name of a different body, corporate body B, appears on the chief source of information (cf. above) or elsewhere as a formal publisher statement. [In other words] body A has arranged for body B, named as publisher, to issue the work because body A has no facilities for publishing. The arrangement between the two bodies is in some cases...
