Course Information

Instructor: Ann K. D. Myers

Location: Los Angeles, California | William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 10–14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

Aimed at catalogers who find that their present duties include (or shortly will include) the cataloging of books in their rare materials or special collections and want to be trained in applying Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books). Emphasis will be placed primarily on books of the hand-press era, with some consideration of 19th and 20th century books in special collections. Topics include: 

• application of codes and standards, especially DCRM(B) 
• transcription, collation, and physical description 
• concepts of edition, impression, issue, state 
• genre/form terms, relationship designators, other special files 
• copy-specific information 
• cataloging policy in institutional contexts, including provisions for reparative descriptive practices 

This course is intended for working catalogers experienced in AACR2 and/or RDA and MARC 21, and general cataloging principles and practices. No prior knowledge of early books is necessary. The goal of the course is to provide instruction and practice in each of the primary elements of the rare book catalog record, so that students will be equipped to catalog their institution’s rare books and special collections materials to national standards. Please note that this course covers printed monographs only.

Special note on RDA: instruction in this course will be on DCRM(B)—both classic (based on AACR2, as published) and RDA-compliant (as amended by the PCC Bibliographic Standard Record). Please also note that, although Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (RDA Edition) has been published, for the time being this course will continue to use DCRM(B) as the standard, until the Library of Congress and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) have fully implemented the Official RDA toolkit.