The ALA filing rules: Flowcharts illustrating their application, with a critique and suggestions for improvement

Abstract

PartI. Flowcharts of the Filling Operations The new ALA filing Rules are displayed in the form of flowcharts, and the operations of filing are analyzed and exemplified. It is found that, contrary to claims made in the work, the rules are not entirely applicable to computerized filing because several rules and exceptions to them are not programmable and need human intervention at input or output, especially if character strings are not edited according to the MARC format. Suggestions for further streamlining and simplification of the filing rules are made, omissions are pointed out, and a number of mistakes are corrected.

Fulfilling the Second Objective in the Online Catalog: Schemes for Organizing Author and Work Records into Usable Displays

“…'In addition, when early online catalogs were developed, it was discovered that contemporary codes of liling rules (LC 1956 andALA 1968) relied heavily on human intelpretation and contained many exceptions, attributes with which computers were unable to cope (Wellisch 1983). The argument was made that "filing should be a purely mechanical operation which can be reduced to a straightforward arrangement o( sorts and nulls.…”