AACR 2 Decisions and Rule Interpretations

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

According to the preface, this is “a consolidation of the decisions and rule interpretations for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2d ed., made by the Library of Congress, the National Library of Canada, the British Library, and the National Library of Australia, including official revisions of AACR 2 approved by the joint steering committee for revision of the AACR.” It also includes excerpts from the concordance of relationships between AACR 2 and AACR 1 prepared by Ron Hagler in 1979. Indeed, some 15 sources were used to pull together all the cataloguing interpretations by the cut-and-paste method, and all of them have been sourced. The original materials have been mainly cataloguing bulletins issued through December 31, 1981 (but also including a memo issued in May 1982).

This looseleaf material (useful for interleaving in a copy of AACR 2 — consequently all internal pagination corresponds to AACR 2’s rules and pages) is terrific value. It will save time in tracking down interpretations and clarifications, particularly for “local modifications” that still must conform to a national code. The material also saves the time of technical service library educators who must instruct others in the use of AACR 2 (and this includes those that train new staff in libraries).