General Material Designation (GMD) is used in Library and other catalogues to describe the material type of the item.The list was created as part of the
Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR2), and has been included the
International Standard Bibliographic Description The International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to create a bibliographic description in a standard, human-readable form, especial ...
, As part of the ongoing process to standardize international and local cataloging standards. While being superseded by the
Resource Description and Access
Resource Description and Access (RDA) is a standard for descriptive cataloging initially released in June 2010, providing instructions and guidelines on formulating bibliographic data. Intended for use by libraries and other cultural organizatio ...
(RDA) rules, the GMD is still in use in many institutions.
General Material Designation created a list of standardized terms, describing the material of the item. Examples such as braille, microfilm, motion picture are used to eliminate different cataloging practices previously used by Libraries. The full list appears in AACR2, with explanations and examples.
The GMD can be applied at different points in the catalog, according to
MARC Marc or MARC may refer to:
People
* Marc (given name), people with the first name
* Marc (surname), people with the family name
Acronyms
* MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging,
* MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system o ...
standards. Points of access include title, alternative titles, author and subject.
In recent years, a number of issues regarding GMD have arisen, including lack of terms to define newer material types, lack of consistency in application by different library systems, incompatibility with needs of special libraries and museums, and the difficulty of relating to digital forms. In 2013 GMD was superseded by RDA, which greatly enlarged the list and divided the list into three, describing content, media and carrier types.
Library cataloging and classification
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