The RBMS Controlled Vocabularies Subcommittee has rejected the proposed change to the current term "Viewbooks"

 

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Term as it is now formulated: Viewbooks 

 

Delete term? 

• No

  

Current Thesaurus location: Genre Terms 

  

Suggested Thesaurus location: n/a 

  

Change form of term to: n/a 

 

Current Scope Note:   Use for published booklets consisting primarily of views of particular places, events, and activities, sometimes connected by accordion folds.    

 

Suggested Scope Note: see below in Comments 

  

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Term record as found in AAT (mandatory): viewbooks (<document genres by form>, <document genres>, ... Visual and Verbal Communication) 

Note: Commercially published groups of photographs of one place, event, or activity, sometimes spiral bound or accordion folded.

 

Terms:

 viewbooks (preferred, C,U,D,American English-P) 

viewbook (C,U,AD,American English) 

albums, souvenir (C,U,UF,American English) 

albums, view (C,U,UF,American English) 

souvenir albums (C,U,UF,American English) 

view albums (C,U,UF,American English) 

 

Facet/Hierarchy Code:  V.VW 

Hierarchical Position:

 Objects Facet 

 .... Visual and Verbal Communication 

 ........ Information Forms (Hierarchy Name) 

 ............ <information forms (Guide Term)> 

 ................ <document genres> 

 .................... <document genres by form> 

 ........................ viewbooks   

 

Term record as found in LCSH (mandatory): n/a 

 

Term record as found in GMGPC (mandatory):

TERM:

Viewbooks

SCOPE NOTE:

Published booklets and other volumes primarily consisting of views of particular places, events, and activities. May be photographs, photomechanical prints, or postcards; may be connected by accordion folds. 

USED FOR:

Booklets

Souvenir albums

Souvenir booklets

Souvenir viewbooks

Viewbooks, Souvenir

BROADER TERM(S):

Ephemera [check for pictures with this index term] [thesaurus term(s) only]

RELATED TERM(S):

Keepsakes [check for pictures with this index term] [thesaurus term(s) only]

Postcards [check for pictures with this index term] [thesaurus term(s) only]

Views [check for pictures with this index term] [thesaurus term(s) only]

NOTES:

History Note: Changed 10/90. Formerly, VIEWBOOKS may have been indexed as SOUVENIR VIEWBOOKS. Also changed 6/94. Formerly, some VIEWBOOKS may have been indexed as SOUVENIR ALBUMS. 

               

Term record as found in GSAFD (mandatory): n/a 

               

Term record as found in MeSH (mandatory): n/a 

                  

Term record as found in MIGFG (mandatory): n/a 

    

Term record as found in the Oxford English Dictionary, 2^nd edition (mandatory): n/a 

 

Term record as found in Webster’s 3rd New International Dictionary of the English Language (mandatory): Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, a "viewbook" is "a promotional booklet with pictures that is published by a college or university and used especially for recruiting students; also : an online version of such a booklet."

 

 

  

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Comments: Should the scope note remain as is and a new term for Coffee table books be proposed? Or should the scope note be changed to include more substantial publications?

 

Possible change to scope note: 

Use for publications consisting primarily of views of particular places, events, and activities.

  

 

 

From an email sent in August 2008 from Donald Farren: 

 

I'm setting out to catalogue my collection of viewbooks of Princeton with a mind to compiling eventually a bibliography of these books. (I see the prospective bibliography of Princeton viewbooks not as an end in itself but as a basis for recapturing the 19th-C ambience of the place before the collegiate gothic style of architecture was adopted.)

  

In doing this work I'm encountering problems of definition, initially as to what a "viewbook" is. According to Genre Terms, the term "viewbooks" is to be used for "published booklets consisting primarily of views of particular places, events, and activities, sometimes connected by accordion folds."

                          

                         QUESTIONS:

 

                         1. Looking at my shelves I see pieces that are indeed chiefly views of places, events, and activities in Princeton but that are:

·         19th-C collections of photographs, oblong in form, 9½ x 12¾", that to my mind are too large to be called booklets

·         substantial collections of color photographs that comprise 200 pages or so—coffee table books (not a Genre Term)

Accordingly, why, in the definition of the genre term, "booklets"?

 

 Incidentally, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, a "viewbook" is "a promotional booklet with pictures that is published by a college or university and used especially for recruiting students; also : an online version of such a booklet."

 

From an email sent by Erin Blake on Aug. 26, 2008:

Given the existing scope note, and the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary definition of "viewbook" that Donald cites ("a promotional booklet with pictures that is published by a college or university and used especially for recruiting students; also : an online version of such a booklet") it sounds to me like he needs to propose "coffee table book" rather than a change of scope for viewbook.    EB.

 

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Submitted by:  Nina Schneider for Donald Farren

 

 

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Editorial team member & date:  Nina Schneider, 2008

 

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