do other librarians talk about death as much as catalogers?

Intriguing question from AUTOCAT:

I’m writing to ask if anyone else out there has created short MARC records for obituaries or local newspaper articles of interest and included them in their main catalog. If you did, which MARC fields did you use, and what type of information do you include in each field. For ex., if you catalog obituaries, does the name of the deceased go in the 245 field, a 600 field, or both?

See also: Dedication.

Also, why have I run into so many goth catalogers? Because we don’t have to deal with the public as much as others? Because we nearly always work in a basement?

Also, why does it seem that a lot of library people with ADHD do cataloging and organization of information? On one hand it makes no sense. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense. Programming is a logical process that is also highly picky (a semicolon once stalled me for half a day—then again, I don’t really know what I’m doing…). and it’s a cliché that programming is full of people with ADHD…

Anyway, I’d say the deceased definitely would go in a 600, as the obit is about them. I’d put the header of the obit in the 245, and, if there isn’t a header, I’d supply a title proper which would probably contain the name of the deceased. But I’ve never cataloged obituaries in a library, so I’ll be curious what others say.

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