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Houghton uses only a subset of the available Material types (see below). For manuscripts and photographs, check the Manuscripts Section's Cataloging Manual for the latest procedure/guidelines:
| Item material type | Use For | Reporting Code | Definition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art Original | ARTORIG | Visual art, whose product is to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content; from AAT: Refers to objects that are visual in nature, were created by the use of skill and imagination, and possess an aesthetic that is valued and of a quality and type that would be collected by art museums. | |
| Book | BOOK | Items comprising a collection of leaves of paper, parchment, wood, stiffened textile, ivory, metal tablets, or other flat material, that are blank, written on, or printed, and are strung or bound together in a volume. | |
| Graphic | Posters, film stills, etc. Use for any Art Reproduction | a graphical item | |
| Issue | ISSUE | A single item of a periodical. Do not use Issue (bound) and Issue (looseleaf) | |
| Manuscript | Single-Item manuscripts, typescripts | MANUSCRIPT | Handwritten documents, particularly books and other documents created before the invention of the printing press. May also be used to distinguish certain documents from published or otherwise printed documents, as in the cases of typed personal letters or a typescript from which printed versions are made |
| Map | MAP | Refers to graphic or photogrammetric representations of the Earth's surface or a part of it, including physical features and political boundaries, where each point corresponds to a geographical or celestial position according to a definite scale or projection. The term may also refer to similar depictions of other planets, suns, other heavenly bodies, or areas of the heavens. | |
| Microform | Use for Microfilm, Microfiche, Microcard | MICROFORM | All media used to record microimages. This is the broader term for Microfiche and Microfilm, but also includes other microforms such as microcards, etc. |
| Mixed material | Used for archival collections | MIXED | Usually used for archival collections consisting of various materials housed together. |
| Music (Scores) | SCORE | Written or printed materials (scores and/or parts) that provide instructions to performers for realizing the composition, as represented in notation, graphic, or textual format. | |
| Photograph | PHOTOGRAPH | Refers to still images produced from radiation-sensitive materials, generally by means of the chemical action of light on a sensitive film, paper, glass, or metal. Photographs may be positive or negative, opaque or transparent. The concept may include photographs made by digital means. | |
| Realia | REALIA | Specifically, in libraries, realia are physical objects that are not the books, periodicals, or sound or visual recordings typically cataloged by libraries. | |
| Item material type for A/V materials | Use For | Reporting Code | Definition |
| Sound recording (Cassette) | AUDIOCASSETTE | Cassettes of audiotape. According to international standards, the tape is usually 0.15 inches (3.8 millimetres) wide and can carry 4 to 8 tracks. | |
| Sound recording (CD) | Use for SACDs, DVD-audio | CD | Optical disks on which sound recordings are digitally encoded for a laser beam to scan, decode, and transmit to a playback system. |
| Sound recording (Digital Audio Tape) | DAT | Magnetic tapes on which sound is recorded digitally. | |
| Sound recording (LP) | Narrower term for phonodisc: use for LPs | LP | Phonodiscs that have a rotational speed of 33 1/3 rpm (revolutions per minute). |
| Sound Recording (Other) | Broader term for all physical sound recordings | RECORDINGS | Open reel tapes, 8-track tapes, wire recordings, cylinders, rolls, or other media not represented by a narrower term, on which sound has been recorded. |
| Sound recording (Record) | Broader term for phonodisc: use for 45s, 78s, etc. | PHONODISC | Discs of shellac, polyvinyl chloride, or other substances so prepared that sound is reproduced when played on a phonograph player. |
| Visual material - Blu-ray | BLURAY | Disc designed for the storage of high-definition video and data. | |
| Visual material - Cassette | Use for VHS, beta, U-matic | VIDEOCASSETTE | Cassettes containing recordings on videotape. |
| Visual material - DVD | DVD | Optical disks used primarily for storing video data. They are the same size as compact discs, but designed to hold approximately seven times more digital information, including multiple layers. | |
| Visual Material - Film Reel | FILMREEL | Spools used to wind lengths of photographic or motion-picture film for projection, processing, or storage. | |
| Visual material - Laserdisc | LRDSC | Data storage devices, larger than DVDs, in disk form that use lasers to write and access data. The data may be stored in an analogue format such as a videodisc, or in a digital format such as a compact disk. | |
| Visual material - Recording | Use more specific term if applicable. | VRECORD | Refers to manifestations of moving images, in any media. |
| Item material type for Electronic Data | Use For | Reporting Code | Definition |
| CD-ROM | For audio, use Sound Recording - CDs | CDROM | Compact discs on which a large amount of digitized read-only data can be stored. |
| Data / Drive | Flash drives, hard disks, external drives. | DISK | Structured sets of data held in computer storage, especially those that incorporate software to make them accessible in a variety of ways. Devices that, using an access mechanism under program control, enable data to be read from or written on a spinning magnetic disk, magnetic disk pack, floppy disk, or optical disk media. |
| DVD-ROM | For visual, use Visual Material DVD | DVDRM | a DVD used as a read-only optical memory device for a computer system. |