Collections normally fall into one of three basic categories:

a)   groups of works that are received already well organized by a previous owner;

b)   groups of works that are received from a single source, but with minimal or no previous organization;

c)   groups of works that are received from multiple sources and are then assembled into collections for the purposes of technical processing and storage.

All three types of collections share certain factors in common.  All are represented by bibliographic records which describe groups of materials rather than individual works, and all tend to be organized around similar unifying factors.  Such factors may include:

personal author;

issuing body;

form or genre;

subject;

language or nationality;

source of acquisition or provenance;

series title.

See also:

Appendix C:  Collection-Level Cataloging