These rules provide for the description of graphic materials that are of continuing or potential aesthetic or documentary value. Collections may consist of both published and unpublished items, but the collection itself does not exist in a published form.
Material is considered to form a collection even if it is bound together, as in an album .
Collections may be accompanied by related manuscript and printed textual material, such as pamphlets, catalogs, checklists, periodical tearsheets, and newspaper clippings, as well as non-print material, such as sound recordings. In such cases, it may be desirable to use the physical description and note area to describe the graphic content of the publication. Since GM provides for the treatment of published materials regardless of presentation format, either approach is valid. The decision should be based on an institution's needs, the focus of its collections, and what it chooses to emphasize in the record.