My sense from the MARBI discussion paper is that minimal changes to MARC21 are
contemplated. The discussion of LDR/18 implies that MARC21 records coded as
being "RDA/ISBD" will still need to have ISBD punctuation (or as I like to
think of them, symbolic labels) input manually, which would be a shame. Having
said that, I have to admit it's hard to see how ISBD punctuation could be
automatically generated for the numbering area (ISBD[CR] area 3), which can
contain extremely complex strings. To do so effectively, MARC21 field 362
would need to be made repeatable, with each instance identifying the
designation on a single issue. An indicator could identify the designations as
beginning a sequence or ending a sequence. Within the field, separate
subfields would be needed for the numeric/alphabetic designation, the
chronological designation, and any alternate designation. This level of
granularity seems unlikely.
Ed Jones
National University (San Diego, Calif.)
-----Original Message-----
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access on
behalf of J. McRee Elrod
Sent: Sun 12/30/2007 9:09 PM
To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA
Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Alternate titles
Karen Coyle asked:
>Is this difference in granularity itself a problem? Or, asked another
>way, will catalogers be making distinctions that they then cannot code
>in the record, and if so, does that matter?
Since I am not a fan of FRBR/FRAD/RDA, I see little point in the
increased granularity in RDA. But if that greater granularity is not
reflected in MARC, there is little point in having it. No application
is possible. No use can be made, for example, of the distinction
between parallel title, alternate title, second title in a collection,
and other title information (all coded 245$b), unless of course we
keep ISBD punctuation and machine program to recogize "=", ",", ";",
and ":" in conjuction with $b.
Karen, I think neither of us is impressed with RDA, but for very
different reasons.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
