Yes, as with many fields, we will discover that we need both a
transcribed field, and a relationship--the relationship can be built
with a number of technical devices, including what we used to call a
'controlled access point', or some other kind of identifier. I like
John's attention to clearly calling this a 'relationship'.
This is a general pattern which we see over and over again in our
library metadata--and is in fact not something new, but something done
for _some_ fields in the anglo-american cataloging tradition. The
difference is that the relationship was built using the so-called
"controlled access point", when many of us would like to gradually
transition to using more modern identifiers instead.
The other issue is determining when the user need is enough to spend
time on creating that relationship. This might not be a decision which
can be made universally, it might be made on a community-by-community or
even library-by-library basis. Meaning some people are going to
establish that relationship for place of publication, and others are
not. This makes it clear how important it is to have a cooperative
cataloging infrastructure that easily allows someone else to _add_ it
later. Attention to the cooperative cataloging infrastructure is needed
to get where we want to go, on top of RDA's list of rules/guidelines.
Jonathan
John Attig wrote:
At 09:27 AM 5/9/2008, Karen Coyle wrote:
Adam L. Schiff wrote:
At present, the instruction in RDA is to take and record what you see.
In other words, true transcription of what you find, with no
abbreviation. However, if abbreviations are on the resource, then you
will record them the way they appear. If the higher jurisdiction of
the place is not present, it does not get recorded in the place
element. Instead it will be given in a note.
Which, of course, makes it useless for any machine processing, such as
re-organizing a retrieved set by place of publication or providing a way
for a user to Find (FRBR user task) items published in a particular
location. It seems that when it comes to Find, the rules have a
pre-conceived notion of what users can ask for.
And in case you think that this isn't a legitimate search, I had reason
to do exactly this search the other day, and was not successful.
The way to support this functionality, which I agree should not be
dismissed out of hand, is not to change the conventions for recording
the place of publication -- whose function is primarily one of
identification, based on what appears on the item -- but rather to
define a relationship between the resource and the place in which it
is published, using the Place entity to provide a consistent form for
access, as well as variants.
Apart from RDA, I would note that many special collections libraries
currently use MARC field 752 to provide structured, controlled access
to place names as a means of creating an "imprint" file for their
holdings. The point is the same: we need a controlled access point,
not a descriptive data element, in order to provide consistent access
to place of publication.
John Attig
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
