-----Original Message----- Karen Coyle wrote: And your definition of "person" will determine what these relevant data elements are, and what you can do with this data. If you your persons are bibliographic entities then they can't interact with data about "real" persons (LDAP databases, the copyright renewal database, the social security death index,.... etc.) unless somewhere a clear connection is made between the bibliographic and the non-bibliographic identities. This is why I am concerned about limiting ourselves just to name forms - it limits what we can do with our data.
Perhaps Person is the wrong term for this entity and the name should reflect its nature as a bibliographic concept. Then again, we still have to deal with the "actual person as subject" case. People do write biographies about the real people behind the bibliographic identities. I don't think this is the same entity as the bibliographic "persona" yet we are using the same entity for both. This is probably where my dis-ease comes in. ------------------------- [Myers]: I guess I am relying on FRAD to identify the attributes of the person entity and RDA to spell them out as data elements. Further, I think that Chapter 30 of the December 2007 RDA draft would address concerns about the relationship between the bibliographic and non-bibliographic entities. The scope note at 30.1.0.1.2 says, "Related persons include separate identities for the same individual." So there would be entity records, for instance, for both Lewis Carroll and Charles L. Dodgson, with a relationship between the entity represented by the pseudonym and the entity represented by the legal name. As we transition from a cataloging environment and cataloging rules that were primarily focused on heading construction to this new entity-relationship model and supporting code, there does seem to be a focus on "name forms" in the rules, and an inelegant one at that, if I may be so bold. However, there are other important attributes that are now being addressed formally, in terms of the record content, for the first time. There have been discussions, much better expressed than I can convey here, as to whether the heading/name form is properly an attribute of the entity or just a (possibly) unique agglomeration of selected attributes. It is my hope that the JSC will provide both for some clarifying revisions to Chapter 9 and resolving the place of the identifying heading within the entity record framework. Fervently hoping we are not talking to cross purposes, John F. Myers, Catalog Librarian Schaffer Library, Union College 807 Union St. Schenectady NY 12308 518-388-6623 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
