I am not too sure which comments are yours. On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 10:32 AM, John Attig <jx...@psu.edu> wrote:
> On 11/24/2010 10:52 AM, J. McRee Elrod wrote: > > James Weinheimer suggested: > > > "I believe the basic problem lies in the "260 $c - Date of > publication, distribution, etc." We are simply putting far too much > information in this [sub]field ..." > > > Subfield code 260$d is available for copyright year as opposed to > publication year. > > Subfield $d in field 260 was formerly defined as Plate or publisher number > for music. By MARC 21 policy, obsolete field tags, indicator values, and > subfield codes are reused unless there is a reasonable guarantee that the > obsolete content designation was never implemented and therefore could not > possibly occur in any record in any system. > > But whether separate subfield coding would be an > advantage to patrons depends of how it is applied in RDA. The > presence of a year in any one 260 date subfield, it seems to me, would > obviate the need for an inclusion indicting its absence in any other. > > In RDA, date of publication and copyright date are separate elements. I > would support a separate subfield for copyright date, but the decision not > to define a new subfield was based on the fact that existing occurrences of > copyright date are not separately subfielded. The implementation of a new > code would thus be possible, but not exactly straight-forward. > > RDA instructions tend to call for explicit recording of lack of information > (particularly in core elements) rather than relying on meaning being > assigned to the absence of an element. Absence of an element should be > interpreted to mean that the element is not applicable to the resource, not > that there is no information available. > > John Attig > Authority Control Librarian > Penn State University > jx...@psu.edu > > -- Gene Fieg Cataloger/Serials Librarian Claremont School of Theology gf...@cst.edu
