________________________________________ From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of J. McRee Elrod [m...@slc.bc.ca] Sent: January-08-12 11:53 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Some comments on the Final Report of the FRBR Working Group on Aggregates
>Moving to title main entry for series seems a good idea to me. A >series under author duplicates the main entry for the single issue, >and authors of series do change. One of the first epiphanies I had when learning to catalog was in realizing that there are no specific rules for main entry for series ... because ALL the main entry rules apply for series. If the series is a monographic series, then the main entry rules for serials apply. If the series is a multipart item, then the main entry rules for monographs (those consisting of more than one volume) apply. One can build a main entry-based catalog out of RDA. But the difference is that RDA allows that convention to arise from the elements, leaving room for other and newer conventions. RDA doesn't pre-empt decisions about output conventions, and this is done by following an element set approach, and where the underlying entities that have always been talked about are consistently abstracted, and where there is a thorough accounting of all the possible relationships between those entities. For example, series are defined in RDA as work-to-work relationships, specifically whole-part relationships, and even more precisely through reciprocal designators "in series" and "series contains". The encoding system (MARC, 8XX fields) and the flat-file main entry conventions (authorized access point using main entry rules for series heading) are separate constructs that can be built out of the underlying logic that RDA enumerates. RDA starts by saying what something actually is, and then the conventions to use follow from this. By doing this one can see much better the strengths and weaknesses of any convention or system-- past, present, and future. Thomas Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library
