For the most part I don't think there is any pressing need to convert pre-RDA
descriptive cataloging. The changes to the descriptive portion of the record
are more or less aesthetic ("p." vs "pages" for example). We have lived with
AACR2 and pre-AACR2 records living cheek-by-jowl in our catalogs for
generations, and no catalog that I know has spontaneously combusted because of
it.
But the real question is access points--and in particular, whether RDA relators
can be retrospectively added to pre-AACR2 records. As someone has already
pointed out, as it stands they are not going to be particularly useful in
constructing indexes or underpinning faceted discovery unless they are
uniformly present in every record in the catalog.
If they are not consistently applied then users will either get "loosey"
results (things showing up where they don't belong) or worse, "lossy" results
(things NOT showing up where they do belong).
I would be very curious to know if anyone with a systems background has thought
about ways to batch-apply relators to existing records. Perhaps by making use
of existing statements of responsibility? It seems to me given the number of
pre-RDA records out there that no one will ever have time and/or money to
update them manually.
Benjamin Abrahamse
Cataloging Coordinator
Acquisitions and Discovery Enhancement
MIT Libraries
617-253-7137
-----Original Message-----
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gary L Strawn
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 4:33 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Cost of Retrospective Conversion for Legacy Data (Was RDA
Toolkit Price Change)
If anyone is interested, Appendixes E, F and G of the documentation for the
cataloger's toolkit describe many of the RDA-related changes we are making in
our database. At present we are changing one record at a time (as we do other
work on the record), but I expect to have a batch program early in the new
year; certainly, we intend to use such a batch program to finish the conversion
of our database before the migration to Alma. This batch program will probably
be similar to the earlier program that made RDA-related changes to access
fields: for anyone, it will read and write files of MARC records; for Voyager
users, it will also be able to update the database directly.
You can start here:
http://files.library.northwestern.edu/public/CatalogersToolkit/Documentation/Online/#Appendix_E
I will emphasize that the generation of 33X fields becomes a knotty problem if
a record combines expressions in different forms (such as print and online).
We plan to untangle as many of our lumped-together records as we can before we
RDA-ize our database with a batch program.
Gary L. Strawn, Authorities Librarian, etc. Twitter: GaryLStrawn
Northwestern University Library, 1970 Campus Drive, Evanston IL 60208-2300
e-mail: [email protected] voice: 847/491-2788 fax: 847/491-8306
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. BatchCat version: 2007.25.428
-----Original Message-----
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Guy Vernon Frost
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 8:13 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Cost of Retrospective Conversion for Legacy Data (Was RDA
Toolkit Price Change)
You can also customize is "a little" for no additional charge. For example, we
chose not to have MARCIVE convert the 250 which is a descriptive field. For the
record, I'm not too happy with some of their choices for the 336-338 fields,
but we send so little that isn't RDA converted already that I just accept what
they send.
