Re: [RDA-L] FRBR, RDA ... and transcendental idealism
Both Cutter and Lubetzky are well-worth reading by anyone who works with library metadata. They were both geniuses, with a way with words. They were also both notable for really focusing on the _functions_ of our cataloging records, and how to achieve those functions, rather than just adhering to tradition for the sake of tradition. (Lubetzky's famous Is This Rule Necessary?). It may just be my own prejudice, but I feel that if either were around today, they would be demanding radical changes to the practices of cooperative cataloging. Jonathan Karen Coyle wrote: It's worth reading Cutter as much for his language as his rules: Bibliographers have established a cult of the title-page; its slighted peculiarities are noted; it is followed religiously, with dots for omissions, brackets for insertions, and uprights to make the end of lines; it is even imitated by fac-simile type or photographic copying. These things may concern the cataloguer of the Lenox Library or the Prince collection. The ordinary librarian has in general nothing to do with them; but it does not follow that even he is to lose all respect for the title. It is the book's name and should not be changed but by act of legislature. Our necessities oblige us to abbreviate it, but nothing obliges us to make additions to it or to change it without giving notice to the reader that we have done so. Moreover, it must influence the entry of a book more or less; it determines the title-entry entirely; it affects the author-entry (see #2) and the subject-entry (see #63). But to let it have more power than this is to pay it a superstitious veneration. (# 43, b) p. 16 Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue (1875) If someone read me that and told me it was written by Borges or Alberto Manguel, I would believe them. This is pure eloquence, words as rich dessert. Well, I admit that non-librarians might not feel as strongly about it. Cutter is wonderful the way 19th century ladies' Easter hats are wonderful: great as history, but undoubtedly quaint and unsuited for today's world. I do think we should study Cutter carefully because in his writings we may find some of the reasons behind current practices. Then we can look at those reasons and ask: how could we best achieve this today? [If you remember the exchange we had early this year on the reasons why cataloging uses sentence case for titles, not title case, what was remarkable about that was that no one actually knew that answer, although many could come up with plausible rationales. I have not found the explanation of that in my version of Cutter. The most authoritative source seems to be Jewett, as reported here: http://www.mail-archive.com/rda-l@infoserv.nlc-bnc.ca/msg01484.html. But I think that example serves to show that we do some things without knowing why, which makes it very hard to do a viable analysis of our practices for the purposes of updating.] kc Allyson Carlyle wrote: The place to find the explanatory framework around our rules is Charles Cutter's Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue, 4th ed. (although all editions provide this background). Reading his rules makes you understand where all of our rules come from - mostly, consideration of user (reader) needs. I do tell my students this although I'm not sure how many actually go find them! Allyson Allyson Carlyle Associate Professor and Chair, Ph.D. Program Information School University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-2840 U.S.A. -Original Message- From: Flack, Irvin [mailto:irvin.fl...@det.nsw.edu.au] Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 3:30 PM Subject: Re: FRBR, RDA ... and transcendental idealism Bernhard Eversberg wrote: Even more so, I think, in AACR: It talks about works all the time, yet there is no definition at all. Seems to have been good enough, or did anyone complain? Well, I remember being very frustrated as a student with AACR, the way it provided very little in the way of an explanatory framework around the rules. That background knowledge seemed to be assumed. In one sense I guess that is fair enough: it's not meant to be a textbook. But it's not until you understand the history of the rules and the implicit intellectual framework behind them that you can see why they are written as they are. One thing I like about RDA is that it makes the model more explicit (if not clear!) so at least it can be contested (as it obviously is and will continue to be). In AACR the assumed model has to be worked out by the cataloguer, and less assiduous cataloguers perhaps never completely work it out. On the definition of 'work': I like the distinction Elaine Svenonius makes in The intellectual foundation of information organization between conceptual and operational definitions of the bibliographical entities. A conceptual definition of work is the FRBR one, 'abstract intellectual or artistic content' (or whatever it is exactly), which is 'intuitively satisfactory' but not much help to the cataloguer whose practical
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR, RDA ... and transcendental idealism
I agree. I also can't help thinking that in regard to Cutter's point about the title page that Karen quotes: wouldn't he relish the thought that if some validation were needed to confirm that an item in hand were the same as one described, a simple link could get you a scanned version of the title page? This sanctification of transcription practices is the ultimate albatross, in my opinion. Diane Jonathan Rochkind wrote: Both Cutter and Lubetzky are well-worth reading by anyone who works with library metadata. They were both geniuses, with a way with words. They were also both notable for really focusing on the _functions_ of our cataloging records, and how to achieve those functions, rather than just adhering to tradition for the sake of tradition. (Lubetzky's famous Is This Rule Necessary?). It may just be my own prejudice, but I feel that if either were around today, they would be demanding radical changes to the practices of cooperative cataloging. Jonathan Karen Coyle wrote: It's worth reading Cutter as much for his language as his rules: Bibliographers have established a cult of the title-page; its slighted peculiarities are noted; it is followed religiously, with dots for omissions, brackets for insertions, and uprights to make the end of lines; it is even imitated by fac-simile type or photographic copying. These things may concern the cataloguer of the Lenox Library or the Prince collection. The ordinary librarian has in general nothing to do with them; but it does not follow that even he is to lose all respect for the title. It is the book's name and should not be changed but by act of legislature. Our necessities oblige us to abbreviate it, but nothing obliges us to make additions to it or to change it without giving notice to the reader that we have done so. Moreover, it must influence the entry of a book more or less; it determines the title-entry entirely; it affects the author-entry (see #2) and the subject-entry (see #63). But to let it have more power than this is to pay it a superstitious veneration. (# 43, b) p. 16 Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue (1875) If someone read me that and told me it was written by Borges or Alberto Manguel, I would believe them. This is pure eloquence, words as rich dessert. Well, I admit that non-librarians might not feel as strongly about it. Cutter is wonderful the way 19th century ladies' Easter hats are wonderful: great as history, but undoubtedly quaint and unsuited for today's world. I do think we should study Cutter carefully because in his writings we may find some of the reasons behind current practices. Then we can look at those reasons and ask: how could we best achieve this today? [If you remember the exchange we had early this year on the reasons why cataloging uses sentence case for titles, not title case, what was remarkable about that was that no one actually knew that answer, although many could come up with plausible rationales. I have not found the explanation of that in my version of Cutter. The most authoritative source seems to be Jewett, as reported here: http://www.mail-archive.com/rda-l@infoserv.nlc-bnc.ca/msg01484.html. But I think that example serves to show that we do some things without knowing why, which makes it very hard to do a viable analysis of our practices for the purposes of updating.] kc Allyson Carlyle wrote: The place to find the explanatory framework around our rules is Charles Cutter's Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue, 4th ed. (although all editions provide this background). Reading his rules makes you understand where all of our rules come from - mostly, consideration of user (reader) needs. I do tell my students this although I'm not sure how many actually go find them! Allyson Allyson Carlyle Associate Professor and Chair, Ph.D. Program Information School University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-2840 U.S.A. -Original Message- From: Flack, Irvin [mailto:irvin.fl...@det.nsw.edu.au] Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 3:30 PM Subject: Re: FRBR, RDA ... and transcendental idealism Bernhard Eversberg wrote: Even more so, I think, in AACR: It talks about works all the time, yet there is no definition at all. Seems to have been good enough, or did anyone complain? Well, I remember being very frustrated as a student with AACR, the way it provided very little in the way of an explanatory framework around the rules. That background knowledge seemed to be assumed. In one sense I guess that is fair enough: it's not meant to be a textbook. But it's not until you understand the history of the rules and the implicit intellectual framework behind them that you can see why they are written as they are. One thing I like about RDA is that it makes the model more explicit (if not clear!) so at least it can be contested (as it obviously is and will continue to be). In AACR the assumed model has to be worked out by the cataloguer, and less assiduous cataloguers perhaps never completely work it
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR, RDA ... and transcendental idealism
How funny --this morning I am reading Lubetzky's Some observations on revision of the cataloging code written in 1956 (originally published in Library Quarterly 26, October 1956, as well as in Toward a Better Cataloging Code, Chicago : Univ. of Chicago, 1957.). He writes What troubles Mr. Henkle [who had written or presented about the problem of cataloging] is the possibility that cataloger's brought up in the tradition of the old rules may continue to follow the new rules only in the letter and not in the spirit; and the letter killeth applies equally to the new rules as it does to the old. But the rules of cataloging are an instrument to achieve a desired end, and the quality of the instrument is not to be measured by any unskilled use of it but rather by its potentialities. If the new descriptive cataloging rules are improperly applied, it is a measure not of the adequacy of the rules but of the people who apply them. It is a condition reflecting not on the merits of the rules but on the need of educational and administrative guidance of the staff. The critical consideration, it seems to me, is not whether the spirit of the new rules is being followed but whether or not there is a spirit in the the new rules to follow. If und! er the old rules a tendency developed to follow the letter, it is perhaps because the spirit of the old rules was too elusive. The spirit of the new rules is tangibly present in the definition of their functions and principles--the theoretical fabric of the new rules--which prescribe an entry functional in content and design. I've spent a considerable amount of time in the last few years studying how inadequately trained catalogers have become with the idea of demonstrating how that in turn affects quality of the catalog and therefore the public's misperception that libraries are becoming irrelevant. I can say for sure that catalogers are applying cataloging poorly, but perhaps I can not say for certain how it has affected the public's misperception. Lubetsky writes later that 'reader-centered' studies are misleading--his own study of reader use of the LC main catalog found that difficulties were due to several problems but that many or most of them revealed that all too frequently the reader is himself his own greatest enemy. A little negligence on his part may undo much of the cataloger's labor. Just some musing and thinking out loud. ** Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Library and Information Sciences College of Information, Library Science, and Technology University of North Texas email: shawne.mi...@unt.edu http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101 **
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR, RDA ... and transcendental idealism
Agreed. The general de-professionalization and down-sizing of cataloging departments has not been beneficial toward the quality of our cataloging--or our ability to transition to something better. In the computer environment, what cataloging needs to accomplish is not quite the same thing as it was in a card catalog environment. The principles are similar, but the ends are not identical. Non-professional catalogers merely attempting to follow the letter--in fact, _instructed_ to follow the letter, and _discouraged_ from applying independent thought (it's 'inefficient') is not a suitable community to make this transition. I think Lubetzky somewhat over-estimated the extent to which: The spirit of the new rules is tangibly present in the definition of their functions and principles--the theoretical fabric of the new rules--which prescribe an entry functional in content and design. That is not how it really played out. It's worth noting that the reason that catalogers need to read Cutter is that the foundational theory of cataloging has not really changed a bit since Cutter. Again, the basic principles of Cutter are genius, but the context has changed. FRBR is one significant attempt to update this conceptual framework, with mixed results. Jonathan Miksa, Shawne wrote: How funny --this morning I am reading Lubetzky's Some observations on revision of the cataloging code written in 1956 (originally published in Library Quarterly 26, October 1956, as well as in Toward a Better Cataloging Code, Chicago : Univ. of Chicago, 1957.). He writes What troubles Mr. Henkle [who had written or presented about the problem of cataloging] is the possibility that cataloger's brought up in the tradition of the old rules may continue to follow the new rules only in the letter and not in the spirit; and the letter killeth applies equally to the new rules as it does to the old. But the rules of cataloging are an instrument to achieve a desired end, and the quality of the instrument is not to be measured by any unskilled use of it but rather by its potentialities. If the new descriptive cataloging rules are improperly applied, it is a measure not of the adequacy of the rules but of the people who apply them. It is a condition reflecting not on the merits of the rules but on the need of educational and administrative guidance of the staff. The critical consideration, it seems to me, is not whether the spirit of the new rules is being followed but whether or not there is a spirit in the the new rules to follow. If u! nd! er the old rules a tendency developed to follow the letter, it is perhaps because the spirit of the old rules was too elusive. The spirit of the new rules is tangibly present in the definition of their functions and principles--the theoretical fabric of the new rules--which prescribe an entry functional in content and design. I've spent a considerable amount of time in the last few years studying how inadequately trained catalogers have become with the idea of demonstrating how that in turn affects quality of the catalog and therefore the public's misperception that libraries are becoming irrelevant. I can say for sure that catalogers are applying cataloging poorly, but perhaps I can not say for certain how it has affected the public's misperception. Lubetsky writes later that 'reader-centered' studies are misleading--his own study of reader use of the LC main catalog found that difficulties were due to several problems but that many or most of them revealed that all too frequently the reader is himself his own greatest enemy. A little negligence on his part may undo much of the cataloger's labor. Just some musing and thinking out loud. ** Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Library and Information Sciences College of Information, Library Science, and Technology University of North Texas email: shawne.mi...@unt.edu http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101 ** -- Jonathan Rochkind Digital Services Software Engineer The Sheridan Libraries Johns Hopkins University 410.516.8886 rochkind (at) jhu.edu
[RDA-L] Slave to the title page?
Coyle quoted Cutter:
Bibliographers have established a cult of the title-page; its slighted
peculiarities are noted; it is followed religiously, with dots for
omissions, brackets for insertions, and uprights to make the end of
lines ...
Granted we can do without the uprights to mark the ends of lines
(apart perhaps from rare book cataloguing), but what is to replace
exact (apart from punctuation and capitalization) transcription of the
title page?
What is to be gained by abandoning ellipses and square brackets when
portions of the title are omitted or supplied? While links to an
image of the title page would be very nice for exact identification,
that would not assist exact title nor title key word searching. At
present at least, only digitalized text can be searched, not text as
image.
Accurate transcription of the title as on the item, even if titles as
found on containers are substituted for DVDs and CD-ROMs, seems to me
to remain the basis of patron helpful cataloguing. Variant forms of
the title as found in CIP or publisher produced metadata are helpful
(in MARC terms) as 246s, but not 245s.
Your humble member of the cult of the title page,
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
