[RDA-L] Work manifested in new RDA examples

2012-06-03 Thread Heidrun Wiesenmüller
I am mulling over the data element work manifested in the examples for 
RDA bibliographic records  released by the JSC some time ago:

http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/6JSC_RDA_Complete_Examples_%28Bibliographic%29_Revised_2012.pdf

For instance, look at the example for Arlene Taylor's The organization 
of information (book 1, p. 10): There, you'll not only find the data 
element creator (Taylor, Arlene G., 1941-), but also the data element 
work manifested (Taylor, Arlene G., 1941-. Organization of 
information). Note the beautiful footnote: No equivalent encoding in 
MARC 21. In the earlier version of these examples wich accompanied the 
full draft of 2008, this data element wasn't there at all, and its 
appearance now strikes me as rather odd.


Granted: Work manifested (17.8) is a core element in RDA (cf. 17.3: 
When recording primary relationships, include as a minimum the work 
manifested.). But in 17.4.2, three conventions for recording primary 
relationships are outlined, and I believe that only the first and the 
second presuppose work manifested as a single data element: For these 
two methods, an identifier for the work (method 1) or the authorized 
access point representing the work (method 2), respectively, are used.


The third method, however, does not seem to require one single data 
element work manifested: Prepare a composite description that 
combines one or more elements identifying the work and/or expression 
with the description of the manifestation. So, in this case, the 
identification of the work is achieved by one or more elements which 
really belong on work level, although in the record they are mixed 
together with information on manifestation level. Typically, these will 
be the data elements for the first creator and for the preferred 
title of the work (vulgo: uniform title). I'd argue that in cases where 
there's no need to determine a uniform title (e.g. if there is only one 
manifestation of the work in question), the title of the manifestation 
can be used instead.


The RDA example for book 1 mentioned earlier follows this third method 
for recording primary relationships, i.e. it is a composite 
description, which basically looks like the conventional MARC record. 
Therefore, I find it hard to understand why the information about the 
work manifested is given _twice_ in the same record: Once _implicitly_ 
according to method 3 (by giving the data elements creator and title 
proper as part of the composite description) and a second time 
_explicitly_ according to method 2 (by giving the authorized access 
point representing the work).


Shouldn't it be either the one (in a composite description) or the other 
(in a different implementation scenario for RDA, something closer to 
scenario 1)? As it stands now, the information given seems to be redundant.


Any ideas?

Heidrun

--
-
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstrasse 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi


Re: [RDA-L] Work manifested in new RDA examples

2012-06-03 Thread Karen Coyle

Heidrun,

I've been assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that references to FRBR 
relationships in RDA, like work manifested, are essentially unusable 
until there is a FRBR-modeled carrier for the bibliographic data. I have 
a similar assumption about things like identifier for the expression, 
which really cannot exist until there is a FRBR-modeled carrier that 
allows -- nay, requires -- those identifiers in order to create the 
entities and their relationships.*


It makes very little sense to me to be creating a text string for these 
relationships which have to be machine-actionable in order to have the 
scenario 1 data structures.


kc

*Hopefully without diverting this discussion, I think there is a 
difference between the system identifier for the expression *entity* and 
a string, like an ISBN, that might be considered to identify, or 
partially identify, an entity in the bibliographic description through 
its use in various contexts.


On 6/3/12 7:51 AM, Heidrun Wiesenmüller wrote:
I am mulling over the data element work manifested in the examples 
for RDA bibliographic records  released by the JSC some time ago:
http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/6JSC_RDA_Complete_Examples_%28Bibliographic%29_Revised_2012.pdf 



For instance, look at the example for Arlene Taylor's The 
organization of information (book 1, p. 10): There, you'll not only 
find the data element creator (Taylor, Arlene G., 1941-), but also 
the data element work manifested (Taylor, Arlene G., 1941-. 
Organization of information). Note the beautiful footnote: No 
equivalent encoding in MARC 21. In the earlier version of these 
examples wich accompanied the full draft of 2008, this data element 
wasn't there at all, and its appearance now strikes me as rather odd.


Granted: Work manifested (17.8) is a core element in RDA (cf. 17.3: 
When recording primary relationships, include as a minimum the work 
manifested.). But in 17.4.2, three conventions for recording primary 
relationships are outlined, and I believe that only the first and the 
second presuppose work manifested as a single data element: For 
these two methods, an identifier for the work (method 1) or the 
authorized access point representing the work (method 2), 
respectively, are used.


The third method, however, does not seem to require one single data 
element work manifested: Prepare a composite description that 
combines one or more elements identifying the work and/or expression 
with the description of the manifestation. So, in this case, the 
identification of the work is achieved by one or more elements which 
really belong on work level, although in the record they are mixed 
together with information on manifestation level. Typically, these 
will be the data elements for the first creator and for the 
preferred title of the work (vulgo: uniform title). I'd argue that 
in cases where there's no need to determine a uniform title (e.g. if 
there is only one manifestation of the work in question), the title of 
the manifestation can be used instead.


The RDA example for book 1 mentioned earlier follows this third 
method for recording primary relationships, i.e. it is a composite 
description, which basically looks like the conventional MARC record. 
Therefore, I find it hard to understand why the information about the 
work manifested is given _twice_ in the same record: Once _implicitly_ 
according to method 3 (by giving the data elements creator and 
title proper as part of the composite description) and a second time 
_explicitly_ according to method 2 (by giving the authorized access 
point representing the work).


Shouldn't it be either the one (in a composite description) or the 
other (in a different implementation scenario for RDA, something 
closer to scenario 1)? As it stands now, the information given seems 
to be redundant.


Any ideas?

Heidrun



--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet