Re: [RDA-L] Fictitious beings as pseudonyms (was: Dr. Snoopy)
I think this is covered by LCRI 22.2B, Multiple
Headings--Contemporaries, point 5:
If different names appear in different editions of the same work,
choose for all editions of the same work the name that predominates in
the editions of the same work. If, however, a change in the person's
bibliographic identification from an older name to a newer name that
seems to be stable has taken place, choose that name for all editions.
In case of doubt on any point, choose the latest name used for all
editions.
RDA says something similar at 6.27.1.7:
If the identity used most frequently cannot be readily determined,
construct the authorized access point representing the work using the
authorized access point representing the identity appearing in the
most recent resource embodying the work followed by the preferred
title for the work.
I'd consider that the books originally published only with the
Rampling name but now appearing with the Rice name given top billing
as well would fall under either of these rules, and that one could
establish a uniform title for all editions of a previously Rampling
title under the Rice heading. The problematic bit here is that the
rule calls for this to be done title by title. We have to wait for all
the Rampling titles to be reissued under the Rice name before we can
merge Rampling into Rice. If there's a lesser novel that never gets
republished, the rule does not support changing its entry on the basis
of a larger trend to use Rice over Rampling, resulting in a split of
the preferred access points for titles which arguably ought to share a
single form of name entry.
Stephen
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 10:10 AM, J. McRee Elrod m...@slc.bc.ca wrote:
Still waiting for an answer to Anne Rice writing as Anne Rampling in
RDA.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
--
Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist
Technical Services, University Libraries
University of Minnesota
160 Wilson Library
309 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Ph: 612-625-2328
Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Sneaky Pie and Rita Mae Brown
~~ On Wed, 27 Apr 2011, Deborah Tomares wrote: Here's the thing, though. Snoopy doesn't have the profession of author, because as we all know, he didn't really write the book. He is a fictitious dog, lacking in digits and English language necessary to put out the work he authored (even in the cartoons, he never speaks). So I don't believe we can, or should, apply the same rules and standards to him that we do to real, live, preferably human authors. And yes--I would have one heading for both Superman and Clark Kent. And it would be a subject heading, not a personal name heading. That's where I believe fictitious characters belong, and where most users would expect to find them. As in my Spiderman example before, I don't think it would benefit anyone, cataloger or user, to have to constantly revise and sift through the changeable natures/personae/call-them-what-you-will of fictitious characters. Because they aren't real, so aren't bound by rules of reality, to attempt to impose reality upon them seems to me wrong and not useful. Deborah Tomaras, NACO Coordinator Librarian II Western European Languages Team New York Public Library Library Services Center 31-11 Thomson Ave. Long Island City, N.Y. 11101 (917) 229-9561 dtoma...@nypl.org Disclaimer: Alas, my ideas are merely my own, and not indicative of New York Public Library policy. From: Peter Schouten pschou...@ingressus.nl To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Date: 04/27/2011 12:51 PM Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Dr. Snoopy Sent by: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Unless one assumes that Dr. Snoopy is somehow different from plain Snoopy, and would advocate a series of maybe linked authorities for each differing guise of a character. Mr. Schouten, for example, claims that: even fictional characters are entitled to their own Personae. But I would argue against this route for multiple reasons. Fictitious character cannot truly have professions, so they aren't really different persons despite the guise; But in this example, the publication presents Dr. Snoopy as the author, which causes the fictional character to have the profession of author. Would you also have 1 heading for both Clark Kent and Superman? Peter Schouten -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Dr. Snoopy
One point of having authority records is to recognize that entities can have a coherent presence--an identity--that goes beyond what is found on one book. In the case of Snoopy, that identity is primarily iconic--we recognize his various images as Snoopy, regardless of what he's sometimes wearing. Knowing that, when I encounter Dr. Snoopy, I see it as Snoopy--Snoopy in one of his many personae, but primarily as Snoopy. The fact that Snoopy's existence is primarily visual and that he remains recognizable as Snoopy across so many personae says to me that these personae are not equivalent to pseudonyms, which tend to hide the fact that two authorial names are the same. They're more like different forms of the same iconographic identity. That being the case, I'd establish the authorial Snoopy as just Snoopy, and give Dr. Snoopy, Joe Cool, etc. as 400s, if they ever turn up as authors. The question is, what level of granularity is most appropriate for collocation and will best match users' expectations and needs. I find it dubious that most users would prefer to have to track down all the Snoopy personae under their individual names when they're looking for stuff by or about Snoopy. We have only one subject heading for him. Would a new subject heading be needed to catalog a poster of Joe Cool, or would Snoopy (Fictitious character) still apply? Three minor notes: it's Schulz, not Schultz. I don't think anyone would argue that the book by Dr. Snoopy should also have Schulz as an access point. And let's not forget spirits, who can also be authors under AACR2 (e.g., Seth (Spirit)). Stephen On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Laurence Creider lcrei...@lib.nmsu.edu wrote: John, What you say is well thought, and made me realize that I should have been clearer in saying that I consider Dr. Snoopy to be a form of a name and not a different name until proven otherwise, particularly given the presumed character depicted in the illustrations and the name of the illustrator. Joe Cool presents a different case, of course. As you say, RDA may need some revision here, as AACR2 certainly did for some of its unintended consequences. Larry -- Laurence S. Creider Special Collections Librarian New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM 88003 Work: 575-646-7227 Fax: 575-646-7477 lcrei...@lib.nmsu.edu On Wed, 27 Apr 2011, John Attig wrote: On 4/27/2011 11:40 AM, Laurence Creider wrote: The point of my comment yesterday was that there was no proof that Dr. Snoopy was in fact a different person from Snoopy. The existence of a title means nothing. Sometimes I use my Dr. or Professor, sometimes I do not. As the JSC was reviewing the drafts of the section of RDA that dealt with multiple identities or personae, it struck me that a literal reading of RDA would suggest that the simple use of different names (but not different forms of the same name or changes of name) was sufficient evidence of the intent to establish a separate bibliographic identity. If that is true, then Larry's point above is not relevant: you don't need proof that Dr. Snoopy is a different person, you only need evidence of the use of a distinct name -- and a decision that this is a different name rather than a different form of the same name (which I suppose one could argue). -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Linked files
Another fundamental rule of identifiers is that what is identified should not change significantly. That generally holds true in LC authority practice, but not in the case of undifferentiated personal name authorities. By rule and standard procedure, an LCCN for an authority of this kind can refer uniquely to one person now, and a different person later, and yet another person later still. This is another reason why a system which restricts the data elements that can be used to make a unique heading to the point that making a unique heading is not always possible is problematic. Good identifiers can always be made unique to correspond to a unique entity. LC/NACO personal name headings can't, which is another reason why they're not good identifiers under the current rules. Stephen On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: I am talking about our library-community database as the database [someone] is linking to. If we're always changing our identifiers (considering our authority 1xx preferred display forms to be identifiers), that makes it very hard for anyone to link to things in our database. Even just for our own database with their internal links, always changing the effective 'identifiers' (auth 1xx) makes our own housekeeping much more expensive for ourselves. Again, this is because of using the very same string (auth 1xx) as both a functional identifier and a functional preferred display term. A practice that is highly discouraged in actual contemporary software/metadata engineering, although it worked fine 100 years ago. Seriously, it is a fundamental idea in identifier management, decades old, that you should not change your identifiers, and for this reason you should not use strings you will be displaying to users as identifiers. One way this idea is expressed, for instance, is that you should not use a 'natural key' as a 'primary key' in a relational database. You can google on those terms if you want. In the sense that an rdbms pk serves as a kind of identifier, that is just one expression of the fundamental guideline not to change your identifiers, and thus not to use things you might want to change as identifiers. I am seriously not sure why you are arguing this, James. This is a pretty fundamental concept of data design accepted by every single contemporary era data/database/metadata designer. This is probably my last post in this thread, this is getting frustrating to me. Perhaps it's my fault in not being able to explain this concept adequately, in which case I don't think I can personally do any better then I've done. Otherwise, I am not sure why you are insisting on arguing with a basic principle accepted by everyone else doing computer-era data/database/metadata design -- which has been proven in practice to be a really good prinicple. It's not a controversial principle. At all. Anywhere except among library catalogers, apparently. Jonathan On 4/25/2011 12:12 PM, James Weinheimer wrote: On 04/25/2011 05:56 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: snip If you maintain the preferred display form as your _identifier_, then whenever the preferred display form changes, all those links will need to be changed. This is why contemporary computer-era identifier practice does NOT use preferred display form as an identifier. Because preferred display forms change, but identifiers ought not to. The identifier should be a _persistent_ link into your database for the identified record. /snip So long as the link from your database links unambiguously to the resource you want to link to, that is all that matters. There are different ways of allowing that. This function is most efficiently handled by the database you are linking into, instead of the single database expecting everybody in the world to change their own databases to add their URIs. For example, I could add a link for the NAF form of Leo Tolstoy to dbpedia to interoperate with it. If they had a special search for exact NAF form, like in the VIAF, it would definitely be unambiguous. My point is: this is something that is achievable. Probably through a relatively simple API, it could be implemented in every catalog pretty easily. There is just no hope that each catalog will add URIs within any reasonable amount of time. Certainly, if we were creating things from scratch, we could redo everything that would be better for us (there is no doubt in my mind that future information specialists/catalogers 80 years from now will be complaining about whatever we make), but you must play the cards you are dealt and be creative with what you have. Perhaps it wouldn't be perfect, or maybe it would, I don't know, but in any case, it would be vastly better than what we have now and people could start discovering and using our records in new ways. -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University
Re: [RDA-L] Linked files
Actually it doesn't remain the same. The current rules say that identities can and should move on and off of an undifferentiated personal name authority (UndiffPNA). When an UndiffPNA is reduced to representing a single identity again, it is recoded as unique (UniqPNA), until another person with the same name gets added to it, it becomes a UndiffPNA again, and so on--all under the same LCCN. So, over time, the rules will require that a single LCNAF authority record represent a string of unique persons: UniqPNA Smith, John (1) Smith, John (2) appears, and cannot be given a unique heading UndiffPNA Smith, John (1) and Smith, John (2) Smith, John (1) acquires a distinguishing bit of data and is given a separate, new record. UniqPNA Smith, John (2) Smith, John (3) appears, and cannot be given a unique heading UndiffPNA Smith, John (2) and Smith, John (3) Smith, John (2) acquires a distinguishing bit of data and is given a separate, new record. UniqPNA Smith, John (3) I agree with Jonathan that persons are slippery, UndiffPNAs are pretty useless, and that they should never revert to UniqPNAs; but the rules instruct us otherwise (specifically, LC's Descriptive Cataloging Manual, Section Z1, 008/32, which NACO follows: When an undifferentiated personal name authority record is being revised to delete all but one name, change value b to a. ). Stephen On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: I'd interprett it differently, I'd say that an undifferentiated name authority always refers to the same thing -- a sort of fake person that isn't really a known person at all. But this remains the same, it's just the way it is. -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Linked files
I've been trying to identify the linchpins in our documentation that hold the sorry UndifPNA practice together. One is the DCM instruction cited earlier. Another is the revised NACO Heading Comparison Rules which forbid identical 100s. All AACR2 says is that identical headings should be used in bib records when heading forms can't be distinguished. It does not require that a single authority record be created for persons with undifferentiated headings, and as John and Diane point out, there's no need to do so. If differentiation is managed elsewhere, the 100s (or more precisely, the encoded heading texts) could be identical. The heading comparison rules could take into account additional data not meant for display in the heading text, like a difference between LCCNs. There's more about managing undifferentiated names in RDA than there ever was in AACR2. RDA instructs that the Undiff indicator must be used when the core elements are not sufficient to distinguish two names (e.g., RDA 8.3); but there may be room to argue that multiple PNAs could carry the Undiff indicator to acknowledge that their 100s are undifferentiated, without requiring that all the persons who share an undifferentiated heading also share a single authority record. Maybe that could be done with an LC Policy Statement. The point of the 008/32=b code would be to warn systems not to do automatic matching on certain records' heading text strings, which is the practical value it has now. VIAF and other smart systems avoids matches involving UndiffPNAs. However, if the relationship between an authority record's ID and the person it represents were fixed and consistent, then systems using the LCCN identifier (or some synonymous ID) to match between bib headings and authority records could safely link to an UndiffPNA and thereby inherit any later changes to that person's heading or authority record. My guess is there are other rules that I haven't spotted yet, but these three--DCM Z1 008/32, NACO Heading Comparison, and RDA/LCPS--would need to change to correct the current practice. Stephen On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Diane I. Hillmann d...@cornell.edu wrote: Just to point out a few things here: If we were not making the text of the name serve double duty, we would be providing an identifier to every newly established name, and the description would provide information on where that name appeared (a title page, for instance), which would thereby provide a distinction between it and another authority description based on a different resource, where the name that displayed was the same. In this new world, there would NEVER be a need for an UndiffPNA (thanks, Stephen, for the unpronouncable shortened name for this!). If we ultimately discovered that this John Smith really was the same as THAT John Smith, we could associate them, BUT NOT HAVE TO CHANGE THE IDENTIFIERS. Consider the amount of sheer human grunt work we could avoid (not to mention the actually bucks), with absolutely no loss of quality control, by moving on from our traditional practices. And why can't we convince people that this is better, cheaper, and much more sensible? ARRRGGH. Diane On 4/25/11 1:42 PM, Stephen Hearn wrote: Actually it doesn't remain the same. The current rules say that identities can and should move on and off of an undifferentiated personal name authority (UndiffPNA). When an UndiffPNA is reduced to representing a single identity again, it is recoded as unique (UniqPNA), until another person with the same name gets added to it, it becomes a UndiffPNA again, and so on--all under the same LCCN. So, over time, the rules will require that a single LCNAF authority record represent a string of unique persons: UniqPNA Smith, John (1) Smith, John (2) appears, and cannot be given a unique heading UndiffPNA Smith, John (1) and Smith, John (2) Smith, John (1) acquires a distinguishing bit of data and is given a separate, new record. UniqPNA Smith, John (2) Smith, John (3) appears, and cannot be given a unique heading UndiffPNA Smith, John (2) and Smith, John (3) Smith, John (2) acquires a distinguishing bit of data and is given a separate, new record. UniqPNA Smith, John (3) I agree with Jonathan that persons are slippery, UndiffPNAs are pretty useless, and that they should never revert to UniqPNAs; but the rules instruct us otherwise (specifically, LC's Descriptive Cataloging Manual, Section Z1, 008/32, which NACO follows: When an undifferentiated personal name authority record is being revised to delete all but one name, change value b to a. ). Stephen On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Jonathan Rochkindrochk...@jhu.edu wrote: I'd interprett it differently, I'd say that an undifferentiated name authority always refers to the same thing -- a sort of fake person that isn't really a known person at all. But this remains the same, it's just the way
Re: [RDA-L] Linked files
But submit to whom? I think PCC oversaw the last revision of the NACO Heading Comparison rules (formerly NACO normalization). LC manages the DCM, which is closer to being an internal document than the LCRIs have been, and less open to community input. (DCM's instructions on using pairs of 670s in the 670/General section would also need changing.) Does JSC need to rule on what RDA means to say about undifferentiated names before LC can make policy statement about them? Regardless, this goes nowhere without LC and changes to the DCM. I've tried to make the case with leaders there and have met with a counter that presumes that undifferentiated authorities are used when the persons, not their headings, can't be distinguished, which really misunderstands how UndiffPNAs are structured and used. The DCM 670 instructions already make it clear that the persons on an UndiffPNA are being distinguished from one another through the device of paired 670 fields. It's very frustrating. Stephen On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Mary Mastraccio ma...@marcive.com wrote: My guess is there are other rules that I haven't spotted yet, but these three--DCM Z1 008/32, NACO Heading Comparison, and RDA/LCPS--would need to change to correct the current practice. The desire to have the UndifPNA practice/records changed has been expressed repeatedly over the years. It seems to me that someone needs to step forward to officially submit such a proposal. Can PCC, or similar group, be persuaded to promote this change? Mary L. Mastraccio, MLS Cataloging Authorities Librarian MARCIVE, Inc. San Antonio Texas 78265 1-800-531-7678 ma...@marcive.com www.marcive.com -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] RDA and MARC (was Linked data)
Yes and no. On the one hand, music catalogers have been much more diligent about using uniform titles for works. On the other hand, in terms of recorded performances, all of what they deal with could be considered expressions. As expressions, their access points are not differentiated, e.g., by performer, when multiple works appear together in a recording, and the association between an individual performer and a particular expression often requires human interpretation. What's needed is a tiered or multi-record structure. We could embed lots of micro-records in a record for a recording in order to associate the significant entities and attributes with each of the objects it contains (imagine a record for a recording, only much longer and more redundant with other records). We could divide the work among multiple records, putting one set of data on a FRBR work record, another on an expression record, and linking both of those directly or indirectly to a manifestation record for a compilation. But we still haven't figured out how we'll build such records or such links. The discussion at Midwinter MARBI about enabling a label for work and expression records without real consideration of how to encode their contents was indicative of how far we have to go on this. Stephen On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net wrote: Quoting Weinheimer Jim j.weinhei...@aur.edu: But I wonder if what you point out is a genuine problem, especially in an RDA/FRBR universe. The user tasks are to find, identify, yadda -- works, expressions, manifestations, and *items*. Not sub-items. Jim, I think you're at the wrong end of the WEMI continuum -- what this record lacks is better access to *Works* contained in the manifestation/item. Items are the physical items, the thing you have in hand. The added entries in this record represent persons and works. The fact that music cataloging has used constructed titles for all works (Quartets, strings, no. 1) puts them way ahead of other cataloging communities, in particular book cataloging. In music, you almost always have a Work-level representation for every work in the manifestation. In book cataloging we not only lack controlled names for most works (e.g. no uniform titles), but there is less emphasis on adding an entry for every work in the manifestation. (And there's great confusion as to what multiple works mean for expressions.) It's fairly common to find a book record that *should* have a uniform title but does not. http://lccn.loc.gov/46003912 (and to be clear, LC is relatively diligent about UTs compared to many other libraries) In addition, it seems to be unclear whether the titles in added entries in book records for other books consist of uniform titles, or what to do in cases when the library has decided not to display or shelve books under uniform titles that its users may not recognize (Voina i Mir). You cannot assume that the lack of 240 means that the 245 $a$b entry is *also* the UT, and you cannot assume that a 7xx$t has been created in proper UT form. I think that defining, grasping, and coding of Work titles (as they are called in FRBR and RDA) is going to be a huge challenge... but mainly in those areas where we haven't done a good job of this in the past. I'm beginning to think that music cataloging could lead the way because there is greater clarity about multiple works in a manifestation than we have in book cataloging. I'd be interested to hear if there are other cataloging subsets that have handled this well -- law? maps? serials? kc -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Linked data
It's a good article, but also a bit disingenuous. Much more was being asked for than just a displayable title, as the author's dissatisfaction with the initial results makes clear. It would help to have the full list of expectations stated up front, to make clear that what is being asked for is itself fairly complex: A displayable title A recognizable title (Selections is not enough, but neither is Symphony no. 3) A title which represents the full contents of the object A title which makes clear the semantic relationships of its several elements That's a taller order than what the wording of the article suggests. To demand beyond that than any algorithm proposed for extracting such a complex piece of data from MARC should be reliable across the vast sea of catalog records with all their acknowledged variability is just silly. MARC is complex, the cataloging rules are complex, and the objects they seek to represent are, in many, many cases, complex. Simple approaches to any of these won't work, unless the bar for what's expected is set very low. Stephen On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 12:03 PM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: Again, as someone who knows cataloing rules, if there's an algorithm you can give me that will let me extract the individual elements (actual transcribed title vs analytical titles vs parallel titles vs statement of responsibility) reliably from correct AACR2 MARC, please let me know what it is. I am fairly certain there is no such algorithm that is reliable. I guess you could say that there's no reason to _expect_ that you should be able to get those elements out of a data record. But most developers, library or not, will consider bibliographic data that you can't reliably extract the title of the item (a pretty basic attribute, just about the most basic attribute there is) from to be pretty low-value data. They won't change their opinion if you show them the record serialized in MarcXML instead of ISO Marc21. All that you get by being an expert in the data is the knowledge that you _can't_ really reliably algorithmically extract the transcribed title alone from any arbitrary 245 of Marc/AACR2. It'll work for the basic cases, but once you start putting in parallel titles, analytics, and parallel titles of analytical titles, it's a big mess -- and such complicated cases (which are rare in general but common in some domains like music records) are also the ones where the cataloger is most likely to have gotten the punctuation not EXACTLY right, making it even more hopeless, even if the programmer did want to write an incredibly complicated algorithm that tried to take into account the combination of ISBD punctuation with marc subfields. Yes, many of these issues have been known from the beginning and dealt with in various ways. That doesn't make the data easily useable by developers, whether you put in MarcXML or not. Those various ways, if we're talking about software trying to extract elements from bib records, are expensive (in developer time) and fragile (they still won't work all the time) hacks. On 1/19/2011 12:52 PM, Weinheimer Jim wrote: Jonathan Rochkind wrote: Concerning: One example of this can be found reported in this article: http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/3832; snip Okay, what would someone who knows library metadata do to get a displayable title out of records in an arbitrary corpus of MARC data? There's an easy answer that only those who know library metadata (apparently unlike people like Thomale or me who have been working with it for years) can provide? I have my doubts. /snip I agree that this is an excellent article that everyone should read, but I wrote a comment myself there (no. 7) discussing how this article illustrates how important it is to know cataloging rules and/or to work closely with experienced catalogers when building something like this. It also shows how many programmers concentrate on certain parts of a record and tend to ignore the overall view, while catalogers concentrate on whole records. In this case, the parsing is *always* done manually by the cataloger, who is directed to make title added entries, along with uniform titles, including the authors--that is, so long as the cataloger is competent and following the rules. So, it is always a mistake to concentrate only on a single field since a record must be must be considered in its entirety. It would be unrealistic for systems people to know these intricacies, but it just shows how important it is that they work closely with catalogers. Therefore, it's not *necessarily* arbitrary. Many of these issues have been known since the very beginnings and have been dealt with in various ways. James L. Weinheimer j.weinhei...@aur.edu Director of Library and Information Services The American University of Rome Rome, Italy First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata
Re: [RDA-L] RDA Questions
No set of rules can ultimately determine the form of a name heading, because that will inevitably depend on the information available to the person creating the authority record. Two people with different information can create different headings for the same person following the same rule set. Authority files are the only way to determine a shared form of name heading. That being the case, I'm more concerned about not having authority control split between an RDA file and an AACR2 file. We'll better served by a convention which treats established AACR2 headings as RDA compatible and treats RDA headings as AACR2 compatible, thereby enabling a single authority record and, more importantly, a single authority file to be used for both AACR2 and RDA bib records. We already have much more aggresive conventions when it comes to updating authorities than we used to, so we could expect a steady migration of headings and authority records in the direction of RDA. The advantages of authorizing against a single file rather than starting up a second parallel file during this transition would be considerable. I can understand the reasons for using 7XX authority links during the trial period, since it's less intrusive on the relationship of AACR2 established headings and bibs; but it's not going to be the best transition strategy when real implementation begins. Stephen On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Mike Tribby mike.tri...@quality-books.comwrote: If we are using authority records from LC, anything other than following their lead would not make sense. Again, not every cataloging agency follows LC's lead. This kind of option in the RDA rules serves no purpose that I can see. And haven't we heard plenty in the recent past about not relying on LC for everything? If the rules allow deviations in practice, deviations are sure to occur. Moreover, LC does _not_ prepare every authority record in the shared authority file. Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:mike.tri...@quality-books.com -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Brenda Parris Parker Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 10:59 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] RDA Questions If we are using authority records from LC, anything other than following their lead would not make sense. Brenda Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA writes: Which is why I suggest that we follow LC's lead in this matter. Robert L. Maxwell Head, Special Collections and Formats Catalog Dept. 6728 Harold B. Lee Library Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 (801)422-5568 -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Mike Tribby Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 9:42 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] RDA Questions How does open-ended instruction on just how to note birth and death dates achieve the interchangeability and all-important granularity that RDA is purported to advance? If I record Lee Perry as Perry, Lee, 1936- and another cataloging agency records him as Perry, Lee, b. 1936 how does that achieve anything other than confusion? If confusion is our goal, I'm all for it at this point. But somehow I doubt that's what we're pursuing here. Brenda Parris Parker Technical Services/Reference Librarian Brewer Library Calhoun Community College Decatur, AL No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.448 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3183 - Release Date: 10/07/10 18:34:00 -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Interesting conversations about RDA and FRBR ...
On the point about reinventing--it's worth noting that Classical Archives succeeds by being more rigorous, more uniform, and more extensive in its use of what librarians would call uniform title data--form terms, instrumentation, etc.--than librarians are. So maybe it doesn't matter whether the user community understands uniform titles, as long as uniform title data is presented to them in a useful way. Given that catalog records have made this harder by burying many uniform titles in 245 fields, not providing a uniform set of identifying information, and treating uniform titles generally as optional data, the struggles systems have had with providing inclusive, well ordered index displays is understandable. RDA's extensions of the MARC21 authority format could help with this, if they're uniformly applied. A big if ... On the point about generating descriptions of higher-level objects from attributes common to sets of manifesation records--often the higher-level object whose attributes we'd like to capture is only partially represented and deeply enmeshed in attribute statements about the manifestation. Manifestations are far from being transparent containers of works and expressions. Deriving work and expression descriptions from them is a good idea, but it will be a lot harder than it looks. More broadly, though, letting the recognition that some sets of objects contain a common work/expression drive the choice of which work/expressions to establish makes a lot of sense. Stephen On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Mike Tribby mike.tri...@quality-books.com wrote: How would the OPAC know to display only English-language books if you don't tell it beforehand, whether FRBR catalog or otherwise? If the search one initiated were on title spelled in English or on the title (spelled in English) in a keyword search? Perhaps the title in English as a keyword search would bring up the Danish version, too, though. Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:mike.tri...@quality-books.com -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Mark Ehlert Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 10:02 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Interesting conversations about RDA and FRBR ... J. McRee Elrod m...@slc.bc.ca wrote: Won't FRBR result in even more unwanted item records being displayed? Will one be able to turn of FRBR display in OPACs? I don't *need* to see the record for the Danish original of the murder mystery I want to read! How would the OPAC know to display only English-language books if you don't tell it beforehand, whether FRBR catalog or otherwise? -- Mark K. Ehlert Minitex CoordinatorUniversity of Minnesota Bibliographic Technical 15 Andersen Library Services (BATS) Unit222 21st Avenue South Phone: 612-624-0805Minneapolis, MN 55455-0439 http://www.minitex.umn.edu/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.445 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3136 - Release Date: 09/15/10 06:34:00 -- Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist Technical Services, University Libraries University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 Fx: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
The web statements would presumably be derived from a large set of records, not from an individual record. The bib record for Sturges' Magnificent 7 if constructed the same way as the Kurosawa record would inferentially provide the data needed to create the statement establishing his connection. The logic would break down, though, when the bib record describes multiple objects. A MARC bib record describing a 3-DVD set of the three King Kong movies would have a hard time associating individual directors with their movies in a way that machines could process. As Adam observed, an authority record focused on a particular work or expression in a way that many bib records are not would provide a better basis for establishing these kinds of relationships. Stephen Adam L. Schiff wrote: In today's record, we would code this somewhat like: 100 $a Kurosawa, Akira $e director 245 $a Shichinin no samurai 246 $a Seven Samurai 500 $a Adapted as The Magnificent 7 730 $a Magnificent 7 Well I would change your 100 to a 700 to make this more like what we do in a bibliographic record. But there's no reason all of this could not be in an authority record instead: 130 $a Shichinin no samurai 430 $a Seven samurai 500 $a Kurosawa, Akira $e director 530 $w r $i adapted as $a Magnificent 7 ** * Adam L. Schiff * * Principal Cataloger* * University of Washington Libraries * * Box 352900 * * Seattle, WA 98195-2900 * * (206) 543-8409 * * (206) 685-8782 fax * * asch...@u.washington.edu * ** -- Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] Systems v Cataloging was: RDA and granularity
I appreciate John Myers example. This conversation has itself been lacking in granularity. But one of the things it points out is that we're not necessarily talking about MARC. The spotty use of uniform titles for translations is a result of cataloging policy decisions, not a limit imposed by MARC. On the other hand, there are limits in MARC. At MARBI there has been talk of the need for a level of demarcation below the MARC subfield. There's often talk of the exhaustion of the definable value set for some MARC fixed fields and some fields' subfield codes. The gerrymandering of MARC to express RDA elements has been strange to watch, and it's clear that many would be happier doing this development in a more flexible coding environment with a wider support base. My understanding of Karen Coyle's original point was that the MARC data format is not congruent with the rules used to formulate data for it. AACR2 covers some of what goes into MARC; subject rules cover some more; DCM covers some more; and rules guidance for the correct coding and interpretation of MARC fixed field data can be hard to find. RDA may define a more granular and extensive element set and standard values for some elements, but since it's format-independent, there will still be need for adjunct documentation to explain how those elements are mapped into whatever format is used to express them. Add to that the ongoing division of cataloging expertise into different domains, and a certain amount of complexity and incongruity in our cataloging rule sets and their relationship to format seems inevitable. In any case, given how complex our rules and format environments are, statements about the failure of MARC or AACR2 or RDA are very hard to interpret. More specificity about what in particular is failing will help us understand and analyze the problems better and come up with better solutions. Granularity and complexity--gotta love 'em if you're in this game. Stephen Myers, John F. wrote: At the risk of showing my ignorance on the topic, it's not so much getting info from MARC -- as Daniel's quip indicates there are a few thousand ILSes doing fine with it. The issue is making the information actionable by other machines. I might add that not all of the shortcomings are MARC's fault but also of the cataloging codes that are used to populate a MARC record. As an example, consider the FRBR expression entity. A significant aspect in textual works between expressions is translation. We do have a 240 field to record that, but since the application of the rules for Uniform titles were left to the discretion of the cataloging agency, indication of an expression for a translation can also appear in a translation note recorded in tag 500, sometimes in conjunction with the 240 but oftentimes alone (as several thousand records in my catalog will attest). Now, if this data were consistently recorded in the 240 (both with respect to the format and to the application of use of the 240), then machine FRBR-ization of these records for translations would be relatively simple. In the present circumstances however, with the existing mix of treatments, it is much, much more complicated. Having attempted to duplicate solo translation notes into corresponding 240 tags, I have learned there are no simple solutions. I have to manually copy, interpret, and edit the data due to the free-text nature of the note. I could employ a few programming tricks to simplify some of the tasks, but I would still need to review so much of the resulting edits that my current manual method is no less inefficient than a (partially) programmed approach. My manual approach is on the edge of practicality (although I'm not sure which side), when I start with a file of about 4k culled from a database of about 300k. Any larger sets would likely be unfeasible. Doubtless others will have more cogent examples but I hope this gives a hint as to the problem. John F. Myers, Catalog Librarian Schaffer Library, Union College 807 Union St. Schenectady NY 12308 518-388-6623 mye...@union.edu -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Frances, Melodie Can anyone explain WHY it's so hard to get info from MARC? -- Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] RDA and granularity
I thought that $n and $p are in 245 because they're defined as uniform title elements, and 245 is unfortunately considered to be both the descriptive title and the uniform title when coincidence allows. One value of $n and $p subfielding in uniform titles is that you can authorize headings hierarchically and provide references appropriate to different levels. Without $n and $p, the 245 couldn't contain the authorized form of some uniform titles. Of course, this has all proved very problematic. The transcribed title and the uniform title should be separate data structures. In the former, where apparently the main use of subfielding would be to control machine-supplied punctuation and display labeling to data which is determined by transcription rules, the mix of needed subfields would be different from that needed for uniform titles, which for example have no parallel title component needing its own subfield. Stephen Kevin M. Randall wrote: John Attig wrote: Subfields $n and $p are an example of this. I would hate to lose these distinctions; specifically, they relate to ISBD punctuation specifications and -- as noted in MARC 2010-DP01 -- this content designation does allow ISBD punctuation to be supplied for display rather than encoded in the data (although the 245 field cannot support all the possible ISBD punctuation conventions). John, thanks a lot (NOT!) for explaining this. I was getting all ready to push for making $n and $p obsolete. The thing is, apart from their usefulness in identifying the ISBD elements, I can't think of any use for them in our systems. If anything, they are an impediment! It is very common for index and OPAC displays to suppress $n and $p data. Even OCLC does it!! Does anybody know what good the subfield codes do us? Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Bibliographic Services Dept. Northwestern University Library 1970 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: k...@northwestern.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-4345 -- Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] (Online) qualifier for series
In the case of multi-part monographs, LCNAF has cases of authorized access points for what I take to be manifestation-level entities, e.g. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973. Lord of the rings (Silver anniversary edition) [LCCN n 42024986] which is a controlled heading for a particular edition from a particular publisher. Will these be accommodated in RDA? Or will things like publisher, edition, and year of an edition's first publication be considered attributes of expression-level entities for multi-part monographs? Stephen Adam L. Schiff wrote: RDA has both authorized access point for work and authorized access point for expression. There are no rules at present for authorized access points for specific manifestations or items. Adam ^^ Adam L. Schiff Principal Cataloger University of Washington Libraries Box 352900 Seattle, WA 98195-2900 (206) 543-8409 (206) 685-8782 fax asch...@u.washington.edu http://faculty.washington.edu/~aschiff ~~ On Wed, 22 Jul 2009, Karen Coyle wrote: RDA doesn't define a uniform title, but instead (well, I think of it as instead) has title of the work. I think this will be an improvement, in part because every Work should have a title, whereas uniform titles were the exception rather than the rule. Oftentimes the title of the work will be the same as the title proper, which is associated with the manifestation. There doesn't, however, seem to be a specific title for the expression. Maybe someone here could clarify this for us. kc Jonathan Rochkind wrote: hal Cain wrote: Just what is the uniform title intended to do here? To serve as a one-line identifier for what's being catalogued; to provide a linking point for the work content; or to provide a linking point for the expression embodied? This is a really important point. In my reading of our history, the uniform title has traditionally been intended to do _several_ things, things that sometimes work at cross-purposes. Many of these things haven't really been specified, so much as they are tradition -- and in the current environment, often applied mechanistically without thinking about intent. We need to become clear on what uniform title is supposed to do -- and I believe, once we have that clarity, it will also be clear that uniform title alone can't do all the things it's been implicitly depended upon (or hoped for?) to do. We need instead one mechanism for collocating works, another for collocating expressions, another to serve as user-presentable display label (supporting doing this in multiple languages!), another to say what language an expression is in, and another to do... whatever it is that music catalogers do with uniform title (there are probably half a dozen different things just in music cataloging practice, none of which I understand!) Jonathan Until we have that clear (and RDA discussions have failed to make that clear to me -- perhaps on account of my inattention, but I can usually follow clear exposition) we'll go on making ad-hoc and conflicting decisions. FWIW I don't think the application of FRBR categories provides us with the tools to make the distinctions people are talking about here -- they're not subtle enough, at least not within the framework of the MARC21 bibliographic format. And the success will depend on the display created, a matter which RDA chose not to address, but crucial to the outcome. Hal Cain Dalton McCaughey Library Parkville, Victoria, Australia h...@dml.vic.edu.au -- --- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 -- Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
[RDA-L] [Fwd: Re: [RDA-L] FW: [RDA-L] Slave to the title page?]
Actually, I think there are more factors involved than just powerful technology and limited imaginations. Consider organizational structures--the relationships which national library CIP programs are based on are not between an author and a cataloger, but between publishing companies and a national library. If every individual website creator could voluntarily demand CIP cataloging, that would be a major change to the CIP program, not just a new application of a tried-and-true model. It would likely overwhelm LC's ability to uphold its side of the bargain, since the allocation of limited human resources is another factor that the powerful technology and limited imaginations equation ignores. One way around this is the distribution of CIP creation to a host of other providers, as Mac suggests--but does this really have the same value, given that these alternate CIP sources presumably cannot be supply an LCCN or other national library record identifier for their data? Maybe instead of an extension of the CIP program, we need to imagine something new--a program that would distribute unique LCCNs without cataloging to content providers or operations like Quality Books and SLC. The LCCNs could then be embedded in the content providers' productions with or without accompanying metadata (following certain guidelines, of course). The LCCN identifier and the document itself, in whatever form, would then become the kernel of information from which various kinds of surrogate records could be developed and authorized at different levels. That might actually be affordable at an organizational level, at least until we run out of LCCNs. Stephen Original Message Subject:Re: [RDA-L] FW: [RDA-L] Slave to the title page? Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 18:21:27 +0100 From: Weinheimer Jim j.weinhei...@aur.edu Reply-To: j.weinhei...@aur.edu To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA J. McRee (Mac) Elrod wrote: Properly approached, and shown that included bibliographic data would increase hits, website creators might well welcome such a feature. Some publishers who fall outside LC's cataloguing in publication program pay Quality Books $50 for CIP for inclusion in their publications, because they have found it increases sales. Some Canadian publishers purchase CIP from us (at less cost because we do not establish the related authorities as does QB). Imbedded bibliographic data in websites could be thought of as CIP. It's not a new or novel concept. It would be best if website creators could be included in the LC and LAC CIP programs as are text publishers. No, it's not a new idea at all--that's one of its greatest advantages. It's simply a new application of a tried-and-true model, plus there would be a division of labor based on the most efficient workers: the initial record made by catalogers (with input from the creator), updates to the description by the creator, updates to headings by the cataloger, while everything remains under the watch of the selectors. If someone else wants the record, they could just take it from the embedded metadata. I am sure there could be numerous variations on this, but the main thing is to increase the number of people working to create and primarily, maintain the metadata. Many catalogers would see this as a loss of control of the record, and it would be since untrained people could make many mistakes, but nobody can convince me that a record created by an experience cataloger that becomes outdated, where the title no longer describes anything that exists and a URL that points into the 404 Not Found Twilight Zone is good for anything except to confuse everyone and provide bad publicity for our field. MARC should change in this scenario as well. First, to XML and then to allow some freedom for the creators, perhaps an area for some keywords of their choice, some special URLs for them, and other possible fields reserved for their use. And yes, for static digital resources, AACR2 has proven itself to be adequate. I think a lot can be done today that would help everyone concerned, from the selectors and catalogers, to the creators and researchers. The technology is so powerful today that we are only limited by our imaginations. Jim Weinheimer -- Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] [Fwd: Re: [RDA-L] FW: [RDA-L] Slave to the title page?]
I agree that pushing out cataloging doesn't result in consistent data records, but that's not really what I was suggesting. My suggestion was that it might be possible to push out the assigning of unique identifiers to be used in description and access records, if the process of doing so could be well automated and the agency doing so had the necessary credibility. If all I got from a website's metadata was the LCCN that the creator had received and assigned to it, that could be used to aggregate all the available efforts to describe or catalog the website in more formal ways. The level and authority of any record found would be reflected in the record; the LCCN would promise nothing except uniqueness. Guidelines would be needed only to ensure uniqueness--to advise against using the same one for different productions, etc. Kind of a URI, only more universal. Of course, experience teaches that no voluntary system is perfect. There are publishers which re-use their ISBNs. But the threshhold for success in assigning a unique identifier correctly is a bit lower than that for creating good cataloging, so the rate of success would hopefully be higher. Stephen Karen Coyle wrote: Weinheimer Jim wrote: The biggest problem, which is even more important now than before is: why would a website creator or outside, for-profit publisher want to cooperate at all if this record is placed in some stinky, old library catalog? Huge problems are easy to point to. Just to note on the idea of pushing out the creation of cataloging to the creator, that was the original impetus behind Dublin Core http://dublincore.org/about/history/ and it has failed, even though it promised to make web searching more accurate (not put data into library catalogs). Creators aren't interested, especially as long as their work can be found, without that effort, through search engines. You can argue all day about how much better things would be if we had metadata for the title and the creator and the current date, but we've been there, done that, to no avail. It is possible to extract some metadata from web documents, and it's possible that Google may make use of some of the html coding in its indexing. But I am convinced that we're going to have to get along without much human cooperation. kc -- --- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 -- Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] RDA records coding and systems
On the technical side I can imagine a set of interoperating systems that
would let one do a truncated search to find Tolstoy's record in a
database of identity records. Once that was selected, all the data would
be sufficiently marked up so that the URL and the appropriate text
string for your catalog would be automatically captured and dropped into
the data slot you started from. No copying and pasting at all.
Finding an organizational base for this is much harder. Maintaining
files of authorized terms and unique identifiers requires sustained,
skilled, long term effort. Doing so on the scale we'd like--one reliable
set of identity records (or records which link such records, like the
VIAF) for the whole world--is a huge undertaking. Some organization will
need to get paid, and have the authority to designate and manage data at
an international level. If we don't trust the existing major player
organizations to do this, and we don't have a realistic route to
consensus to create and support some new entity for this role, finding
an organizational base to host and maintain this kind of service becomes
a much more significant challenge than the technical piece.
Stephen
J. McRee Elrod wrote:
Jim said:
An example would be a book by Leo Tolstoy who has the form in the
NAF: Tolstoy, Leo, $c graf, $d 1828-1910 but in the DNB it is:
Tolstoj, Lev N. $d 1828-1910 and in the BNF, it's: Tolstoj $b Lev
Nikolaevic#780; $f 1828-1910 all reflecting cultural needs and
respective coding. If all of these things could be handled with a
URI, such as: http://orlabs.oclc.org/viaf/LC|n+79068416 ...
But in what way is cutting and pasting that url easier than cutting
and pasting the Tolstoy entry? If keying, the url is much more
difficult to key (unlike Utlas ASNs). The easiest way to use the
system was to cut and paste the text, and have the system substitute
the pointer. Although one could key, to use your example, either
tolstoy leo 1828, tolstoj lev nicolaevic 1828, or tolstoj lev n
1828, and get the pointer.
But as I keep saying, using a Web url puts you at the mercy of the
Web, and in the case of the sample you give, a commercial entity.
This is not a method which could be used by a great number of
libraries in many parts of the world. If OCLC based, I suspect it
would be denied commercial entities other than OCLC, such as SLC.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
*So the rumours at coffee breat had it.
--
Stephen Hearn
Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section
Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota
160 Wilson Library
309 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] libraries, society and RDA
To me the hard part is ensuring consistency, first of terminology, but more fundamentally of granularity and categorization. The great virtue of MARC/AACR/LSCH cataloging is that it is as consistent as it is across many catalogs and institutions and disciplines. That's not a natural development. The natural tendency of thinking communities is to divide and redivide and to use language, categories, and levels of conceptual granularity to draw distinctions between one community and another. The uniformity achieved by the library cataloging (and it's by no means perfect--just way better than average) comes from open standards and professional discipline driven by an economic necessity to cooperate and interoperate across all the divisions that most intellectual communities depend on to define themselves. Diane's right that we can make data and terminology standards much easier to access, but I don't see what's going to compel diverse communities to use these standards consistently. And like Shawne, I don't see a path yet to contribute to a bibliographic description commons. As for catalogs--when I use my libraries' catalogs (and I do--the Twin Cities library systems all recognize me as a user), it's not mainly bibliographic information that I'm looking for. I want to know what each collection includes, and whether a copy is available, and how long the wait for one will be, whether the titles I'm waiting for have arrived at my branch--and all of these are kinds of information that Google can't give me. To sleight this as an inventory function is a serious mistake. I'm happy to see the bib information and access points finding wider use in open web environments, but that won't begin to give me what my libraries' catalogs do. Stephen Miksa, Shawne wrote: I like fussing. This idea of hoarding and hiding is difficult to understand as it makes it sound as if librarians, and especially those who catalog, are cave dwellers who can't speak. I would also ask you to not generalize all cataloging courses as traditional. We've been incorporating non-traditional ideas into our courses for quite some time now--although I don't use those two terms in my syllabi. Fundamentally, no matter the environment, we create a representation or surrogate of an information object for use within a system (define that as you like). You write: Bibliographic data available freely on the web can be combined and presented in different ways, available to those who might want to try new aggregations and methods of discovery and presentation. In your view, where does that bibliographic data originate? Who puts it into a shape or form so that it is available for the web? Or does it shape itself? I was recently contacted by a library looking for a fresh new student to help catalog some original materials that have no previous records/bib data in any system. Once those description are made--formed into some sort of representation--then that data can be shaped into anything we want and made available through any system, web-based or not. When I try to understand your argument I don't see that part of it--I just see something miraculous happening and then all of sudden things are on the web. Are you suggesting that we set are representations afloat--like paper boats in a stream? My epiphany wore off --I've lost site of your point of view. ** 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101 ** -- Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coordinator/Head, Database Management Section Technical Services, University Libraries, University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library 309 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Ph: 612-625-2328 / Fax: 612-625-3428
Re: [RDA-L] [s.n.] used by Amazon; not confusing after all?
The presence of s.n. in an Amazon record is a small, weak hook to hang anything on; but looking at people's use of other tools can be informative. The one that's on my mind lately is Wikipedia. Among the principles that Wikipedia has adopted are: Unique entry--there's one article on Capital punishment, found under that heading--not multiple takes on this topic, as one would find by sifting through multiple web pages after searching the term in Google (and skipping over the Wikipedia link, which of course came up first). Authority--Wikipedia editors are ever ready to determine what the preferred term of entry should be, to correct errors, provide cross references, etc. SEE references--search Death penalty in Wikipedia, and you get referred to Capital punishment. SEE ALSO references--articles on complex topics have lots of information in sidebars showing relationships with other topics and aspects. Even brief articles include hot-linked terms to related Wikipedia articles, which serve the same purpose. If searchers are much happier sorting through multiple results than finding one, happier in an environment of competing claims than of one governed by some form of authority, offended by any attempt to redirect their search from their preferred term to the one used in a resource, and would rather see personal links to my favorite sites than clear, authoritative indications of available information on related topics--all long-standing features of the way library catalogs serve searchers needs--then why is Wikipedia so popular? Wikipedia's acceptance of community input is obviously also very important to its success, and in that regard it's an instructive model for us, too. But would people like our catalogs better if they were really modeled on Google searches on the open web? Wikipedia's success in just that environment suggests not. Stephen At 12:48 PM 6/10/2008, you wrote: The book in question is available *via* Amazon, but not from Amazon. In other words, this is one of those third-party books, and in that case Amazon obviously gets the data from the third party (a bookseller), not the publisher. The third-party data is often of very poor quality. It should be considered a Good Thing if these independent booksellers use WorldCat or LoC data (and what's in Amazon looks very much like the LoC record http://lccn.loc.gov/2007277697). Those who don't often present very incomplete records. kc Mike Tribby wrote: My guess would be that the metadata Amazon received for this book was library metadata rather than publisher metadata (since the latter would have identified the publisher). I would NOT assume from this that Amazon thought S.N. was anything other than a publisher name. Maybe, except that the book in question has only 6 holdings in WorldCat (certainly not a definitive guide to how many libraries actually hold the item), so there wouldn't be that many libraries able to contribute information in the first place. I think it's far more likely that the information in Amazon that didn't come from the publisher came from reviews-- and the publisher's employees likely know where the publisher is located. The record is an LC record, but judging by the LCCN was not a CIP record, and I'm not sure how much information LC routinely communicates to Amazon. Also, as I said in my original posting to Autocat, I was browsing small press materials on Amazon and saw S.n. used on other materials, too. The book, BTW, is a collection of recipes and humor from Iowa: Midwest Corn Fusion: A Collection of Recipes Humor, ISBN: 9780977833900. Speaking of assumptions, isn't it a little nihlistic to think that nobody but catalogers knows what S.n. means? Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- --- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coord./Database Mgmt. Section Head Technical Services Dept. University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library Voice: 612-625-2328 309 19th Avenue South Fax: 612-625-3428 Minneapolis, MN 55455 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [RDA-L] [s.n.] used by Amazon; not confusing after all?
I read several lists, and I may have gotten this one crossed with another; but I have seen it argued in the last few weeks and without counter that preferred headings and cross references are evidence of librarians' arrogance, and offensive to users who prefer their own terms. And of course, there have been countless calls for library catalogs to be more like Google. So it's interesting to me that evidently, people's first choice when searching Google is Wikipedia, which is so unlike Google in the ways that it organizes information access. Stephen At 04:37 PM 6/10/2008, you wrote: Stephen Hearn wrote: If searchers are much happier sorting through multiple results than finding one, happier in an environment of competing claims than of one governed by some form of authority, offended by any attempt to redirect their search from their preferred term to the one used in a resource, and would rather see personal links to my favorite sites than clear, authoritative indications of available information on related topics--all long-standing features of the way library catalogs serve searchers needs--then why is Wikipedia so popular? Wait, who said they were happier with those things? Nobody I've seen on this list, or really anywhere else. I think this is a straw man. But of course you are right, users are not happier with those things, the various kinds of collocation and relationship assigning that both catalogers, wikipedia, and many other information organization projects, perform in varying ways, are of course useful services, when done effectively. Who is it that says otherwise? Jonathan Wikipedia's acceptance of community input is obviously also very important to its success, and in that regard it's an instructive model for us, too. But would people like our catalogs better if they were really modeled on Google searches on the open web? Wikipedia's success in just that environment suggests not. Stephen At 12:48 PM 6/10/2008, you wrote: The book in question is available *via* Amazon, but not from Amazon. In other words, this is one of those third-party books, and in that case Amazon obviously gets the data from the third party (a bookseller), not the publisher. The third-party data is often of very poor quality. It should be considered a Good Thing if these independent booksellers use WorldCat or LoC data (and what's in Amazon looks very much like the LoC record http://lccn.loc.gov/2007277697). Those who don't often present very incomplete records. kc Mike Tribby wrote: My guess would be that the metadata Amazon received for this book was library metadata rather than publisher metadata (since the latter would have identified the publisher). I would NOT assume from this that Amazon thought S.N. was anything other than a publisher name. Maybe, except that the book in question has only 6 holdings in WorldCat (certainly not a definitive guide to how many libraries actually hold the item), so there wouldn't be that many libraries able to contribute information in the first place. I think it's far more likely that the information in Amazon that didn't come from the publisher came from reviews-- and the publisher's employees likely know where the publisher is located. The record is an LC record, but judging by the LCCN was not a CIP record, and I'm not sure how much information LC routinely communicates to Amazon. Also, as I said in my original posting to Autocat, I was browsing small press materials on Amazon and saw S.n. used on other materials, too. The book, BTW, is a collection of recipes and humor from Iowa: Midwest Corn Fusion: A Collection of Recipes Humor, ISBN: 9780977833900. Speaking of assumptions, isn't it a little nihlistic to think that nobody but catalogers knows what S.n. means? Mike Tribby Senior Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- --- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coord./Database Mgmt. Section Head Technical Services Dept. University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library Voice: 612-625-2328 309 19th Avenue South Fax: 612-625-3428 Minneapolis, MN 55455 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Jonathan Rochkind Digital Services Software Engineer The Sheridan Libraries Johns Hopkins University 410.516.8886 rochkind (at) jhu.edu Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coord./Database Mgmt. Section Head Technical Services Dept. University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library Voice: 612-625-2328 309 19th Avenue South Fax: 612-625-3428 Minneapolis, MN 55455 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: determining FRBR relationships
By way of analogy then--Karen's approach to works would be similar to the U.S. application profile for dealing with format and material type in Z39.50. There, a complex interdependency of multiple fixed field values is used to determine that item X is AV material, or is a DVD, or whatever. But in my limited experience, systems which actually want to interoperate will translate these interdependencies into simple, encoded declarations, so that other systems searching via Z39.50 can do a single search on an index of known values rather than having to get Boolean with all the discrete fixed field values that lie behind them. I assume that's for reasons of processing efficiency. I'm not sure how this would scale with the vastly larger number of discrete work entities; and if the same record is supposed to interoperate with multiple different application profiles for what a work is, ... Alternatively, each community that decides it needs one could have a registry of defined work entities, and the access in the institution's record could be a statement of the relationship between the work's registered ID and the object being described. The elements needed to meet the community's definition of a work would be contained in its work entity record. There could also be the option of deriving from the work entity record a standard form for searching, sorting, and display, as well as elements of the work's definition that might be useful as access points in the institution's record. And the work entity record could also define it's relationship to other entity records, etc. In any case, it's great to see this discussion progressing to the management of multiple definitions of what the Group 1 entities are. That I can deal with, even enjoy dealing with. But the notion that somehow we can do good searching and collocation without acknowledging differences in the definition of the FRBR entities, or by allowing the same entity name to have multiple definitions (like an undifferentiated personal name authority record) just drives me batty. Stephen At 12:29 PM 12/5/2007, you wrote: David M Pimentel wrote: It strikes me that one way to address this situation might be to focus not only on the nature of the relationships between (FRBR) entities, but also on who makes (and hence values) particular relationships. Absolutely! I think this would be handled well through application profiles. The Dublin Core folks have been working on this in the bibliographic realm. There are already examples of application profiles, such as those for Z39.50 and for the OpenURL. Done well, you should be able to make decisions about the meaning of a relationship based on how it is defined in the particular application profile. What this means is that different communities can have their own peculiar (and some will be peculiar) sets of relationships and definitions without being constrained by the needs of others. (Which I think is what has tripped up the library and archive communities in the past -- that we didn't have a way to express different views using the same data elements.) Here's one article on application profiles. There are probably many more and perhaps better ones that others can contribute. I think I'll start a page on APs on the futurelib wiki. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue25/app-profiles/ kc -- --- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coord./Database Mgmt. Section Head Technical Services Dept. University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library Voice: 612-625-2328 309 19th Avenue South Fax: 612-625-3428 Minneapolis, MN 55455 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Wrong model--entity relationship?
just a theory. Think of what we risk if that theory is wrong. kc Martha M. Yee [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sara Shatford Layne [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- --- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coord./Database Mgmt. Section Head Technical Services Dept. University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library Voice: 612-625-2328 309 19th Avenue South Fax: 612-625-3428 Minneapolis, MN 55455 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
scanned images vs transcription
Elizabeth O'Keefe has doubts about the reliability of scanned images as substitutes for t.p. transcription. Greta de Grote would welcome scanned images of video credits as a substitute for transcription. Some time back on this list, Barbara Tillett mentioned the availability of scanned images as one of the factors making transcription less obligatory. How important is this piece of the discussion? Are there differing visions of how the use of scanned images would be implemented or of the reliability of scanned images in general that could account for the varying comfort levels? Will RDA have any more specifics on using scanned images as part of the description? If scanned images are a factor, how does that change what other kinds of data would be recorded as part of a textual description? Stephen Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coord./Database Mgmt. Section Head Technical Services Dept. University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library Voice: 612-625-2328 309 19th Avenue South Fax: 612-625-3428 Minneapolis, MN 55455 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Controlled Access Point as Textual Identifier
Responding to Jonathan Rochkind's analysis: You're right that controlled headings are basically textual identifiers, and that we often get muddled in our analyses when we forget that many elements of the catalog record have multiple uses and purposes, not just one. A couple of your other terms bother me. By foreign, do you mean related in more common parlance? And when you say that the bib record 1XX/245 establishes the textual identifier for the entity it represents (if that's what you meant), bear in mind that establishing is something usually done by authority records. Where no authority record exists (e.g., as for many serial titles), the bib record de facto establishes the textual identifier; but as soon as an authority appears, that establishing function of the bib record's data is eclipsed. And there are work/expression identifiers (e.g., Tolstoy ... Short stories. English. Selections which will not be established by any bib record because no manifestation will use them. Note also that these textual identifiers are unlike many other identifiers because they are hierarchically structured. A single string can reference multiple contexts. The example above will contextualize its bib record with works by Tolstoy, short story collections by Tolstoy, short story collections in English by Tolstoy, ... The term identifier usually signifies a unique value that designates the object, with uniqueness being the prime purpose of the access point; whereas controlled access points tend operate more like a verbal classification system, with useful collocation being their prime purpose. If there's nothing to collocate with, there's arguably no reason to declare a work/expression level identifier. Which brings us to one of the main problems with the FRBR analysis. FRBR wants to address objects from the work level down. In fact, however important they may be for the process of creation, the work and expression levels are meaningless for the description of most bibliographic objects. The few objects that get cited, re-edited, and reworked often enough to warrant work/expression analysis and designation to support useful collocation are a small minority. As such, they are a bad basis for a general model of bibliographic description. We'd get a sounder model if we stood FRBR on its head, and assumed that the item level is primary and universal, and that some items belong to a class of manifestations, and some manifestations belong to a class of expressions, and some expressions belong to a class of works--but that the essential contents of only a few items actually transcend to the numinal realm of bibliographic works in any meaningful way. Stephen At 11:36 AM 2/14/2007, you wrote: access points as 'textual identifiers' ?? Stephen Hearn Authority Control Coord./Database Mgmt. Section Head Technical Services Dept. University of Minnesota 160 Wilson Library Voice: 612-625-2328 309 19th Avenue South Fax: 612-625-3428 Minneapolis, MN 55455 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
