Re: [RDA-L] Kits
Quoting Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu: There's still a question of whether this is sufficient -- is it sufficient to say that _anything_ with more than one 336 not of the same type is a kit No -- a book with a disk inside the cover, or a magazine issue with a disk, is NOT a kit. As another topic, if what we're asking is whether the seperation into the triple of 336 337 and 338 makes sense in the first place (whether for a single item, or an aggregate 'box o stuff') -- I think the answer is that it turns out to be _very_ difficult to develop an ontology/vocabulary/terminology for what turns out to the complicated and context-sensitive notion of content/carrier/genre/form/format/type/whatever-you-call it. Our users own notions of these things are _not_ consistent, and are _very_ context and community dependent. But if we give up on being consistent and just throw terms into a giant grab bag of form/format/genre/carrier -- well, that's pretty much what we had with MARC GMD/SMD (I say MARC and not AACR2 intentionally here -- AACR2 doesn't even mention these! a seperate problem is only our _encoding format_ standard mentions this data element!) -- and it ended up just turning into a mess which made it very difficult for systems to serve users well, especially in non-typical contexts. I think what RDA decided was we should come up with as consistent and rational an ontology as possible for form/format/genre/etc, and once encoded rationally, different systems could take this data and slice, dice, recombine, and display them differently as appropriate for the context or user community. I think this was the right choice, and that the 336/337/338 content/media/carrier three-facet ontology is as complete, flexible, and consistent an ontology as I've seen anywhere for this stuff, I think whoever came up with it did a good job of analysis there. But would it have been better to have the data now recorded in three fields, 336/337/338, recorded in a single field, repeatable as often as required? That reduces the linking problem to simply using $3 to specify the material to which the field applies -- no need for $8 links, or for preserving the original tag order to maintain semantic linking (which, as already pointed out, some systems can't do). Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] RDA media terms
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: Quoting Julie Moore julie.renee.mo...@gmail.com: I think that it is safe to say that most of us are sitting and waiting for our vendors to do something! I would bet that if I asked this question of vendors they would say: We're waiting for our customers to tell us what they want! Vendors implement; the library community decides. In the past the library community hasn't decided -- or at least hasn't spoken with one voice (because they've never hammered out an agreement about what a bibliographic display should look like, ever since the fixed format of the printed/typed card faded away). The people who tell the vendors what's needed are, by and large, not the cataloguers or bibliographers. Even the Library of Congress couldn't get all that was in its specification issued to vendors, when they chose to replace their in-house system (with Voyager). Hal Cain Melbourne, Victoria hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Justification of added entries
Quoting James Weinheimer weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com: Worldcat has made one step forward, and an important one, but there remains a lot to do since it still effectively hides many records from searchers. I think there are many options to try to interoperate, and this shows one step on the path toward the realization of one of those options. Effectively hides?? Jim, please explain. Style and consistency of names? VIAF worked out how to reduce that problem, they just need to apply the knowledge they already have. Consistency of subject terms is a huge challenge. Context imparts meaning; LCSH applied in the Library of Congress is one context; LCSH applied in past times by British Library in UKMARC is another context, and it often shows; non-LCSH subject keywords are something else, and perhaps not from a consistent context anyway. Even LCSH of the 1950s, 60s and 70s sometimes varies from LCSH of the last 20 years; and not just in subdivision patterns. They can't just be consolidated (by some kind of automated translation?) in any way which preserves their semantic weight. Hiding resources, because the records are hidden by inconsistency (if that's what you mean), is nobody's purpose. It might be more productive to consider how many resources now appear in WorldCat because it's drawing on so many files, and to consider what are the first practical steps to draw records together, then what may be the next steps; meanwhile keeping a watch on bulk dataprocessing advances (like VIAF which I keep mentioning, I think it's brilliant). Jim is right, of course, to keep reminding us that *users* finding *resources* (and having access to consult the ones they select as useful) is the final justification and validation for all of this. But we just can't have all of it immediately. Faster, cheaper, better -- there's no easy way to achieve them! Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hegc...@gmail.com preferred address This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Justification of added entries
Quoting Casey A Mullin cmul...@stanford.edu: Regarding the extra time argument, I will just say this succinctly. At Stanford, we did not use relator codes/terms under AACR2. We do under RDA (though, as previously stated, we have the option to leave them out if choosing one leads to agonizing). After our initial training period, in which the burden to add relator terms was only one among the suite of new/different practices, my productivity has returned to previous levels. Several of my colleagues have reported the same. snip Put yet another way: it's not a question of taking extra time, it's a question of encoding the fruits of our intellectual work in way that is friendly to humans AND machines, and thereby making better use of the precious time we have. And IMO the time, even if significant, is worthwhile. In music, the roles of vocalist, instrumental performer, conductor, composer and editor are all significant, and one person may well occupy several of those roles in a lifetime. In textual works, the roles of author, editor, translator are likewise significant. It should be easy to search for a person's name, then specify whether one wants to select resources where that name figures as author, or in another specified intellectual role, or even as subject. Save the reader's timer, anyone? Once we've got away from the minimalist mindset which led to abandonment of relator terms at the implementation of AACR2, we can recognize their value, and begin to insist that public catalogues provide ways of making use of them. It's all very well to say that catalogues are too complicated; but that's because of the nature of the resources, reflected in the data. We need to begin to insist on plain, straightforward features to help users get the best out of our intellectual effort. Relationships need to be easier to follow; simply leaving them out is no benefit. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Completeness of records
Quoting Moore, Richard richard.mo...@bl.uk: Hal The initial work of correlating the data from the LC/NAF and the German authority files and the associated bibliographic records was so effective that it revealed thousands of errors in the LC/NAF -- duplicates, false attributions, errors with undifferentiated name records. I didn't know that. What was done about the errors? My information is from a presentation by OCLC's Ed O'Neill, at the ACOC (Australian Committee on Cataloguing) seminar What's in a Name? held in Sydney (N.S.W.) in January 2005. The formal presentation is available (Powerpoint) on the ACOC website www.nla.gov.au/lis/stndrds/grps/acoc/viaf2005.ppt and of course relates to the early stages of the project. I've just reviewed that, but the observations I referred to are not part of it, so they must have been delivered off the cuff; since my notes seem not to be findable, I have only recollection to guide me, and cannot be more precise. I was struck by the figures Ed presented, as they confirmed impressions I had formed over the previous several years about lurking errors in the LC/NAF anthe LC catalog, and the OCLC database. Anyway, my recollection is that Ed told us that these apparent errors had been reported to (then) CPSO at LC and were to be reviewed and, where found justifed, corrected. IIRC at this time LC had still not completely refined the tools they use today for bulk changes of headings in their bib records to match authority changes (including reported BFM changes), so the task could have proved very laborious and may never have been carried through. I guess one might inquire of the Policy and Standards Division at LC, the chief of which is Dr. Barbara Tillett, herself a member of the VIAF project team and heavily involved, of course, in RDA. VIAF relies for identifying matches between separate authority files not only on the information in the authority records but (at least in the initial work, matching DB and LC/NAF names) also on the bibliographic (resource) records in the DB and LC catalogues respectively -- Ed O'Neill's presentation gives a fascinating account of this. I haven't paid enough attention recently to understand how far this technique has been continued in the expanded VIAF. At the time I attended Ed O'Neill's presentation, I was more concerned with ideas of applying similar techniques (I suppose I might call them data mining?) to help identify and consolidate duplicate bibliographic records in the ANBD (Australian National Bibliographic Database) which supports the Libraries Australia service. Therefore perhaps I didn't pay as much attention as I might have to the authority-resolving details. But it seems clear to me from what we were given that by taking broad categories of data (names in headings but also in text fields (245 $c, 505, 508; publisher names in 260 $b and corporates/conferences in 11x/71X); titles in 245 $a, 505, 440/490, 7XX/8XX $t, 830), that machine grouping can go a long way towards record matching, and do a lot to identify bad matches or distinguish falsely-matched entities, even when working across different data formats (DB data was not in MARC 21, and BNF data isn't MARC 21). And therefore I'm left with doubts about whether very fine granularity in our data, as codified in RDA, is really worth the trouble it seems to be causing. Fuzzy logic may even do the job better than too-scarce skilled humans. Hal Cain, whose involvement is now minimal Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Completeness of records
Quoting Kevin M Randall k...@northwestern.edu (in part): If the data structure does not allow for determining unambiguous relationships between the pieces of data, that places limits on *any* kind of search engine. As wonderful as Lucene may be, it cannot possibly determine the relationships between pieces of data in a document if that document's structure does not label those relationships. A computer cannot work with something that simply isn't there. It is however possible for data encoded in somewhat different systems to be cross-correlated. For an example, see VIAF http://viaf.org/ and try the name of a favorite author. The initial work of correlating the data from the LC/NAF and the German authority files and the associated bibliographic records was so effective that it revealed thousands of errors in the LC/NAF -- duplicates, false attributions, errors with undifferentiated name records. There are limits, of course. It's not always necessary to bring existing data exactly into line. For the future, of course, a standard format consistently applied is clearly the way to go; and reprocessing existing data to achieve a closer match to the new standard may be worthwhile -- but at whose cost? Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Progress on tasks?
Quoting Damian Iseminger damian.isemin...@necmusic.edu (in part): It seems a tad unrealistic to expect progress on any of these goals since ALA just concluded less than a month ago and the next meeting of the JSC is not until mid-August in Scotland. [i.e. November, as already noted]) Yes, the tasks may seem daunting, but they are not unreachable. I seriously doubt that this means RDA is dead. Nevertheless, Mac's inquiry is not frivolous -- ALA just concluded and next meeting of the JSC actually point to the obstacles, the periods of time that, for many, will not be available for work on RDA and related matters, especially MARC replacement. We may assume, of course, that both LC and JSC have already begun to sketch the landscape to be crossed in less than eighteen months; but it would be valuable, and reassuring for many, to have some kind of progress notes. If it were done ... and so on -- maybe the only way it can be done; pausing for feedback and consideration by others may make the task impossible. In her invention of MARC, I don't recall that Henriette Avram paused to consult stakeholders... Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Identifying RDA records
Quoting J. McRee Elrod m...@slc.bc.ca: Brunella said: Just a quick reply to say I strongly disagree with the idea that RDA records can be mixed with existing AACR2 data structures and workflows - What other choice have we? All libraries have one set of copy cataloguers, and many smaller libraries have only one such person. They will have to cope with both AACR2 and RDA among derived records for the foreseeable future. Experience has shown that two catalogues are *not* the way to go. Some Canadian libraries had older DDC and newer LCC collection catalogues. When they threw them together into one microform catalogue, the DDC collection use shot up. Ditto the former separate pamphlet and nonbook catalogues. Integration is good. Indeed. I would not countenance any suggestion of separation of catalogues between RDA and AACR2 -- and in any case it seems to me, as a practical matter (in an environment where library funds are shrinking, as they are for a great many libraries), impossible. After all, there are considerable differences between AACR2 and earlier codes (or local practices of libraries that contributed their data to RLIN, OCLC, and other consolidated bibliographic databases) and we manage to get along -- though I admit to being irritated, and having workflows complicated, by the addition of non-Anglo-American cataloguing to WorldCat. The reality is that OCLC, Libraries Australia, and other consolidated databases are vital elements of cataloguing workflow, and segregating RDA data from the rest is simply not going to succeed. Being able to restrict selection to RDA data is another matter entirely. If I chose to be a purist, I would say that no existing catalogue or bibliographic database, and no development of MARC that I can imagine, can embody all the capabilities of RDA and exhibit all the characteristics of FRBR/FRAD (or comparable data structures). Nor do I think it at all likely that the accumulated data of the existing bibliographic universe will ever be revised to include all those characteristics (data elements, entities and relationships). Indeed, as a practical matter, I find it somewhat implausible to imagine that cataloguing under RDA will really do all that! RDA test records I've seen often fall short Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Indexing 336-384
Quoting Cheryl L. Conway ccon...@uark.edu: The University Libraries is exploring re-indexing our online catalog. We are wondering: Are libraries planning to index RDA (336-384) fields within their library catalogs? I assume you means what I would describe as changing the mapping of MARC fields and subfields in specifying what particular indexes cover, and possibly setting up some new indexes. I haven't heard of any library undertaking this yet simply on account of RDA. Those I know that are considering the possibility have done no more than sketch possibilities, but seem to intend to wait until RDA implementation, and particularly LC and PCC decisions, are made. Until then, apart from a few libraries continuing to deploy RDA with (I presume) the LC RDA test specifications -- the University of Chicago Library is a notable one -- most people seem to be in a state of wait and see. In the system I know best (SirsiDynix's Horizon) it's possible for authorized staff to conduct SQL searches at database level. That would suffice for investigating what specific RDA content has entered the system and help show whether separate indexes are called for. I assume most other systems have some similar capability, if they don't provide a keyword search targeted to specific MARC fields (as, for example, LC's Voyager system does). Hal Cain, willing to wait and see Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] latin, the dead language
Quoting Deborah Fritz debo...@marcofquality.com: RDA will have us indicate that what was on the t.p. was not the correct form using a note, as per: --- 1.7.9 Inaccuracies When instructed to transcribe an element as it appears on the source of information, transcribe an inaccuracy or a misspelled word as it appears on the source, except where instructed otherwise. Make a note correcting the inaccuracy if it is considered to be important for identification or access (see 2.20 ). If the inaccuracy appears in a title, record a corrected form of the title as a variant title (see 2.3.6 ) if it is considered to be important for identification or access. -- So, [sic] and [i.e.] are both out, but we havent' lost useful information for our users, just moved it. And moved it so that it won't appear in a brief display (consulting which is the user's first step in selecting which record represents a resource best suited to meet her/his needs). IMO the logic is faulty, representing the elevation of the principle of representation above the principle of user convenience. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Place of publication in RDA (fwd)
Quoting Danskin, Alan alan.dans...@bl.uk: It is not clear what benefit you perceive is derived from the addition of information about the larger jurisdiction. The benefit is to inform the catalogue user where the document was issued. There are many, many places which may appear in this element of a resource description, but which share a name with other places far distant. One of the FRBR things that seldom reaches our consciousness is context -- the set of conditions in which a work or an expression was created, or a manifestation published. Context also applies when a user searches the catalogue. In my own environment (Australia), Melbourne as unqualified place is inevitably taken to denote the capital of the state of Victoria. In a document description, it might well be the homonymous place in Florida, or in England in Humberside or in Derbyshire -- no doubt there are others as well. Elaine Svenonius, in expounding the principle of representation (to reflect the way bibliographic entities represent themselves)* states the need for truth in transcription to support accuracy; she also says, A description is inaccurate if it in any way misrepresents an entity, making it seem what it is not. No description can be called accurate if the omission of information misleads a proportion of the users of the catalogue where it appears. A great many users outside Ontario who read London will inevitably suppose it to denote the capital of England -- the bibliographical universe is indeed universal. No single principle can be carried to the utmost in implementation without producing an absurd result: there always have to be checks and balances. One strand of check and balance is the normal expectations of the user of the catalogue -- a factor modified by environment, but one of which we can make an easy guess in the case of London. London, England, is not the same place as London, Ontario (nor London, Kentucky; London, Kiribati; nor a number of other places). Accurate knowledge of the place of publication is often one of the criteria for selecting the resource which best meets the user's requirements; the more so as selection is generally made initially from a brief record display, not the full set of data. To deprive the user of the necessary identifying information presented in conjunction with the primary place name is doing the user a disservice -- and the highest principle, as Svenonius (p. 68-70, following Ranganathan and others) reminds us, is the principle of user convenience: Decisions taken in the making of descriptions should be made with the user in mind. (p. 68) How does refusal to specify the jurisdiction which contains the place named as the place of publication, and necessary to enable the user to identify it properly, do anything but offer an obstacle to the catalogue user? Is the principle of representation really so absolutely inviolable that interpolation (clearly marked as such by square brackets) of necessary information into a descriptive element that is not complete, and which is a minor element in forming a citatioin for a document, really transgresses it? I rate the principle of user convenience higher, and judge that bracketed information, if useful, should be supplied. *_The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization_. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2000. (p. 71) Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] RDA : MARC tables and correspondences with RDA
Quoting Adam L. Schiff asch...@u.washington.edu: The MARC terminology precedes that of FRBR and should probably be revised to Title page title of a manifestation of a work or some such terminology. Not only does MARC terminology antedate FRBR terminology (and in some places AACR2) but it may also accomodate non-Anglo-American codes. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au ~~ On Tue, 19 Apr 2011, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: Indeed, actually trying to think in terms of the FRBR conceptual model, I'm not sure there is even possibly any such thing as Title page title of a work. A manifestation can have a title page title, but a work doesn't have just one title page, it has potentially many manifestations with different title pages, no? So what would the title page title of a work be? On 4/19/2011 3:55 PM, Adam L. Schiff wrote: Subfield $a of 730 is defined as Uniform title and subfield $t as Title of a work: http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd730.html The X30 of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format (http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bdx30.html) also makes the same distinction: $a - Uniform title Parenthetical information added to make a title distinctive is not separately subfield coded except in the case of the date of signing added to a uniform title of a treaty (see description of subfield $d). 630 00$aDead Sea scrolls. 730 0#$aNew York times. 130 0#$aSige d'Orlans (Mystery play) 830 #0$aMarch of time. 130 0#$aBeowulf. 730 0#$a60 minutes (Television program) 830 #0$aResources information series. 830 #0$aImago (Series) 630 00$aFour seasons (Motion picture : 1981) 130 0#$aDialogue (Montral, Qubec : 1962).$lEnglish. 630 00$aInter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance$d(1947) [Parenthetical date of treaty signing is contained in subfield $d.] $t - Title of a work Title page title of a work. Subfield $t is unlikely to be used in an X30 field. ^^ 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 Tue, 19 Apr 2011, Gene Fieg wrote: In appendix E, I think, 730 is listed with its subfields. One of those subfields is |t. Is that possible to have a title of title?? -- Gene Fieg Cataloger/Serials Librarian Claremont School of Theology gf...@cst.edu This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Conference names : use of annual, etc.
Quoting Weinheimer Jim j.weinhei...@aur.edu: Hal Cain wrote: snip Yebbut-- the hardest problems of achieving consistency usually arise from the inconsistencies found in the resources themselves. Regularizing such inconsistencies will infringe on the principle of representation: there should be a clear match between the resource and how it is described (and, I add, consistency in how we provide access) -- and what searchers bring to the catalogue often starts with a citation, formal or informal, created by someone looking at the resource. You can't get away from the thing in hand (or on screen, etc.) and suppress those inconsistencies. /snip Some of the wisest advice was given me a long time ago by an unforgettable fellow, who was a member of a one of those motorcycle gangs that gets violent occasionally. This fellow was pretty nice though and very colorful. His advice is certainly nothing new to anyone, but it was to me at the time, and it comes back to me occasionally. He said, with a lot of feeling: If it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT! But he did mention that figuring out exactly what is broken on a motorcycle or automobile can be very difficult and can turn out to be completely different from what you thought at first. You fix what is broken, otherwise you may be taking everything apart, changing parts that don't need it and perhaps wind up making the engine run worse than before. So, I look at the rule changes of RDA, such as this one for conferences and immediately wonder: What is broken? I confess that this one is a mystery to me. While I readily agree that members of the public experience problems finding conference names, I can't imagine that adding the frequency to the conference name could be any kind of a solution. So, the public doesn't need it; I don't think librarians have problems with conferences that would be solved by such a rule. I think most of the problems people have with finding these names (and other authorized forms) have far more to do with the inability of library catalogs (or at least most of them?) to search authority files and bibliographic files at the same time using *keywords*, which is how everybody searches today. A case, maybe, of the problem Mac Elrod has occasionally cited: It works in practice, but does it work in theory? Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Conference names : use of annual, etc.
Quoting Mark Ehlert ehler...@umn.edu: Adam L. Schiff asch...@u.washington.edu wrote: I think what will happen in RDA is that we will create authority records for each conference, rather than one record to represent the continuing conference. Though there are scattered references to series of conferences, etc. in RDA, e.g., 11.13.1.8, Exceptions: If the access point represents a series of conferences, etc., do not add the location unless all the conferences in the series were held in the same place. That, however, seems to mean when cataloguing a series of conferences etc. as a set, or when making a secondary access (or subject access). Jim Weinheimer suggests a superconference but that doesn't really fly, does it? This overlaps into a fundamental AACR2/RDA rule: when a corporate body (of which a conference/meeting is a subgroup) changes its name, it's regarded as a new entity and the before-and-after links are done at the authority level. (When a person changes a name, the rule is different, of course -- is this not also a confusing situation, a cogent example being Joseph Ratzinger vs. Pope Benedict XV?) Jim said: It's hard to decide how all of this superstuff will turn out though. In my own opinion, it is evidence that something, somewhere is wrong. Yebbut-- the hardest problems of achieving consistency usually arise from the inconsistencies found in the resources themselves. Regularizing such inconsistencies will infringe on the principle of representation: there should be a clear match between the resource and how it is described (and, I add, consistency in how we provide access) -- and what searchers bring to the catalogue often starts with a citation, formal or informal, created by someone looking at the resource. You can't get away from the thing in hand (or on screen, etc.) and suppress those inconsistencies. Sometimes I wonder about designing a bibliographic control system anew, from the ground up, taking into account the best of contemporary technology to deploy the best capabilities offered by browsers. I'm sure any such (purely hypothetical) system would have to include seamless navigation between earlier and later names (and earlier and later titles of continuing resources) and follow consistent patterns. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
[RDA-L] Fwd: Call for papers The FRBR Family
Forwarded with permission. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au - Call for papers: The FRBR Family of Models A special issue of Cataloging Classification Quarterly will be devoted to The FRBR Family of Models. Since 1998 when Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records was first published by IFLA, the effort to develop and apply FRBR has been extended in many innovative and experimental directions. A special issue of CCQ in 2004 edited by Patrick LeBeouf was titled FRBR: Hype, or Cure‐All? and included papers exploring the origins and extension of FRBR, as well as a survey of specific applications. Submissions to the present volume should address an aspect related to the extended family of FRBR models, dialogues between the FRBR Family and other modeling technologies, and/or any specific applications of the FRBR family. Ideas may include any of the following topics: * Analysis of FRAD or FRSAD * Interrelationships between FRAD, FRBR, FRSAD * Modelling of aggregates. * Applications of FRBR and family * Analysis or comparisons of RDA, REICAT and other codes based on FRBR entities and relationships * FRBRoo and its extensions, or applications * The FRBR/CRM Dialogue * Wider acceptance of FRBR in applications Or any other topic that addresses the FRBR Family. Proposals of no more than 300 words to be sent by May 31, 2011 to the guest editor, Richard Smiraglia (smira...@uwm.edu). Decisions will be communicated to contributors no later than June 24, 2011. Delivery date of manuscripts for peer‐review: [October 1, 2011]. Each article should be in the range of 5,000‐8,000 words. Instructions for authors can be found at http://www.informaworld.com/0163-9374. Acceptance of a proposal does not guarantee publication. All manuscript submissions will be subject to double‐blind peer‐review. Publication is scheduled for CCQ vol. 50 in 2012. Cataloging Classification Quarterly is dedicated to gathering and sharing information in the field of bibliographic organization. This highly respected journal considers the full spectrum of creation, content, management, use, and usability of bibliographic records and catalogs, including the principles, functions, and techniques of descriptive cataloging; the wide range of methods of subject analysis and classification; provision of access for all formats of materials; and policies, planning, and issues connected to the effective use of bibliographic data in catalogs and discovery tools. The journal welcomes papers of practical application as well as scholarly research. All manuscripts are peer reviewed. Once published, papers are widely available through Taylor Francis' Informaworld database and other outlets. Richard P. Smiraglia Editor-in-Chief, Knowledge Organization Professor, Information Organization Research Group, School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin Milwaukee smira...@uwm.edu - End forwarded message - This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Fwd: References from one chapter to another in RDA
However, the find and identify tasks require that the personal name of the holder of the office be an access point for documents of this kind, because these documents are very commonly cited under the writer's name. Indeed I think I could argue a case for considering the names of popes, etc. as the primary access (main entry) and the official title (Catholic Church. Pope [etc.]) as a gathering access point rather than primary (forming a citation and determining arrangement under a call number). But that is NOT how RDA (nor AACR2 either) has it and it's not a big point. These works are definitely known by the personal name of the writer. Only library catalogues cite Rerum Novarum under the official heading; everywhere else it's cited under Leo XIII, Pope [etc.]. And similarly for other official documents, e.g. medieval bishops' documents. Hal Cain, veteran of much cataloguing of such documents Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au Quoting Adam L. Schiff asch...@u.washington.edu: It doesn't say that anywhere, although you are correct that in the examples we carried over the practice of making an added entry for the person holding the office. Basically, it's a judgment on what entities are responsible for a resource, and I think one could argue that while the government official has chief responsibility for an official communication, the person holding the office also has some kind of responsibility and it would be justified to record an access point for them. But RDA removed the explicit instruction to do so, so it leaves it to catalogers to judge which entities are responsible. If the community feels strongly that there should be an explicit instruction, it could propose a revision to RDA through one of the bodies represented on the Joint Steering Committee. You'll notice also in 19.2.1.3 in the first section of examples One Person Responsible for the Creation of the Work that we put an example of something that was not an official communication, where only the access point for the person is recorded: John Paul II, Pope, 1920-2005 Authorized access point representing the creator for: The role of the Christian in the world / Pope John Paul II. Not an official communication --Adam Schiff Chair, RDA Examples Group 2 ^^ 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, 13 Apr 2011, Gene Fieg wrote: But where does it say to use both the official's name (Catholic Church. Pope ... ) and the personal name as access points to an official proclamation, etc. On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Mark Ehlert ehler...@umn.edu wrote: Gene Fieg gf...@cst.edu wrote: Reading (slogging?) through RDA now. I am in chapter 19. I noticed that for official pronouncements from people in the office have access points for the office as well as the personal name access point. That instruction, I think is somewhere in the previous chapters, but I cannot find it, even after look in the index. I think chapter 19 (at least that chapter) should have xref to the chapters that instruct us to record both the office name/person and the personal name. I am sure that is correct, as I said, and I think it accords with AACR2, but I cannot find the previous instruction. RDA 11.2.2.21 discusses names of governmental officials, for instance. RDA 11.13 tells you how to put together a corporate name heading from the bits and pieces described further up that chapter's food chain. RDA 9.19 tells you how how to put together a personal name heading from the bits and pieces described further up that chapter's food chain. On pointing back to previous chapters in the text of the examples, that could be quite helpful, if a hell of a lot of work to put together--not to mention making the example parts of the chapter even longer. On the other hand, somebody might direct our gaze to 19.0's persons, families, and corporate bodies, this thus informing us that we should look at chapters 9-11 on making up those name headings. -- Mark K. Ehlert Minitex Coordinator University of Minnesota Bibliographic Technical 15 Andersen Library Services (BATS) Unit 222 21st Avenue South Phone: 612-624-0805 Minneapolis, MN 55455-0439 http://www.minitex.umn.edu/ -- Gene Fieg Cataloger/Serials Librarian Claremont School of Theology gf...@cst.edu This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Fwd: References from one chapter to another in RDA
Quoting John Hostage host...@law.harvard.edu: These corporate body access points for persons holding an office are strange hermaphrodites that are peculiar to the Anglo-American tradition, I think. The idea of using both a corporate heading for the official and a personal name heading for the same person on records for official communications was an anomaly in AACR2, and even more so in RDA. It's not a case of 2 different entities having responsibility for the communication; it's 2 different ways of approaching the same entity. It would be better handled through cross references on the authority records, which are made already, than with redundant access points on the bib records. We could also consider whether these constructed access points for officials make any sense to anyone but catalogers. They make fine sense if you look at browse lists of headings, er, access points! They may not help many users much, but they help cataloguers do their work; and they gather together data for like documents. Try sorting out official documents from prolific papal writers (John Paul II and Benedict XVI both qualify!) without them! There is a different bibliographic personality involved, if that's really a valid doctrine (as applied to pseudonymous names). Maybe we should think about access for both a pseudonymous name and the real name of people who write both under their real name and under a pseudonym. That would help greatly with collections and works issued under different names in different editions; also for subject treatment of a writer's oeuvre. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR
Jim, I think you're over-thinking it. Confronted with a new book, don't we examine it and check our favorite database(s) to verify whether it's a new work or a version of an existing work? If new, we just treat it at the manifestation level. Under the currently-anticipated regime for implementing RDA (until we are engaged in a different scenario, for which systems and services don't yet exist on any significant global scale) we'll do the same. Having accounted for the manifestation and its content, then it's done. And if it's a version, we identify of what, and in what kind of relationship and what features and agents (editors, translators, illustrators, and so on) distinguish it as an expression. Granted the reality will sometimes be complex; but for many instances it's just an extension of what we're already doing -- with the advantage for the future that when the same work occurs, and/or the same distinguishing features and relationships, we can reuse that work; when there are sytems to enable us to do it without copying and editing from a previous bibliographic record, as we do now. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au Quoting Weinheimer Jim j.weinhei...@aur.edu: Dan Matei wrote: snip I'm afraid we tend to dramatise the edge cases. 87.34% of the users will perfectly understand when you state that an article is about Hamlet, the play or when you state that Mahler composed Das Klagende Lied or when you state that (say) The Falkner Estate owns the copyright on Absalom, Absalom !. So, the (abstract) idea of a work is quite common. And, as John Myers just reminded us, you (catalogers) used it extensively in the uniform titles. For ages, he said. /snip I shall reply that applying this kind of abstract reasoning is one thing, but I am thinking of the cataloger who is sitting at the desk, perhaps alone, and *has to make the decisions* what is the work, expression and so on. Doing these things in practice will be something completely different from thinking about it abstractly, just as it was (and still is) in the determination of deciding which subject heading to use: Russia, Soviet Union, Former Soviet republics (if not all of them!). And in the back of the cataloger's mind is the certainty that any mistake will be pounced on! In the proposed FRBR universe, a mess-up on a work or expression will obviously have consequences, and I suspect that in such a linked system, the consequences could be far greater than mistakes today. While in theory, an edit to a work record should automatically be replicated in all related expressions and manifestations, a completely wrong work record will have unforeseen consequences since all expressions and manifestations will be built on the information in the work record. If anything, it seems that consistency will be more important in the FRBR linked-data universe than it is today. The only consolation is that for now RDA still uses the same methods, as Bernhard mentions, and we will keep on making manifestation records. James L. Weinheimer j.weinhei...@aur.edu First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] FRBR
Quoting Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu: Again, I think it's important to emphasize that FRBR/RDA attempt to be most consistent with legacy practice, while formalizing and explicitly modelling it. You can certainly disagree with how AACR2 has been modelling things for ~30 years, or legacy cataloging practice before that too -- I don't think there's one existentially or platonically right answer, there is no way to 'experimentally' answer it by putting the book and a DVD under a microscope or something -- but that's FRBR/RDA is not attempting to fundamentally change AACR2's entity modelling choices, for better or worse. (Except perhaps when AACR2's entity modelling choices become apparent as inconsistent within themselves, once made explicit and formally modelled). Another convention (that seems to call for a superwork entity) is the case of a work for which a new edition, i.e. change of content, is issued with a different title. Both AACR2 and RDA treat it as a new and related work. It's a convention. And the convention under both AACR2 and RDA is to consider a genre change to be a new work, as Thomas Brenndorfer helpfully explains referencing the actual RDA text. Genre change is the marker, behind that lie changes in creative or editorial responsibility. As text, a Shakespeare play is just text (the content may vary right from the earliest known published versions, but conventionally we regard each Shakespeare play as one work); as a performance it's an expression with additional participation by actors, director, etc.; as a film or video it has further participants (cinematographers, producter, maybe music, etc.) and so on. But it's unmanageable to declare that genre change sometimes marks an expression but sometimes does not. I might ask though whether notated music and music as sound are different works or different manifestations. Among other considerations, the level of accessibility differs markedly: reading music notation is a skill that's not universal -- if that matters... Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Thoughts re: 336-338 for a streaming video file
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: Quoting Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu: Please _don't_ add your own made up appropriate term in a 336/337/338. What makes them so useful is that they are a controlled vocabulary, software can recognize the strings in there _exactly_, from a known list, and take appropriate action. Yes, that is the value of a controlled list. However, if it takes 1-2 years to add new values to a controlled list, in particular a list like Carrier which is highly volatile, then you make it impossible for people to create the data they need. The requirement that all changes follow a long, prescribed path [1] that begins with having individual discussions with members of CC:DA, followed by a formal document that is presented to that body at the next ALA, and then possibly leading to a recommendation for a change... ... that ain't gonna cut it. It has to be possible to add to these lists in a timely fashion, and for these lists to be in a machine-actionable format that can be easily incorporated into library systems as changes are made. Indeed. May I point out that other JSC constituencies (Canada, UK, Australia) have their own paths for bringing forward revisions, approximately equally ponderous. Surely lists of controlled values for specific data elements within RDA don't require the same process for maintenance and revision as the clauses of the code itself? Coded terms in MARC 21 are maintained by the Library of Congress; some lists seem to be rapidly updated. (Not that I think LC is necessarily the appropriate agency for maintenance of RDA vocabularies.) Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] RDA draft
Quoting J. McRee Elrod m...@slc.bc.ca: Adam Schiff said: It is incorrect to refer to the present draft of RDA. It's not a draft, it's a published work. But an incomplete work. Whole chapters are missing. Perhaps present version, or present text? It's a moving target. Even edition?! Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] RDA and music
Quoting Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu: On 3/9/2011 2:50 PM, Gene Fieg wrote: RDA takes the parts of description and in this case the construction of uniform titles and separates them out as though they were of equal value, but the the work is not identified by a preferred access point until /all/ the elements are in one string. I am _definitely_ no music cataloger. Nor I; like Gene, I've had to deal with a few when they've arrived on my work trolley. But depends on what you mean by the work and the whole string. Mozart, Leopold, 1719-1787. Cassation, orchestra, G major. Selections; arr. Not being an expert in classical music, I'm not even sure what cassation means, if it's a particular symphony or a descriptive word. What is the work being identified, and is arr. really part of it? Or is the work just the particular symphony regardless of whether it's arr. or not? How about the Selections part, is that identifying the work? Well, like many AACR2 uniform titles, these are *expression* headings (as are most Bible uniform titles). This may not be a great example, because I'm not entirely sure what I'm talking about. But I think the important point here is that these uniform titles aren't exactly meant to identify the work, they are meant to take the user to a certain point in an alphabetical listing in a card catalog or bound catalog. Which works great when you have a card catalog or bound catalog or other interface that is only alphabetical listings of headings. The alphabetical sequence (or possibly another systematic sequence, but I can't think of another principle of organization) is essential for maintenance of the catalogue, to secure the necessary likeness and differentiation among entities that are either the same or distinct. Nothing confuses end-users of data as much as pointless distinction or incorrect assimilation. I guess (in the light of the current discussions of recording of series data) that it confuses computers and programmers too. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Languge silos (was Subjective Judgements ...)
Quoting Adam L. Schiff asch...@u.washington.edu: Will bibligraphic utilities allow multiple records with differing languge inclusions? OCLC already allows multiple records for the same resource with different language of cataloging. You can view all of them, or filter out the ones that are not in your preferred language. But not in Z39.50 access, at least as available to me through Libraries Australia's authorization. The presence of parallel records (different languages, also different rules from non-AACR2 libraries' files, valuable though they can be) is a significant burden on the workflows of libraries whose collection policies include European publications. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Subjective Judgements in RDA 300s????
Quoting Weinheimer Jim j.weinhei...@aur.edu: I think Jonathan is absolutely right. Cataloger time is valuable, and at least I *very much* hope cataloger time will become increasingly valuable in the future (since the opposite is a terrifying possibility!). It has always been the case that creating bibliographic records/metadata involves a tradeoff of including some information at the expense of other information. For example, the rule as it states now is that a cataloger needs only to add the first of a number of authors, and use cataloger's judgment concerning adding any others. Why should there be such flexibility on rule as important as this one (and which I personally believe is unwarranted), but then worry so much over whether the illustrations are colored (or coloured)? And Jonathan is completely correct about the problems with the 856 field, which I see miscoded much of the time anyway. Well, I'm not (generally) one to worry much about colour or no colour. But if you're cataloguing an illustrated study of the Book of Kells, it matters. snipIf you look at the ONIX Best Practices http://www.bisg.org/docs/Best_Practices_Document.pdf look at p. 85 for 30. Illustration details description and see their guidelines. Frighteningly detailed, e.g. 500 illustrations, 210 in full color but we see it can also be: halftones, line drawings, figures, charts, etc. So? So, how are we supposed to handle this? If we get an ONIX record with 500 illustrations, 210 in full color, 35 figures, 26 line drawings, 8 charts, do we devote the labor to edit it down to AACR2/RDA thereby eliminating some very nice information? But if we just accept it, what do we do then with the materials we catalog originally? illustrations (some coloured) looks pretty lame in comparison and can certainly lead to confusion. Leave it as it is, IF we're in the realm of using what's in the data that comes to us, unless the cataloguer is convinced there's confusion afoot. Finally, we should ask: how important is this issue compared to the many others facing the cataloging world today, and how much time should we spend on this issue when, as Jonathan points out, one thing people really want to know is that there is a free copy of Byron's poems online for download in Google Books, the Internet Archive, plus lots of other places, and here are some links. While you're at it, you may be interested in these other links to related resources that deal with Byron's poetry in different ways. A great deal of the detail provided in cataloguing has been irrelevant to the majority of users -- but vital to the people who manage the collections and make decisions about selection and discard, and significant to a fraction of end-users. If we're about to make a judgment that we can no longer afford to cater for that more demanding minority, let's be consistent. I see the Bibco Standard Record as leading us all in that direction. If 90% accuracy and 60% coverage of eligible detail are enough, why bother with more than bare bones description, controlled access for only the associated names that can be expected to appear in a reference/bibliography citation, authority control only by exception (do the work only when there's a conflict or references are required)? Then RDA was 75% waste of time and effort. My own opinion is: people are confused in general by library catalogs and their records, while the illustrations section is one of the least important areas of confusion. When the content and organization of the data presented in catalogues was less variable than it has been since system experts captured catalogues from cataloguers, there was less confusion. Mac Elrod's hated representation of defendant in a legal case under the generic label author comes to mind. My point is that what we provide in cataloguing should be accurate as far as it goes, and it should go as far as is reasonably foreseeable to be useful. Not all of what we've done has been useful. Nor has all of it been the most productive use of cataloguers' time, mine included. How many times have I tediously typed 504 Includes bibliographical references, when all that's really needed is to tick a box or click a button and have the not-very-intelligent computer create the required words? How many times have I stopped to find and count plates not forming part of the main pagination (and when I needed to verify the completeness of an older volume against a record discovered that the downloaded record had that element of collation wrong!)? Every now and again I remind myself that for half my career, the British Library/British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books, in book form, with little of the detail we're talking about and no separate authority file, was an immensely valuable source of bibliographical information. More isn't automatically
Re: [RDA-L] Subjective Judgements in RDA 300s????
Quoting Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu: Which is why in an ideal world, if we care about whether the illustrations are colored or not (and I suspect the time is LONG gone when our patrons or we actually DO), there would be a data element in the record which marked, in a machine interpretable way, whether there are illustrations (checkmark HERE), and whether they are colored/coloured (checkmark THERE). Which could then be translated to the appropriate spelling or even language for the given audience. I don't agree -- maybe so in an academic environment, but for other kinds of libraries (school and public, and maybe specials too) the presence of illustrations can be a significant element in making a choice of the possibilities. The LCRI for AACR2 which enjoins just illus. for all kinds of illustrative material doesn't help! In reality, though, as important is to know how many illustrations there are (even approximately). Likewise, for the content expressed as Includes bibliographic references and coded in the 008 fixed field, this is far less than the user wants to know. The extent of pages (in a printed or fixed-format document) may help or may be misleading. What would be useful to know would be the number of resources referenced. I don't think RDA has addressed these. Hal Cain Melbourne, Victoria hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Abbreviations in RDA -- two preferred names for places
Quoting Brenndorfer, Thomas tbrenndor...@library.guelph.on.ca: This is a good reminder of one of the quirks in the names of the places. RDA 16.2.2.4 has ** two ** sets of guidelines for recording the preferred name of a place.snip So for case 1, these are the preferred names: New Zealand Auckland (N.Z.) Tamaki (Auckland, N.Z.) And for case 2, these are the preferred names which can stand alone and/or be used as qualifiers in authorized access points (as seen in examples above for Case 1): N.Z. Auckland, N.Z. Tamaki, Auckland, N.Z. snip In thinking about these two ways of recording the preferred name, I wonder if in reducing the number of abbreviations and standardizing how preferred names are recorded, we would be happy with forms like: Tamaki (Auckland (New Zealand)) I think eliminating abbreviations enhances clarity. Nesting larger places in parentheses is just as easy to read as using commas preceding larger places. Are there any compelling reasons to continue the AACR2 convention of using two methods to record preferred names for places? It would make sense to use full forms like New Zealand for all elements for places when required, and not worry when N.Z. would be appropriate. I don't see why we need brackets (parentheses) at all; isn't the above example clearer as: Tamaki, Auckland, New Zealand ? Double punctuation is sometimes necessary, as in combination with quotation marks, but in such cases as this does it contribute any value, for either the human reader or processing by computer? The sole advantage I can see is for display on a small screen (e.g. a mobile device) and that doesn't count very heavily with me, not being a user of such a device. YMMV. Anyway, where double brackets occur in bibliographic data, omission of a bracket is quite a common error, in my experience. I grant that smarter data input/edit programs, with elementary word-processing capabilities, would flag that, but I've never had that. Hal Cain Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (not, please, Melbourne (Vic., Australia)) This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Abbreviations in RDA -- two preferred names for places
Quoting Brenndorfer, Thomas tbrenndor...@library.guelph.on.ca: From: hec...@dml.vic.edu.au [hec...@dml.vic.edu.au] Sent: February-25-11 8:22 PM To: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access; Brenndorfer, Thomas Cc: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Abbreviations in RDA -- two preferred names for places Quoting Brenndorfer, Thomas tbrenndor...@library.guelph.on.ca: Tamaki (Auckland (New Zealand)) I don't see why we need brackets (parentheses) at all; isn't the above example clearer as: Tamaki, Auckland, New Zealand ? It could be one option or the other. The only problem I see with the commas is that the form could be confused for a sequence of three unrelated entities. But that's equally so for almost any sequence of terms (words or phrases) delimited by commas. I haven't the current (16th) edition of the _Chicago Manual of Style_ (CMS) at hand, but the 15th ed. (at 15.29) prefers the names of states, territories and possessions of the United States should always be spelled out when standing alone and preferably (except for DC) when following the name of a city ... and likewise for Canada (15.30). And 15.31 specifies commas (not brackets/parentheses) between place name and state or other entity. CMS 15 doesn't address usage for names of countries following placenames, but editors following CMS would normally generalize and follow the same practice. Anyway, if these names eventually find their way into a lookup table or whatever, or are subject to verification processes in data entry (a kind of spellcheck function, I suppose!), they should certainly be uniform in style! Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Abbreviations in RDA
Quoting Brunella Longo brunella.lo...@yahoo.com: I would say that: - Abbreviations are wellcome if they are universally accepted i.e. [id est ;)] if they facilitate cross domain comprehension and are well documented internationally. There is no point in writing centimetres; But I must admit I have some doubts; I have recently met a guy who [did not know] Kg is for kilogram! Anyway, if there is an abbreviation for a word in a common dictionary that is likely to be accepted also in catalogs; - abbreviations belonging to the special language of just one community are deprecated and should be avoided at all costs. The dictum that context imparts meaning is, I think, relevant here. In the context of an ISBD bibliographic record, printed or in a screen display, standard abbreviations have a context; nowadays, even so, possibly not all who see them in that context will understand them. In contemporary bibliographic displays, the context is often fractured. Therefore the meaning may be obscured. When we prepare to dismantle bibliographic data and mash elements into hitherto unseen combinations, we can assume no particular context, Therefore it seems to me that abbreviations no longer have a place in our workflows. On the instance you cite of i.e, I would demur: I used quite often notice confusions (especially between i.e. and e.g.) among people I would otherwise regard as skilled in reading and writing. Therefore I would not except them either. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] rdacontent terms - dataset
Quoting Bernhard Eversberg e...@biblio.tu-bs.de: The misunderstanding here is the same that led to the internal use of MARC in ILSs in the first place. That was never really necessary, nor intended by the creators of MARC, for MARC was meant to be a communication format. In modern parlance, a service format, only that it was offline bulk services (magnetic tapes) at that time. The systems I've used since I first learned (self-taught) to work in MARC did not in fact use MARC internally: they deconstructed it into internal databases, the most modern of them using commercial SQL packages, on which were built all the functions (including those that have nothing to do with bibliographic data, such as circulation and compiling statistics). When you want MARC output (to export), the system reconstructs it, including bibliographic and authority records created afresh within the system and never previously in an ISO2709 MARC format. In principle, input and export routines for such systems could be written for other formats than MARC, and for other parts of the database suite (such as patron records -- and they have been) but these lack the common structured format of the MARC record -- anyway, this too is out of scope here, except to point out that such things can be, and have been, done. The real difficulty is the lack of distinction between what are in RDA distinct elements of data -- a MARC problem -- and the difficulties of linking sets of data which record different bibliographic levels, e.g. component parts (amounting to works/expressions) within a document. Because of the history of MARC, local data and local links are poor cousins, but if intentions to catalogue local material go forward, local data is just as important as common data. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Linked data
Quoting Kevin M. Randall k...@northwestern.edu (in part): And I am so glad that 440 was retired. I'd be all for adding 130 or 240 to all records, if the MARC format is going to have a long enough life ahead of it. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with the logic for adding new fields to existing records, but I fear that figuring out the process of actually coordinating and carrying out the changes in the world's databases might be a nightmare. Yes; but for one point. 240 in itself does not constitute an entire access point: it has to be combined with 100/110/111 to create the name-title which is the name of the related entity (work or manifestation). I can look a bit further. Works which are the joint product of two or more creators still get short shrift, of course, the first-named agent (entity) being credited. That does poor service when it comes to such situations as the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, or the plays of Beaumont Fletchers, or thousands of other joint creations. When we create new structures and conventions, we ought not to look only at the first, most immediate situation. Genuine provision for recording work and expression relationships in manifestation-based records needs to go a bit further. In this case, I'm prepared to admit Jim Weinheimer's often-repeated charge that we're still in the shadow of the card catalogue. I think we could devise efficient ways to encode the necessary data in MARC 21, and in a way that will enable older systems (not designed for such extended provisions) to use the datya no worse than they do now (supposing the data is actually there). Some may be better carried in the authority data, perhaps. And we record the data with all the essential information in sufficient granularity and consistently, surely it should be possible to extract it in other forms for other applications. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
[RDA-L] Fwd: OCLC Technical Services Forum at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
(The following message is forwarded with permission from the IFLA Catsmail list; the content may be of interest here.) Hal Cain, Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au -- Dear Colleagues, I wanted to bring to your attention the forthcoming event taking place at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Frankfurt on 2 March 2011. As part of OCLC’s annual EMEA Regional Council Meeting, we will be hosting a pre-meet to look at aspects of Metadata Service Management. The topic for discussion is: Future Search for Technical Services *Presenters: Karen Calhoun, OCLC, Vice-President , WorldCat Metadata Services; Glen Patton, OCLC, Director, WorldCat Data Quality; Dr. Lars Svensson, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek; Marion van Brunschot, University of Amsterdam* The Master Class will explore the change from Technical Services to Metadata Management. OCLC's strategy for metadata services will be outlined along with a case study in workflow redesign and the work undertaken at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek to expose German DDC as linked data. If you are interested in attending – you can find further information here: http://www.oclc.org/uk/en/councils/emea/meetings/2011annual/agenda.htm Kind regards, *Fiona Leslie* *Marketing Communications Manager* *·* OCLC EMEA 8th Floor, West Wing · 54 Hagley Road *·* Birmingham B16 8PE *·* United Kingdom t +44-(0)121-456 4656 *·* f +44-(0)121-456 4680 http://www.linkedin.com/in/fionaleslie e fiona.les...@oclc.org *·* w www.oclc.org OCLC (UK) Ltd Registered in England and Wales Company No. 498573 Registered Address : Brincliffe House, 861 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield, S11 7AE *Attend the OCLC 2011 EMEA Regional Council Meeting in Frankfurthttp://www.oclc.org/uk/en/councils/emea/meetings/2011annual/default.htm * *We are delighted to inform you that registrationhttps://www3.oclc.org/app/emea/council/is now open for the next OCLC EMEA Regional Council Meeting. * This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Amazon to MARC
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: Quoting Galen Charlton gmcha...@gmail.com: The other thing that struck me is that there are some data elements available in Amazon's data that don't yet have a direct home in an RDA/MARC record. Consider: http://amazon.libcat.org/cgi-bin/az2marc.pl?kw=B000ZELISO Blu ray is relegated to a bracketed note in the 245$a, which doesn't help ILS designers trying to do something with the format designation such as limit searches on it. The 347$b proposed in DP04 can't come soon enough. Amazon definitely has formats that I don't recall seeing in library records, unless as parenthetical information following the 020 -- paperback, trade paperback, Kindle edition, library binding. Maybe we would need to translate these to a smaller set for 347$b? It would be nice to store this data, yet adding it to the end of the ISBN is a horrible practice, requiring parsing of that subfield to extract the actual ISBN. In 1978 020 $b (binding information) was cancelled and that data was made a parenthetical addition to $a. Another false move... Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Browse and search RDA test data
Quoting Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu: I don't see value in all caps, I am just not disturbed by them, and see some sense in transcribing what's on the item in a transcribed field, especially if it will make cataloging simpler or cheaper or easier. Basically, I just don't see it matters too much either way. It matters especially to people whose vision is less than perfect. After a lifetime of good vision, I now find myself dependent on glasses for reading (paper and screens) and far more sensitive to light levels. It's about the end-user -- machines are tools for and-users. Our primary concern is the catalogue and the convenience of the catalogue user. Text in upper-case is established to be harder to read. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Browse and search RDA test data
Quoting J. McRee Elrod m...@slc.bc.ca: Capitalization as found would be acceptable in 505 contents and 520 summaries, but 245 titles are seen in hitlists with other titles, so uniformity is more important. In the upper case examples I checked, the all caps do not reflect the source, according to Amazon images. There is no rationalization apart from bone laziness in harvesting data. Contents notes rendered all uppercase have attracted hostile comment already (perhaps not here, but certainly on Autocat), when incorporated into (AACR2) LC records from linked data produced or captured elsewhere. It's widely understood that continuous uppercase text is more difficult for most people to read. I fail to understand what reasonable purpose can be served in using uppercase. If it's as a paltry attempt to represent the style of the titlepage (or other source of primary identifying data for a document), that purpose would be better served by attaching a link to a titlepage image -- which is a strategy I'm considering for a forthcoming project with early printed books. In fact, all lowercase would be better for legibility, and just as simple to do. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] End of US RDA Test: LC policy during interim period
Quoting Kuhagen, Judith j...@loc.gov (in part): [Sending to multiple lists; please excuse duplication] End of US RDA Test: LC policy during interim period snip LC's internal procedures are posted at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/existing_RDA_records.pdf I think that in 4 (c) the instruction should be to refer to clause 5 (not 4 as stated). Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Purpose of transcribed imprint
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: Quoting J. McRee Elrod m...@slc.bc.ca: -- give me a list of all of the books published in London from 1853-1857 -- show me which publishers are prominent in this subject area Using the present SLC OPAC, and Boolean searching, we could answer those questions. Most present ILSs are very blunt instruments. It helps to have London, Eng. or London [Eng.] in 260$a as we do. With RDA we won't even have London, Ont. in the record if not on the item. It is not that complicated to use the contains search of 260$b for publisher surnames. I'm afraid you are proving my point. You don't know which books were published in which city, you only know which books were published in a transcribed city name. Ditto for publishers. The transcribed names and the entities are different things. You might be able to produce an answer, but it will be highly inaccurate because you are using uncontrolled, transcribed things. It's a free text search, not a use of data. Indeed. However, as a matter of fact, country (or state) of publication is designated by MARC code in 008; that can be combined with London in 260 $a. I agree of course that publisher's name in transcribed form (which, as Deborah Fritz points out, is essential for recognition and record matching by human agency) is poor for matching. But isn't it however possible to detect which are the significant names -- Longman(s), Macmillan, and a range of others would surely figure -- and create a frequency table? It doesn't help that they have historically been recorded differently, but the surnames of the principals in the firms are there, and there you go. ILSs I've worked with can be set up to create search limits by place of publication (as in 260 $a) and country (as in 008). Publisher keyword might not be easy. But the procxess can be begun. As for publisher identifiers (preferred name as an ID, an authority form), if we are to apply the same standards as for other areas of name authority work, cataloguers will go mad. Before modern brand identification attitudes came into publishing, one can't tell whether a variant form of name means a change of corporate body or simply a variant created by having a different person design the title page layout. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Confusion between Field of activity and Profession or occupation
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: Quoting Myers, John F. mye...@union.edu: It was reported that these two elements emerged from FRAD. Unfortunately, I don't have a paper copy and, unlike FRBR, there does not appear to be a digital manifestation, so I'm not in a position to confirm the genesis. Perhaps those with access can draw on its guidance for clarification in this matter. I actually shelled out for a copy of FRAD (costs about $ a page). The two elements are indeed there as attributes of Person. BTW, if you read one of these languages, FRAD is available for free online. An English online version is not available. * ca ? Català ? Catalan * es ? Español ? Spanish * fr ? Français ? French * it ? Italiano ? Italian (also published in print by ICCU) * zh ? ?? ? Chinese http://www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-authority-data I recall that when the final version of the FRAD report was issued, an online version was promised! When it comes to epithets for identification and differentiation, surely we don't want simply to take the most obvious? Someone who publishes, and is initially identified, as Rev. may in time become Bishop and eventually Cardinal. When it comes to academic degrees, I've observed people who start out as B.A. then advance to M.A. then to Ph.D. -- and the forms on title pages in successive printings may vary accordingly. One of the objections to including titles (such as Sir) in formulating names is that they're not always used, and a person's earlier works/editions may be issued before the title is conferred. I hope that part of the inquiry consequent on this RDA test process will be to review such headings and assemble guidance on what constitutes good practice. I hope! The Principle of Representation deserves some attention here! Not all possible MARC 21 fields are implemented in LC/NACO practice (e.g. data appropriate to 678 is usually entered in 670, if at all). The fact that different fields are provided for distinguishable data elements does not guarantee that they're appropriate in all contexts -- any more than it guarantees that they're never useful! It all depends on the context. A while ago I looked at some of the new fields in the context of enhancing in-house authority data for a special collection; though the data wouldn't (yet) be publicly accessible, it would be retrievable by an SQL search in the authority database and could thus support a special project or two. Hal Cain Melbourne, Victoria hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Recording Relationships in MARC
Quoting Maria Oldal old...@themorgan.org: RDA does not seem to allow relator terms to be used in authorized access points for works and expressions, e.g.: 7001 ǂi Sequel to (Work): ǂa Jones, Raymond F. ǂq (Raymond Fisher), ǂd 1915-1994, ǂe author. ǂt Son of the stars. At least, none of the examples given include a relator term in an author/title access point, although RDA encourages the use of relator terms with names used as access points. Is there a reason for this? As I see it, the terms in the 7XX access point are the name-title combination by which the work is specified: a formal citation form. If the personal name is not the (or the first) creator, it isn't used here -- a uniform title (AACR2 term! 730) is provided instead. In some catalogues they can be a hyperlink. An embedded relator $e or $4 would compromise such a link. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Recording Relationships in MARC
Quoting Brenndorfer, Thomas tbrenndor...@library.guelph.on.ca: Starting with the relationship designators we have this candidate: J.4.2 Equivalent Manifestation Relationships equivalent manifestation A manifestation embodying the same expression of a work. I think this captures the idea that the book in hand has an equivalent manifestation that contains the same content (although one still needs to address the problem that only a part of the original manifestation is being reprinted-- I'll get to that below). The FRBR manifestation entity inherits the entities above it, so we're on safe ground in using this method to capture the fact we're also interested in the identical work in both manifestations. There is a specific designator for equivalent manifestations reprint of (manifestation) which I think is the correct one to use (RDA J.4.2). What about *simultaneous* manifestations? Many a book I've dealt with has been published simultaneously by different publishers, usually in different parts of the world, and with different title pages -- UK and US, but sometimes UK, US, Canada and Australia (I kid you not). By simultaneous I mean in the same year, as far as the information on the items in hand goes. In the case in hand, lacking further explicit information (which may be discoverable with a bit of hunting), I wonder whether this volume was published simultaneously with the material issued in the journal? I've handled such volumes in the past. Not an extract (even if the publisher calls it so) but a simultaneous publication. For contemporary cases of simultaneous publication as a serial issue and as a monograph, see titles published by Haworth Press which are simultaneous with numbers of their various of their serial titles. One can look at how Reprint of (manifestation) is mapped in MARC. In the RDA to MARC Bibliographic Mapping tool in the RDA Toolkit, Reprint of (manifestation) can be mapped to identifiers or structured descriptions using either field 534 or field 775. It can also be mapped to an unstructured description using field 500. An authorized access point cannot be used with any manifestation relationship designator, so using 730 is wrong for related manifestations. Subfield i is available in 730. Hal Cain, who may well have missed something Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Dates in call numbers for RDA
Quoting Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu: It makes sense for the _Library of Congress_ to use year of receipt, since publishers generally deposit with the LC when something is published -- not always, but often enough that that seems like a fine decision for LC to make for it's own cataloging, to me, for a fairly reliable date guess which will on average be better than nothing. If I was using a record created by LC, I'd be happy to have that date there. I guess so, for LC. And the library I was working in had many standing orders for specialist British and European monograph series, so we could be confident in supplying a date in square brackets when needed, based on the date of receipt; if in doubt, with question mark appended. It doesn't make any sense for a random library that buys something possibly long after it's published to do that. Even then a little searching (and the old British Library records are now in OCLC -- a mixed blessing that -- usually with date of original publication) gets a likely date or range. Perhaps an example of the problems of using LC internal guidelines for other libraries. Got to use them with judgement as to how you are different than LC. By my observation, few American cataloguers (and not too many others) are trained to use judgment rather than looking for a rule. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] More granulalrity if imprint year coding?
Quoting Deborah Fritz debo...@marcofquality.com: I think that what John actually said was and *not just* with regard to the 260 field, my emphasis added, i.e., plans are afoot for adding granularity to the 260 *and* other fields. Which is certainly good newsfor however long we are going to continue to use MARC for RDA. Which for some will be a long time, I think, seeing how many smaller libraries I know that have little or no prospect of getting funding for replacing their existing MARC systems. On the other hand, some will need specialist help to rejig their MARC mapping to accomodate RDA records, but that will come rather cheaper than system replacement. It would be a service to us all to be able to incorporate new MARC subfielding (such as in 260) in one operation. As for legacy data, I don't think that really matters; but if it does, I think routines could be devised to handle most of this -- Terry Reese's MarcEdit program comes to mind. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] US RDA Test and OCLC
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: In the US it is still considered provisional until the test results come out. But can anyone tell us what is happening in other countries, especially the other JSC partners, such as UK and Australia? Has the transition begun there? For Australian information, the website of the Australian Committee on Cataloguing http://www.nla.gov.au/lis/stndrds/grps/acoc/rda.html gives information, forecasting training to take place from late 2011 and implementation in the Libraries Australia service in second quarter of 2012. The website also carries these statements: The concerns which prompted the US testing were not raised by the cataloguing communities in Britain, Canada or Australia. The three non-US national libraries responsible for RDA content, i.e. British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Library of Australia, agreed that they would monitor the U.S. testing, but devote their efforts towards planning for implementation in their respective countries. and: The US testing has had an impact on the timeline for RDA implementation, not only in the US but also in Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and Canada, as each of these countries has agreed on a coordinated implementation of RDA. Soon after the Library of Congress has announced their decision on implementation of RDA, the non-US National libraries (National Library of Australia, Library and Archives Canada and the British Library) will consider their response to the outcome of the RDA Test Report and the implications of the LC implementation decision for the scheduling of RDA implementation. According to information in a presentation in August 2010 by Dr. Barbara Tillett http://www.slainte.org.uk/eurig/docs/RDA2010/TillettEURIG2010.pdf The British Library expects implementation not earlier than 2011 Q3 and Canada mid-2011 at earliest, depending on availability of a French translation. The National Library of New Zealand has said: RDA implementation in New Zealand is not expected before mid-2011 [in the Te Puna service]. http://nznuc-cataloguing.pbworks.com/w/page/27134976/RDA-preparation-at-the-National-Library An RDA-SA Steering Committe has been set up in South Africa http://groups.google.com/group/sabinet-sabinews/browse_thread/thread/77fcaf724dca174c?pli=1 but I see no forecast date of implementation. I haven't found any information regarding RDA in India. I don't altogether agree with ACOC's statement about concerns not being raised in Australia, but unless the US national libraries reject RDA after evaluating the test results, I regard it as a done deal; the only question in my mind is whether implementation of certain provisions may be withheld while revisions are sought. Anyway, I've retired... Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] US RDA Test and OCLC
Quoting Kevin M. Randall k...@northwestern.edu: Mac Elrod wrote: And certainly RDA test records should be coded something other than blank in LDR/17. They are not full by existing standards. Umm, are you saying that RDA does not exist? RDA is a standard--regardless of how many cataloging agencies have (or have not) implemented it. If a record identifying itself as RDA includes all of the applicable core RDA elements, as well as any additional elements required to differentiate the resource from one or more other resources bearing similar identifying information (0.6.1, 2nd paragraph, in the Oct. 2008 draft), then that record may properly be called a Full level record. I think Mac is reflecting the same doctrine that OCLC states, for the meaning of full viz. Records that meet the requirements of second-level description (AACR2, rule 1.0D2) along with appropriate subject treatment. This doctrine has been diluted by PCC, but appropriate coding for LDR/17 has not been implemented; rather, full has been redefined in Orwellian manner. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] All our eggs in one basket?
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: Quoting J. McRee Elrod m...@slc.bc.ca: Those who favour one linked database as opposed to our silos, might want to read this New Yorker article carefully. If you are referring to linked data here, then the use of the term 'database' is deceptive. Linked data is not a single database; it's a way to connect data that is distributed, not held in a single place. Linked data, like the Internet, has no single point of failure. But if there is no single source, how do you validate data? How do you verify that the data you have describes the document you have, or which a user is searching for, or which you're requesting from elsewhere (even a bookseller or Google Books)? Bibliographic data is about bibliographic resources, which are concrete or digital objects with verifiable characteristics, If there is no single point of failure, how can there be a single point of reference to achieve and verify accuracy? How can one know one has received the complete and accurate set of data required? I acknowledge that accuracy is relative to the practical situation, but within practical limits it still matters. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] FRBRized data available for bulk download
On 18/10/2010 12:53 PM, Stephen Hearn wrote: I've long considered the notion of aggregates as FRBR works to be problematic, so I see a lot to admire in the Variations approach. I haven't yet turned my attention to the Variations information, which looks very interesting; but this calls up some problems I have with FRBR. Some time ago, I recall, I questioned the validity of considering collections (assuming aggregates includes these) as works on the same basis as other works; in reply IIRC Barbara Tillett suggested there was no good reason for considering containing works to be essentially different from others. (If my recollection is faulty, I'm sorry for that; but I think the issue deserves attention, even if I have attribution and detail a bit wrong!) I presume that containing works may be monographic, i.e. assembled into a set named and definable as a coherent entity; or alternatively extending (e.g. monographic series, or serial, maybe also integrating); and one shades into the other, as when a collection of readings, or musical pieces, or whatever, is presented in a new edition, but under the same title, with variations of content. I think the FRBR framework WEMI is too minimalistic a summary of real bibliographic life; to accomodate reality, the definitions have to be trained and stretched rather too far. Consider recent exchanges, here and elsewhere, about topics such as lack of definition in the practice of formulating provider-neutral records, and treatment of electronic documents reproducing a reproduction of a document originally in another medium. One of my favorite points of difficulty is concerned with the failure to recognize subcategories: by strict adherence to FRBR principles, a print reproduction of a print text issued by another publisher is another expression; as I see things, it could better be characterized as a sub-manifestation -- but sub-entities don't figure in the schema. Another conceivable sub-entity, in a different order, are the physical parts of an item, e.g. volumes of a multi-volume printed text. FRBR is a conceptual framework (not a data structure), of immense value, but there are things it doesn't accomodate well. As our approaches to bibliographic control become increasingly granular, I fear the deficiencies of FRBR as metadata structure will become increasingly clear; I fear also that responses will be fragmented and contradictory, undermining the hoped-for progress towards interoperability. Therefore I don't think we should just shrug our shoulders, nor simply lift the edge of the carpet to slide the debris out of sight. The history of cataloguing shows that difficulties don't go away if we don't look at them. Hal Cain (retired but not uninterested) Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Provider neutral records
Quoting Ed Jones ejo...@nu.edu: I can see that combining these distinct manifestations/expressions under one catalog record saves the time of the cataloger. But important differences are thereby rendered opaque to the user, who may be looking specifically for a searchable text or for a medical text with high-resolution color images. For some, the ability of a given electronic text to be rendered by text-to-speech software may be crucial. Wouldn't it be better to bring out these differences in distinct records and then allow display software to collapse them to the level where only their differences stand out? Ranganathan's fourth law: Save the time of the reader. IFLA's Statement of International Cataloguing Principles, 2009, p. 2: Several principles direct the construction of cataloguing codes. The highest is the convenience of the user. http://www.ifla.org/files/cataloguing/icp/icp_2009-en.pdf I would allow a little latitude for extreme pressure of circumstances; to do otherwise as a routine or a matter of course is, in terms of professional ethics, questionable. Hal Cain (retired but still involved) Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] New ed. of Chicago Manual of Style
Quoting Adam L. Schiff asch...@u.washington.edu: I was sitting at lunch today, reading our weekly alternative newspaper The Stranger, and lo and behold they have a book review of the new (16th) edition of The Chicago Manual of Style: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/hyphenate-this/Content?oid=4830760 The are a number of changes to the style manual mentioned in the review that have implications for RDA instructions and examples. RDA A.10: The guidelines for English-language capitalization basically follow those of the Chicago Manual of Style.(1) Certain guidelines that differ have been modified to conform to the requirements of bibliographic records and long-standing cataloguing practice. [snip] Why should cataloguers (as evidenced and prescribed by RDA) follow styles which differ from the leading English style guides in the various English-language countries? We're constantly being told that the data we craft may be employed not only in bibliographic catalogues of the kind we're used to but elsewhere, in as many different contexts as people can imagine. While I doubt some of those claims, I think some of the difference of style we're used to are retained for no good reason. Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Time and effort
Quoting Weinheimer Jim j.weinhei...@aur.edu: It is my own opinion that whatever we produce cannot ever be Enough for what people want and need from information. (Thanks for putting it that way, June!) Those ways of thinking about the catalog are over, and I think, forever. While this may be sad and regrettable, I think it is part of growing up and it is just as well if those ideas are buried. Nevertheless, most of us remain in the struggle to record what we are providing for our users. It seems to me that it is all very well to explore ideas about future data structures and how they might support services that would meet our users' needs. But my real-life difficulty in serving the users of the library I worked for (and still help out from time to time, now I'm retired) is to put records for new and old (unrecorded) resources into the catalogue, consistently with the resources already recorded there, so that people can find what we have, and using the facilities on the catalogue navigate from one to another to get the best match between what they're looking for and what we can provide. Our catalogue lacks bells and whistles, but it serves the purposes of both staff and end-users, not to mention the groups who are our proprietors, reasonably well. The changes RDA (if implemented!) will bring will make at least a superficial difference, but probably not much more than that. If we want to pursue FRBR-type clustering (beyond the linking fields and hyperlinked headings of our present cataloguing) then we can turn to Open Worldcat and/or to the National Library of Australia's Trove service (which piggypacks on the Libraries Australia database and clusters records by their distinctive characteristics). Meanwhile the most vexing problem I encounter is not the structure of the data and how it's encoded, it's the endless duplicate records in the databases -- and in OCLC's case the non-AACR2 foreign records which often are the only ones for materials I'm dealing with -- and I can assure Jim, that those I've already entered are beginning to attract requests from users. We must be doing something right. I confess to a bias: I tend to treat the tangible printed document as the norm; however I recognize that I belong to an age that's passing. However it affects my outlook on the purposes of libraries and the role of the catalogue as a key to resources presented to library users. As I see it, libraries are primarily about *documents*: things that can be described, summarized, organized, stored and retrieves -- and, most importantly, used and cited and put away and then called up again for people to verify what they tell us. Moreover, nobody else in the information universe is going to keep track of documents so that another person can retrieve what another author used as a resource in creating what she or he wrote. I don't yet see how linked data structures contribute to this endeavour, and it seems to me quite possible that they may undermine the recording of documents in terms of distinguishing characteristics, responsibility and associations, content, likeness and difference. Libraries are of course in the information game. But unless they pay attention first to the documents that contain the information, there is nothing at all to distinguish them from any other kind of information agency and we might as will turn the whole enterprise over to the information scientists. I wonder how documents figure in the economy of Jim's library? Not every information need can be met from documentary resources, but if the documents don't any longer matter then what's the purpose of the library to make it different from any other kind of instructional support? Hal Cain Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Consolidated ISBD and RDA double punctuation
Quoting Tod Olson t...@uchicago.edu: Correction: as Ed points out, inserting punctuation is not always predictable because some subfields may contain data which ISBD prefixes differently. I think those cases are relatively few, however. But as Ed also points out, a massive data conversion would be required to sort this out properly, and that would only be meaningful if MARBI established new subfields to reflect the granularity of data that is actually encoded in the fields, instead of relying on the in-band ISBD to signal the semantics of the following subfield. And, I believe, attempts to establish new specific subfields for title elements such as parallel title have already been rejected. In some tags, the only way of generating additional subfield capacity would be to embark on the use of upper-case letters to designate subfields. When I mentioned that possibility a while ago, I was howled down. The overwhelming arguments against are historical (the existing mass of records) and behavioral (people are unwilling to adopt something they've never done before, and don't believe others will do it properly anyway) and technical (getting it implemented in library systems and catalogue displays). Easier to go and start afresh elsewhere. Hal Cain, retired from partnering Sisyphus Melbourne, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Quoting Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net: Quoting hec...@dml.vic.edu.au: See, for instance, the newly-formulated BIBCO standard record http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/BSR-Final-Report.pdf -- a formula less than core in terms of content required -- where the prescription for the uniform title states (for 240, i.,e. uniform title under author's name): Supply if known or can be easily inferred from the item being cataloged. One key difference between library cataloging and the web-based concepts in the semantic web work is that the latter sees metadata as being built up as information becomes available. So metadata in a networked environment is additive -- it's not a one-time creation. If one contributor knows the uniform title (Work title), then all linked Manifestations now have access to that title. Yebbut... there's that linking process. I wonder how far OCLC will let participants go in supplying these kinds of links: there seems to be still considerable emphasis on levels of entitlement to modify existing records already tagged at a certain level; there are, I believe, restrictions on modifying records tagged with a PCC code in 042 -- since I don't work in the WorldCat database, I'm not familiar with these restrictions and how they work. Such restrictions don't apply to those registered to work in the Australian National Bibliographic Database (Libraries Australia) but not many participants choose to do that; the effects though seem no more troublesome to data quality than the flood of trivially-variant duplicates that arises from batch loading subscribers' files. I think that either we have high-quality databases to which only a restricted number of certified participants may contribute (and the same are entitled to edit too), or we allow a free hand to all. As a comparison, the National Library has a newspaper site, where the scanned images are accompanied by sometimes rough-and-ready OCR text; all and sundry may, if they choose to take the time and trouble, amend the text online. In a relatively short time, hundreds of thousands of lines of OCR text have been edited. I certainly endorse the notion of cooperative improvement of data. The dynamic record notion (which was intended in principle to allow enhancement of core records with additional data, wasn't it?) is one approach. I remain sceptical about building a record by tying together pieces of disparate data, though. Whether one wishes to take the work, the expression, the manifestation or the item as the primary focus of cataloguing, what we have to deal with is something that has its own defined, bounded existence (physical or virtual or conceptual) and is individual either as a single object or as a set of what's common between objects. And as for doubts about WEMI, I think it's as good a model as any other scheme I've encountered, not that I think it accounts for everything we deal with, but it does for most. Hal Cain Dalton mcCaughey Library Parkville, victoria, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Quoting Bernhard Eversberg e...@biblio.tu-bs.de: Schutt, Misha wrote: The moral of this story, I guess, is that two works may be separated by multiple layers of derivativeness. True. snip RDA, however, asks for a more detailed inspection because it is a cornerstone of the FRBR model that related works, expressions and manifestations be made transparent and meaningfully presented in a catalog to assist the users in their arduous tasks of finding and selecting the right thing. And this will mean a bit more work, sometimes bordering on literary criticism, delving much deeper into the content than cataloging rules used to require. I find it hard to think that this will happen; at least, not widely. See, for instance, the newly-formulated BIBCO standard record http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/BSR-Final-Report.pdf -- a formula less than core in terms of content required -- where the prescription for the uniform title states (for 240, i.,e. uniform title under author's name): Supply if known or can be easily inferred from the item being cataloged. Since the commonest relationship, and the most frequent application of 240, is translation, and not every document discloses the title of the work/expression/manifestation from which it was translated, I can only suppose that the guiding spirits of BIBCO are not serious about the FRBR as applied in RDA. And since I'm sure I've read that LC intends to adopt the BIBCO standard record for at least some of its cataloguing, I suspect that the initial application of RDA will be partial, probably designed to be as much like AACR2 as can be attained. Hal Cain Dalton McCaughey Library Parkville, Victoria, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Systems v Cataloging was: RDA and granularity
Quoting Frances, Melodie mfran...@gtu.edu: Can anyone explain WHY it's so hard to get info from MARC? Because it's a format contemporary programmers mostly don't understand? And nobody else but libraries uses that kind of format? Much of the coding has a semantic value -- 100 is like 700 but different -- which contains not only a specific kind of data but also defines the relationship of that data to other parts of the record. And some data is transcribed (getting publication dates to behave uniformly in a table despite the present of c or square brackets...) but some is in code (and not always the same code -- country of publication in 008, multiple countries of publication in 044 which we seldom use, different geographic codes for content in 043. And sometimes we put dates with names but sometime we don't. And so on. I agree though with Bernhard's point, that potential other users outside the library world seem to be approaching the data mostly from their own particular perspective. Meanwhile, within the library world, we have the peculiar professional discontinuities, such as superdetailed RDA specifications vs. the pare-to-the-minimum BIBCO Standard Record specification. Non-library users may not be in agreement, but it seems that neither are we. Hal Cain Dalton McCaughey Library Parkviulle, Victoria, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Utility of FRBR/WEMI/RDA
Bernhard Eversberg wrote: Weinheimer Jim wrote: But I think this misses the point: does WEMI define the universe of information, *and* define what people want when they search information? From my understanding of FRBR/RDA, everything must be boiled down to WEMI. It's the classical mental image for the structure of published resources. It emerged at a time when there was no dynamism and interactivity in publishing but only static, physical items one could relate to each other in defined ways. Yes; even so, I remain unconvinced that the containing work (a monograph collection of contributions, like that favorite academic creation, the festschrift; or, above all, a serial publication containing articles) is really the same kind of beast as a work in the sense of a person's writing, or a picture -- I suspect the analogies are weak, and appear tolerable only because in the past we've used similar devices do deal with them, basically ignoring the constituent works which they contain. Consolidation of like attributes is one thing; reductionism (which involves ignoring of significant differences because they don't seem to fit your narrowly-focussed purpose right now, and can therefore be plausibly but inaccurately said not to matter) is quite another, and undermines our efforts. I see our task as trying to give access to this information in the most coherent way for our users. Is seeing everything through WEMI-colored lenses the only way, the best way, or even a correct way, of doing it? Not in my view -- WEMI is only properly applicable to essentially coherent documents. Besides, FRBR/WEMI/FRAD show no signs of being applied to make the kind of links which, in principle, could be created. I think I've quoted before one of my own fields of interest: spiritual writings used by Elizabethan Catholics. In this cluster of documents Jesuits authors, editors and publishers are a significant group of contributors. But no mechanism, present or proposed (except my own endeavours, for myself), enables me to apply a search criterion to discovering or organizing the resources, namely what documents have a Jesuit connection? And if you're going to move outside the document field -- resources which have a degree of fixity -- I really don't understand how you can operate in combination with documentary resource systems. Hal Cain Dalton McCaughey Library Parkville, Victoria, Australia h...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
