Yes, I think it's ridiculous to try and write ISBD punctuation directly
in MARC, instead of having presentation software supply it later if
desired. RDA theoretically is meant to get us away from such things,
but the need to shoe-horn it into MARC, and the reluctance to give up on
manually entering ISBD, keeps us mired in a confusing situation where
you need to consult several different (not very well aligned standards)
to figure out how to enter the data -- and in general, need to consider
more 'context' to figure out how to enter data. (Is there a 490
following? Why should I care when deciding how to enter the publication
data, what does this have to do with publication data? It also means
that that if the status of the 490 on a record ever changes, you've got
to go back and possibly reformulate the 300 too?)
This really starts getting in the way of the savings to cataloger time,
and rationalization of data recorded, that RDA aims for. I wonder if
there is another approach. Like, perhaps, not worrying about ISBD
punctuation when recording data. Software can determine at the time of
display if there is another 'ISBD area' following the 300 in the
display, and if so, what punctuation should be supplied. If that's
actually needed at all for our users. But the goal of RDA is to be
presentation-independent, and recording punctuation based on your
predictions/assumptions about how a given system will display the data
recorded (like whether a 490 will be immediately following or not) is
not that. Makes the data less flexible AND increases the amount of time
catalogers need to spend with idiosyncratic (not "principles based") rules.
J. McRee Elrod wrote:
Christopher Case said:
I was just curious how one would punctuate the 300 field,
specifically final punctuation in $c ...
According the samples, and the explanations given by others, you now
know that there is a final period only if a 490 follows 300, despite
the fact that there are now three new 3XX fields between.
This seems ridiculous to me. In any given OPAC display, the 490 may
or may not be displayed following the 300, and may or may not be in
the same paragraph.
It seems to me there should be a final period after all elements (as
with a sentence), regardless of what follows. A dash should be
considered the ISBD display introduction of the next element in the
same paragraph, not a period dash. Most OPACs today use labels, not
dashes, between elements.
SLC will supply the period after cm at the end of 300 if lacking.
This is an angels dancing on pin sort of distinction which makes us
look silly.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([email protected])
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
