Quoting "Brenndorfer, Thomas" <[email protected]>:
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))
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