Per RDA 6.2.2, "The preferred title for the work is the title or form of
title chosen as the basis for the authorized access point representing
that work." (Note that this definition applies to all works, not just
musical works.) Chapter 6 then includes additional instructions about
how to determine that "title or form of title," including what
additional elements are needed to make an authorized access point unique
(or at least unique for works).
Remember that in defining elements to record that will form the basis of
the authorized access point, RDA has made some decisions to allow for
better machine manipulation. Also keep in mind that one of the
developmental goals for RDA was to allow RDA records to "play well" with
our existing bibliographic and authority data. AACR2 25.29A1 (for music
titles that consist solely of the name of one type of composition)
specifically states, "Give the name in the plural (this may be a
non-English plural form, e.g., divertimenti) unless the composer wrote
only one work of the type." Thousands of AACR2 bibliographic and
authority records are based on this instruction, and in my opinion,
changing from the plural to the singular in this element when
constructing an AACR2 vs. an RDA access point naming a work would not
have been a value-added exercise (especially considering the need for
retrospective conversion of all of those AACR2 headings).
I don't believe in Adam's example below that he was suggesting these
data elements display in this fashion with these labels to our users.
Again, this is the potential difference between recording the data
elements (Preferred title for the work: Symphonies; etc.) and
constructing an authorized access point (Szymanowski, Karol, 1882-1937.
Symphonies, no. 1, op. 15, F minor) or having a machine build that
access point on the fly based on the recorded elements.
Kathy Glennan
Chair, Music Library Association's Bibliographic Control Committee
Head, Special Resources Cataloging / Music Cataloger
University of Maryland
On 3/10/2011 8:26 AM, Adger Williams wrote:
Thanks Adam and Kathleen for your timely and helpful answers that
cleared up some of my confusion, but ...
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 4:33 PM, Adam L. Schiff
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
<snip>
Identifier: no 98018594 Creator: Szymanowski, Karol, 1882-1937
Preferred title of work: Symphonies
Numeric designation - Serial number: no. 1
Numeric designation - Opus number: op. 15
Key: F minor
<snip>
What exactly is the "Preferred title" of a work? No one really
prefers the word "symphonies" (it's plural) to designate one symphony.
Is the phrase "preferred title" meant to refer to "the first element
of a string that will uniquely identify" the work/e/m; is there some
other job it is supposed to do as well?
I know it's a bit silly to argue about what to call something if we
all know what the something (a preferred title) is, but not all of us
know what it is, so we rely on what it's name actually means, and this
name isn't very helpful.
I had been thinking that the term "preferred title" referred to the
display form for an authorized access point that was a title that a
library "preferred". (e.g. In Cyrillic or Hebrew script, or possibly
with different abbreviation conventions). If this
form-to-be-displayed-to-users (that isn't the unique identifier no.)
isn't a preferred title, does the form-to-be-displayed-to-users have a
non-cumbersome name?
--
Adger Williams
Colgate University Library
315-228-7310
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
