> > This reminds me of that moment: how hundreds of years worth > of experience is on this list? And there is no agreement on > something like *what is a work*?! How can we ever hope for > any kind of consistency? Of course it goes without saying > that with no consistency, everyone will be fated to stay on > that merry-go-round of "fixing" everybody else's records.
However, dear Jim... 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. Dan
