In reading RDA's section on Date of Publication and Copyright Date, I'm seeing a somewhat different pattern than what has been discussed.
There are numerous >>relationships<< between the different elements that affect how we think about the elements, and ultimately how we should encode them and display them. Copyright Date is not just set against the Date of Publication as a separate element. The Date of Publication is a sub-element of an element in its own right-- Publication Statement. A Publication Statement essentially captures an event which has a place, agent, and date. A copyright date is not directly related to that event, other than suggesting a probable date of publication should the date of publication be unknown. Likewise, Production Statement, Publication Statement, Distribution Statement, and Manufacture Statement, are all independent elements, with their own sub-elements, and all are distinct from the Copyright Date element. These separate elements and related sub-elements are reflected in the layout of the Notes (RDA 2.20). "A note is an annotation providing additional information relating to data recorded in another element." A note on dates of publication is captured in a Note on Publication Statement element (there is no note for the sub-element Date of Publication-- a note on a date of publication has to be covered by the note for the wider element, Publication Statement). A note on copyright dates is an optional annotation on the data in the original element-- Copyright Date. I think that mapping out all the data into these new RDA elements provides many possibilities for convenient future displays of that data, since it makes sense to have all relevant data about an element grouped together, rather than scattered around, with some in disconnected notes at the bottom of the record as AACR2 has it now. Splicing together the original elements in a MARC 260 field is a bit challenging, but it's a step in the right direction to get away from having interloping data elements, such as those the crowded 260$c subfield, interfering in the ability to provide new kinds of user-friendly displays, or even just interfering in the ability for encoding standards to have a single meaning for the value of a field. RDA, as a content standard, should be flexible enough to produce traditional displays (for reasonable backwards-compatibility) and new kinds of displays for the new digital environment. That's how the arrangement and interrelationships of RDA elements should be looked at. Thomas Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library
