John Myers listed earlier rule changes:
>The changes incumbent with respect to:
1. >- form of entry for pseudonyms,
2. >- form of entry of corporate bodies,
3. >- editors as main entry, and
4. >- corporate bodies as main entry
>were substantial.
1. Yes, moving Clemens to Twain was a major one, and very welcome. I
hope RDA brings us Chilton and Dalai Lama.
2. Changes in form of entry for corporate bodies was largely unnoticed
in my experience. I suspect the removal of O.T. and N.T. will be as
little noticed.
3. The departure from scholarly practice in not using compilers as
main entry *was* noticed, and unfortunately, RDA continues that
mistake.
4. The reduction in corporate main entries went largely unnoticed as
well, with the exception of the inconsistency for law reform
commission reports. Supposedly, main entry remained by the commission
only if official recommendations were included, but changed to
personal author or title if informational. Inconsistencies resulted
in legal collections, due to failure to grasp this distinction. Most
felt law reform commission reports were law reform commission reports.
>The rule of three is an intellectual and pragmatic construct on the
>part >of catalogers that I maintain very few users care about or for.
You may be right. A former 700 would now becomes 100, as with the
reverse change in corporate main entry you noted, a 110 became a 710.
The change in Cutter was all most noticed. The major problem that
110/710 change raised was when there was no 245/$c, and 260$b said
something like "The Office", due to Lubetsky's dislike of redundancy.
(The deconstruction if the ISBD display in many OPACs makes Lubetsky's
concern moot, as it does the silly bit about a full stop introducing
the following field.)
Through all these changes, however, titles were in sentence
capitalization. (Have you noticed that in pre green book records,
corporate bodies in imprints were sentence capitalization?)
I suspect one thing which *will* be noticed is that there would be a
mix of capitalizations in hitlists. Apart from the difficulty in
reading (which has been noted on list), wouldn't patrons expect that
all caps difference to *mean* something, such as on order, missing,
electronic, or on reserve? It does not even necessarily indicate all
caps in the resource. Reference librarians should have fun explaining
that one. We will not accept it.
I suspect, due to unjustified added entries, patrons will notice
getting a record with no indication in the record of why that search
key produced that record. (Searches on the Web have the found phrase
highlighted). This ranks as a greater change than I have ever
experienced, and a major departure from basic cataloguing best
practice. Margaret Mann would be appalled. We will not accept that
either.
Mac (who began with the green and red books)
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
