Several comments here:
First, the JSC recognizes that the list of "official" designators is
incomplete, and that the ones relevant to cartographic resources are
probably inadequate. This was also recognized in the report of the US
RDA Test Coordinating Committee. The JSC very much wants proposals for
additional designators, and the cartographic resources community is
definitely one they would like to hear from.
Second, there are some relationships that are part of the RDA element
structure that do not have designators. "Publisher" is one of these.
This is an element in RDA and (therefore?) does not have a designator in
Appendix I. Because an access point for this element cannot be
identified by MARC 21 tagging, I have argued to the JSC that the only
way to identify that an access point represents a publisher is to use
the MARC 21 relator term "publisher" in subfield $e. This is certainly
valid MARC and I would argue that it is valid RDA. [I have also
recommended that these "element-level" relationships be included as
explicit designators in the RDA "role" element set in the Open Metadata
Registry. In the long run, this may be more important that how we fudge
this in MARC.]
John Attig
ALA Representative to the JSC
jx...@psu.edu
On 11/9/2011 1:49 PM, Christopher Winters wrote:
I've presided over the creation of more than 2400 RDA records for
sheet maps over the last 13 months at the University of Chicago
Library. Relationship designators have given us more problems than any
other aspect of RDA, and (like the book catalogers here) we stopped
using them a couple of months after the test period ended. LC, I
notice, did not use them even during the test period. The problems are:
[1] As others have pointed out, it's often just not very clear what
the "creators" did. You've got to pretend to know more than you do.
This is probably never a very good idea in cataloging work.
[2] The official relationship designators do not fit the actual
functions of map production very well. There is a particular problem
with corporate creators, who are often publishers. But "publisher" is
not one of the official relationship designators, and "issuing body"
doesn't really seem like the right term for corporate publishers.
[3] It's common in cartographic materials for the source of the
data to be a different person or body from the mapmaker. We pushed the
envelope a bit and started using "source of data" as a relationship
designator.
I completely agree with those who find the relationship designators so
problematic as to doubt their value.
Chris Winters
Christopher Winters
Bibliographer for Anthropology, Geography, and Maps
University of Chiago Library
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Robert Maxwell
[robert_maxw...@byu.edu]
*Sent:* Wednesday, November 09, 2011 12:03 PM
*To:* RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
*Subject:* Re: [RDA-L] Offlist reactions to the LC Bibliographic
Framework statement
I’ve been assigning relator terms for years under AACR2 in my
cataloging so I guess I’m just used to it—yes, it takes a little extra
time, but I think the benefits to our users of spelling out the
relationship of the person/corporate body/family to the resource far
outweigh the extra thought and entry time. I personally (and yes, I am
a practicing cataloger) find the extra time and effort to be negligible.
N.B. I’m glad the relationship indicators are getting renewed emphasis
under RDA, but this isn’t a new issue with RDA. Relationship
indicators were allowed under AACR2 and previous codes (see AACR2
21.0D) and have been widely and fairly consistently used during all
that time in many cataloging communities, including the rare materials
cataloging community, in spite of LC’s decision at implementation of
AACR2 not to use them in most cases.
Bob
Robert L. Maxwell
Special Collections and Ancient Languages Catalog Librarian
Genre/Form Authorities Librarian
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568
"We should set an example for all the world, rather than confine
ourselves to the course which has been heretofore pursued"--Eliza R.
Snow, 1842.
*From:*Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] *On Behalf Of *Billie Hackney
*Sent:* Wednesday, November 09, 2011 10:53 AM
*To:* RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
*Subject:* Re: [RDA-L] Offlist reactions to the LC Bibliographic
Framework statement
Determining that there is a contributor and providing a fast access
point is much easier and quicker than figuring out all of the ways
that a person or organization contributed, looking up the terms in
the poorly presented and designed list in the RDA toolkit, and then
typing them all in. When we were doing original cataloging in RDA
here, it was definitely the element of the work that took up most
of the group's time -- it wasn't just me.
Perhaps it is just a difficulty associated with original cataloging of
the type of materials we do here, and all of the other testers didn't
experience the same difficulty that we did? Everyone else found
assigning multiple relator terms easy?
Billie Hackney
Senior Monograph Cataloger
Getty Research Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688
(310) 440-7616
bhack...@getty.edu <mailto:bhack...@getty.edu>
>>> John Attig <jx...@psu.edu <mailto:jx...@psu.edu>> 11/9/2011 9:42 AM >>>
Billie, I think part of Karen's point is that the intellectual
analysis and decision-making is mostly the same whether you are
determining which name to put in the 1XX and which in the 7XXs or
assigning relationship designators. Compared with that intellectual
process, the actual keying of the designators is rather modest.
I would hope that no one undervalues that intellectual work -- at
least they shouldn't. And I would hope that one of the functions of
RDA is to provide a more robust set of ways in which you can record
the conclusions you draw from that intellectual work and convey the
information to the users of your records.
John Attig
Authority Control Librarian
Penn State University
jx...@psu.edu <mailto:jx...@psu.edu>
On 11/9/2011 12:09 PM, Billie Hackney wrote:
I apologize for being testy. It's just that anything
that catalogers themselves say about the difficulties they've
experiences with RDA seem to be passed over and ignored during all
of this theoretical discussion on why RDA is so wonderful. Being
told that assigning relator terms is easy when it's not is rather
frustrating.
Billie Hackney
Senior Monograph Cataloger
Getty Research Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688
(310) 440-7616
bhack...@getty.edu <mailto:bhack...@getty.edu>
