Thomas,
thank you for this very instructive mail.
It is correct that one Creator element and one Title proper element can
duplicate the Work Manifested element if the form used is the authorized access
point for the work (name + title form), as opposed to an identifier (such as a
URI).
But there can be multiple Creators for the one work...
Creator: Person K
Creator: Person R
Creator: Person Z
If the first name person on the resource is Person R, then the authorized
access point is formed:
Person R. Preferred title.
Essentially, this is the AACR2 main entry rule, minus the Rule of Three.
In RDA though, just pointing to a Creator element is not sufficient -- there is no order
being specified if there is more than one Creator. The idea of a "first named"
appears only in the construction of the authorized access point for the work, and that
alone mimics the 100 + 245 construction and order of fields.
Ah, I see what you mean. But still: Wouldn't it be rather odd to include
the data element "work manifested" in record merely to make it possible
to deduce from this who the first creator is? This is, by the way, only
possible if "work manifested" is given by using the authorized access
point for the work in the conventional way; you wouldn't get the
information from an identifier in numerical form. What's more, the
authorized access point for a work can also be given differently,
without specifying the first creator: There is an option in RDA of
contructing the access point for a collaborative work by including the
authorized access points for _all_ creators (6.27.1.3, alternative).
But I think this raises a very important point: RDA only has one
(repeatable) element "creator". Indeed, one wonders why it's not
possible to express the notion of the most important creator somehow.
Wouldn't the obvious solution be a relationship designator?
Bay the way, in the new German common authority file we use a code
"aut1" to mark the first creator of a work, e.g.:
130 Buddenbrooks
500 [Link to authority control number for the record of "Mann,
Thomas"]$4aut1
Come to think of it, this seems to be a general flaw in RDA: For
instance, if there is more than one statement of responsibility, we're
told to "record the statements in the order indicated by the sequence,
layout, or typography of the source of information" (2.4.1.6). But how
can this be done? As with creator, there is only one data element
"statement of responsibility". So how can am I supposed to specify which
is the first statement and which the second? RDA doesn't state this
explicitly, but there seems to be an underlying presupposition here that
in the encoding format it will somehow be possible to bring out the
correct sequence. Yet, as a content standard, RDA is certainly
incomplete here (and in similar cases elsewhere). If the information
about sequence is important, RDA should provide a way of giving it.
But there are some new conventions that sweep away the often contorted way
AACR2 handled two or more works within a resource.
Instead of having work 1 title in a 240 and work 2 title in an analytical 700
name-title added entry, RDA has this idea of having the entities a little more
clearly identified in consistent conventions:
100 $a Miller, Arthur, $d 1915-2005
240 $a Plays. $k Selections
245 $a Two plays / $c Arthur Miller.
505 $a The Archbishop’s ceiling -- The American clock.
700 $a Miller, Arthur, $d 1915-2005. $t Archbishop’s ceiling.
700 $a Miller, Arthur, $d 1915-2005. $t American clock.
So here the compilation is Work 1, the Archbishop's ceiling is Work 2, and
American clock is Work 3.
This is a very interesting example, which also brings us back to the
neverending problem of aggregate works. I agree that there are three
works manifested here: The compilation itself (work 1) and - on a
different level - the individual works (2 and 3). RDA says (17.8): "If
more than one work is embodied in the manifestation, only the
predominant or first-named work manifested is required" as a core
element. Now, if you want to work out an RDA representation for this,
similar to the JSC examples, which of the three works would you have to
give as "work manifested"? As far as I know, LC's opinion is that it
would be the first of the individual works. But personally, I think this
is highly debatable.
But the ultimate point here is that these primary relationships were always
implicit in traditional bibliographic records. The key to understanding RDA is
that what was implicit is made explicit in such a way that the logic of what is
happening in the resource is captured in the instructions-- but there is room
for different conventions to carry that logic. One doesn't have to wait for a
post-MARC environment to establish the primary relationships, but perhaps a
post-MARC environment can be more efficient at processing and displaying those
relationships.
I agree absolutely.
Still, I find the whole notion of the composite description one of the
really disappointing features of RDA. In a way, RDA starts out saying:
"Yes! We want to have FRBR!" But then, when it gets down to business,
and the rules for the primary relationships are stated, RDA gets rather
meek: "O.k., if you want to, you just can go on doing what you've done
before and mix everything together".
Don't get me wrong: I do see that there is progress with RDA. And I do
understand that the idea is to have a gradual introduction of FRBR, and
that neither people nor systems ought to be overburdened by radical
upheavals. But still it is a bit depressing. That's why I found the
introduction of the data element "work manifested" in composite
descriptions quite intriguing...
Heidrun
--
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Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstrasse 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
