So, the library in question has already decided that 1) the GMD does not work for them -- they had to replace standard GMD terms for specific terms of their own construction, and 2) that they are willing to invest in the effort to modify their records from the standard in order to meet their perception of their clients' needs.
So the defense of the GMD is not with the AACR2's GMD per se, but with the utility of MARC21's 245$h in providing an embedded flag that both disambiguates otherwise matching titles resulting in: separate hits on a list; and early clarification as to the distinguishing characteristic between two otherwise matching title. This is not an insignificant issue, particularly in current catalogs and current cataloger mindsets. However, as our commercial counterparts have readily shown, it is quite easy to develop a faceting structure in an online catalog that allows patron and cataloger alike to winnow a large set of items down to those meeting specific categories of interest (and combinations thereof) such as brand, price, popularity, etc. (Try buying a television set on Best Buy's website to see this in action.) Deployment of such facets within library catalogs, using the new RDA terms and their corresponding MARC21 336/337/338 fields, could improve access by leveraging the computer to work on record selection, rather than requiring users to scan for the GMD -- the library could offer the facet of VIDEO to capture all video forms in the Media Type, and offer the facets DVD and VHS to capture specific carriers in the Carrier Type. Note that the labels of the facets do not need to match the terminology in RDA: there just has to be mapping between catalog label and RDA term to connect the interface to the records. And on a perhaps more contrarian bent, if one is already doing "additional work" to modify AACR2 records with respect to the GMD, what is the added burden to continue such work in an RDA environment? John F. Myers, Catalog Librarian Schaffer Library, Union College Schenectady NY 12308 [email protected] 518-388-6623 -----Original Message----- Kathleen Lamantia wrote: Yes, sorry, of course these are not AACR2 terms, but we do use them and have for years. In fact, they were carefully chosen before I got here. They convey exactly what is needed to staff. As I said in my earlier post, III's field 30 MAT TYPE generates icons which are for patrons using the public display. The 245|h[gmd] is more for staff who see the Millennium interface while performing searches. However, the 245 also appears in the OPAC as an added piece of information for patrons. On 10/23/2012 2:36 PM, Kathleen Lamantia wrote: > Our current gmds are very clear and succinct: dvd, compact disc, comic book; > book on cd, etc. Why make people try to figure out a combination of 3 terms > when one simple clear statement is already in place and tells them what they > need? "People" in this case being staff who are trying to get items to > patrons.
