Perhaps my intent was misunderstood. My motives are those of curiosity
and understanding, not a desire to replace RDA with RAK (a truly
quixotic adventure). I am a cataloging enthusiast, as I suspect we all
are. On my bookshelf I have copies of Panizzi's and Cutter's rules,
the
1908 Anglo-American code, the 1949 ALA code, as well as the two AACRs,
and I consult them from time to time to see how they approached a
particular problem in their day. I would love to have an English
translation of RAK for the same purpose, to provide insights into
alternative approaches to a problem. I realize official resources must
focus on the future, and that future is RDA. This is why I see
translation of RAK as a sort of "labor of love" for some ad hoc group
of amateurs de catalogage to tackle on their own time.
If this venture ever moves beyond the talking stage, permission would
certainly be sought from the DNB for free online publication of the
result, ideally on the DNB website alongside the original.
Best regards,
Ed Jones
-----Original Message-----
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Frodl,
Christine
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 4:28 AM
To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
Subject: [RDA-L] AW: [RDA-L] German cataloging rules "RAK"
I am happy to hear that you find RAK worthy to be translated for the English-speaking
parts of the world. However, the Committee for Library Standards, a consortium of
large academic libraries and regional networks of the Federal Republic and of one
representative from each of the Austrian and Swiss library systems, the German public
libraries, the St?ndige Konferenz der Kultusminister der L?nder der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland, ekz Bibliotheksservice GmbH, as well as the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft
<http://www.dnb.de/EN/Standardisierung/AFS/afsOrganisation.html>, decided to
apply the RDA standard instead of developing RAK further.
RAK has not been developed since the early days of the millennium. Instead of
this, we are focusing on the development and implementation of RDA. We are
convinced that the future of library standards will be international. Those
aspects of our current standards that should be kept, may find their way into
our policy statements that are being developed by the German-speaking community
prior to the RDA implementation. Maybe, it would be worth discussing Heidrun's
suggestion to provide an English translation for these. The other possibility
would be to submit discussion papers and proposals to the JSC and to
collaborate with all the JSC constituencies to make RDA truly international and
applicable!
Please, don't get me wrong. RAK has had its time but we should concentrate on
the future now. Translating a standard that shouldn't be used in the near
future seems to me regressive instead of bringing the community forward. Let's
concentrate on our common future.
Best regards,
Christine Frodl
P.S.: The official electronic version of RAK is that on the website of the
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB). DNB also should be asked for permission to
translate and publish any foreign language version of RAK. Thank you.
***Reading. Listening. Understanding. German National Library***
--
Christine Frodl
German National Library
Office for Library Standards
Adickesallee 1
D-60322 Frankfurt am Main
Telefon: +49-69-1525-1404
Telefax: +49-69-1525-1010
mailto:c.fr...@dnb.de
http://www.dnb.de
-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access
[mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] Im Auftrag von Bernhard
Eversberg
Gesendet: Montag, 4. Februar 2013 09:49
An: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
Betreff: Re: [RDA-L] German cataloging rules "RAK"
Am 02.02.2013 21:26, schrieb Ed Jones:
I think technology offers an excellent opportunity for translating
RAK into English. What might once have been a challenge can now be
accomplished by dividing the work among interested parties and making
use of freely available tools. As an experiment, I downloaded the PDF
page image file of the 2007 RAK-WB and broke it up into hundred-page
files (to make it a bit less unwieldy). Then I converted the file to
RTF using OCR
Maybe the HTML version, in that it does not require OCR, can make for a better
job:
http://www.allegro-c.de/regeln/rwb.htm
Google translation might help, if an attempt is at all found desirable, but quite a lot of work
would still be necessary. It must be said that the RAK language used to be praised for its clarity
and conciseness. Also, we used to have a clear distinction between "formal" cataloging
(Formalkatalogisierung) and subject cataloging (mostly called "indexing" in English). In
some cases, this distinction went too far, esp. with personal names which were to be spelled
differently: vernacular form for the formal record, German form for the subject heading. This
latter was given up and could be justified no longer anyway since authority systems came into
being, and in particular since we have record linking for name headings as well as for subject
headings, not text string headings in title records.
Formality, in RAK, and in a nutshell, means decisions based on form rather than
casuistry. And only a minimum of cataloger judgement. All that in the interest
of more uniformity and predictability and fewer duplicates.
This said, we have to admit that there were strong sentiments here against
trashing RAK for AACR2 (around 2002), but the powers that be stuck to their
decision, and consequently embraced RDA when AACR was committed to the trash
heaps later on. Now, there is a German translation of RDA, but I'm reluctant to
comment on its linguistic qualities.
All the same, RAK subscribes to the same theoretic background as AACR and RDA, rooted in
the 19th century. In itself, this is not wrong, but it is not enough. A "RAK
online" had been in the making back then, aiming at more conformity with AACR, but
official support for it ceased in 2002. Whether or not this was a far-sighted and
sensible decision remains to be seen, even now after more than 10 years - we just don't
have any new age data yet to make comparisons. But this is supposed to change soon.
B.Eversberg
