This conversation is a useful counterexample to the perennial question: why don't catalogers just scan and OCR title pages instead of fussing with all of these silly rules about transcribing them? Deciding, "this is avant titre, and this is title proper", or, "this colon here does not necessarily mean what follows is a subtitle" is the type of intellectual labor catalogers do that, (a) provides an added value to the user; and (b) is not easily accomplished through automation.
Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of M. E. Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 12:04 PM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] RDA and the Title Proper Kevin M Randall <k...@northwestern.edu<mailto:k...@northwestern.edu>> wrote: This touches on one of my "favorite" cataloging pet peeves, which is the tendency of many catalogers to treat as "other title information" things that really should be seen as essential parts of the title proper. Another example came up on AUTOCAT a few years ago. If memory serves, the title page of the book was laid out in this way: Historical Israel: Biblical Israel Studying Joshua to 2 Kings And the 245 read: 245 10 Historical Israel : $b biblical Israel : studying Joshua to 2 Kings / ... The cataloger read too much into that colon. Then we have those situations where 245 $b other title information should instead be part/section/supplement titles (245 $n/$p). -- Mark K. Ehlert Minitex <http://www.minitex.umn.edu/>
