20.03.2013 15:49, Laurence S. Creider:
Second, I agree that the notion of publication needs reconsideration in light of a longer consideration of the history of the book from ancient times until now. I do not think that "anything fit for public reception" is a workable definition.
For our purposes, I think, the question is, "Does it matter?". We simply need a word for the stuff we catalog, and it better be a word that is understood and taken for granted right away. If you think "resource" is the word, and every catalog user is comfortable with it, then fine. But is this the case? Is it not considered catalogese jargon? (Even if considering just the English speaking community.) You see, we *do* catalog lots of stuff these days that is not published in the conventional sense. All of it is, however, made available to the public, in some way or other, or else we wouldn't include it in the first place. So, is not this fact of being "made available to the public" a criterion that we might now simply turn around to mean "published"? Or, in other words, who would be helped if we made a sophisticated distinction, in the catalog, between stuff that is "published" and other stuff that is not, though being available or accessible just as well? For us, I think, a "workable" definition is one that causes us the minimum of work, and esp. so if the effect of it is minimal. B.Eversberg
