Just to clarify, our MARC Bib records are not strictly Manifestation records, they are compilations of Manifestation data + Work data + Expression data crammed into single record. Unfortunate, but what we are stuck with for the time being. A change in Expression data in a MARC Bib record means a change in Expression when we get the data out of MARC and into ... whatever.
RDA thinking is not the same as AACR thinking, and we have to learn to think RDA if we are making RDA records. If we don't want to think RDA, then no one is stopping us from continuing to make AACR records, but we cannot make RDA records using AACR thinking. I agree that we cannot expect uniformity in this learning period, but that does not mean that we should not strive for it wherever possible. - - - - - - - - Deborah Fritz TMQ, Inc. debo...@marcofquality.com www.marcofquality.com -----Original Message----- From: J. McRee Elrod [mailto:m...@slc.bc.ca] Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 2:02 PM To: debo...@marcofquality.com Cc: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Recording alternate content and physical forms -- Bibframe Deborah Fritzs said: >In the meantime, if we are making RDA records, then we have to use the >RDA elements in the way that RDA defines them; just as we have to (if >only it were true) use MARC elements the way that MARC defines those elements. RDA has so many options, and so many fuzzy directions, that we will not have uniformity. As you said, we are now only doing manifestation frecords. There will be many versions of what is "correct". When in doubt, the litmus should be what assists patrons. This may mean for example 300 $a1 board book (12 unnumbered pages)... to get that information in brief display, and/or a summary specific to the edition (aka instance, manifestation). For decades SLC has used AACR2 by analogy in this way, and one by one the things we did at client request made it into AACR2 rule revisions (or in the case of producer of unpublished material, into RDA). I suspect the same will happen with RDA. In the meantime, we should not hamper our patrons because of rule lacuna. I suspect it will be worse with Bibframe, in that ambiguity of language muddies the meaning of tags. For example "bf:]ublisherdescription": if the tag refers to abstract/summary, librarians have not thought of that as "description"; by "description" we mean the transcribed elements (MARC 2XX-4XX). These abstracts/summaries come from many sources other than publishers (as another poster has pointed out). Are we to have a tag for each source? Many of our DVD 520s come from IMDb. Will we have a tag for them if "who" is important? The way MARC handles source in many field is a subfield source code; in quoted 5XX it is dash (two hyphens) and source. The source is not incorporated into the tag. This bf tag is unfortunate in both of the words chosen; there are many abstract/summary sources other than publisher, and the abstract/summary is not what we understand by "description". The tag should be "bf:abstractsummary", with a means of recording source if wished. We do ourselves no favours by repurposing words. (I seem to recall having this conversation with neo orthodox theologians decades ago; what is said is not what is heard.) __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
