Deborah Fritz <debo...@marcofquality.com> wrote: > However, there doesn't seem to be a relationship designator for > 'producer'; or rather, there is one, but it is assigned to: "producer: A > person, family, or corporate body responsible for most of the business > aspects of a production for screen, audio recording, television, webcast, > etc. The producer is generally responsible for fund raising, managing the > production, hiring key personnel, arranging for distributors, etc."--I.2.2 > (Work) > > So it seems that we need a new relationship designator to cover this > situation, and I wonder why RDA does not already have one; is there an > actual reason why RDA has designators for Manufacturers (I.4.1), Publishers > (I.4.2) and Distributors (I.4.3) but not Producers (manifestation)? >
For the same reason there's no specific "publisher" designator--that role is covered by the broader element Publisher. This is one of those RDA learning hurdles: applying function/role terms to, in this case, name headings. RDA assumes at the very least that the blank lines catalogers fill in (mentally more often than not) to describe relationships between a name and a title/thing are labeled in some manner. The labels are the elements found under RDA chapters 19-22: Creator: Doe, Jane Publisher: ABC Media (New York, N.Y.) Owner: Smith, John Designators are nothing more than terms for specific roles under the broader element banners. In other words, the hierarchy from broad to specific roles is not limited to Appendix I alone, but RDA chapters 19-22 + Appendix I. For instance: Creator (RDA 19.2) > author (RDA I.2.1) > librettist (RDA I.2.1) This can be read backwards too: a librettist is a kind of author, which is a kind of creator. So when filling in those blank lines, the Appendix I designators serve to answer the question "What specific kind of ...?," a question that can be repeated through successive layers of specificity. Creator: Doe, Jane - Specific kind of creator: architect Publisher: ABC Media (New York, N.Y.) - Specific kind of publisher: broadcaster Owner: Smith, John - Specific kind of owner: former owner - - Specific kind of form owner: donor For the last one above, part of the decision-making process we do is select either "former owner" or "donor" for John Smith's relationship to the thing we're cataloging. Similar decisions are done with "director" vs. "film director" and "performer" vs. "singer" and so on. As to this mental process being translated into boots-on-the-ground MARC practice, the specifics of RDA run into the sometimes more general structure of MARC. The 100 field, often used for authors, artists, composers, and other creators, is not limited only to creators; the 700 field can hold names that serve the function of, well, damn near anything. MARC tags alone only get us halfway to the blank line scenario I painted above. So we have the $e and $j the bridge the gap and act as placeholders for these role terms--terms not only from Appendix I, but also the elements from Chapters 19-22. In our own MARC cataloging practice, we're not going to use the more lengthy element names in the $e/$j (e.g., 700 10 Smith, John, $e other person, family, or corporate body associated with a manifestation). We devised abbreviated versions of these as proxies, like "producer (manifestation)" for "producer of an unpublished resource" and "other (work)" for "other person, family, or corporate body associated with a work." We haven't had any materials come through that have called for these yet. -- Mark K. Ehlert Minitex <http://www.minitex.umn.edu/>
