Am I totally lost in the world of RDA, or is there something peculiar about
this record: OCLC # 824119602?
From the title ("My Mother Goose") and contents note (aside to MARC nerds: here
the much-maligned corralling-off of initial articles in $g subfields has been
put into effect), it appears to be, in the main, an illustrated collection of
the rhymes traditionally attributed to a female of the poultry kind, one Mother
Goose (or a human female bearing that moniker). A "look inside" on Amazon.com
confirms this.
"Mother Goose" has not (yet) made her appearance on an NAR as a fictitious
person/animal, but Mother Goose is an authorized access point as a title (not
yet upgraded to RDA). However, there is no title access point that begins with
"Mother Goose" in this record. Instead, the principal responsibility has been
assigned to David McPhail, whose name appears in the 100 field, but apparently
his relationship to the work is as "editor" and "illustrator." I find these
terms in RDA listed in Appendix I.3.1, which is for persons, etc. "contributing
to an expression of a work," not to the work itself.
And yet an authorized access point for this resource exists with its own NAR
(lccn n 2013003290). It reads "McPhail, David, 1940- Nursery rhymes.
Selections." Sure enough, the title portion appears in our bib record in the
MARC 240 field, "Nursery rhymes. Selections." Would this not imply that the
resource is considered to be a selection of the many nursery rhymes composed by
McPhail?
I'm confused.
A larger question: is "Mother Goose" still valid as a title-only authorized
access point under RDA? I cannot locate the RDA section that would apply. Or
should "Mother Goose" become a name access point as the fictitious author of
various collections of traditional nursery rhymes? Presumably, the verses in
these collections originally had many authors, most unknown to posterity, but
the implied attribution is generally to Mother Goose, the "fictitious or
legendary person" (or "non-human entity" for the variation considering her to
be an actual waterfowl).
--------------------------------------------------------
Kathie Coblentz, Rare Materials Cataloger
Collections Strategy/Special Formats Processing
The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
5th Avenue and 42nd Street, Room 313
New York, NY 10018
kathiecoble...@nypl.org
My opinions, not NYPL's
