Reading up on the treatment of conferences under RDA, I got a bit
worried when I came to the question of the name of a conference. There's
a very good presentation
http://www.loc.gov/aba/rda/source/special_topics_conferences.ppt
which, among many other useful things, explains that the name of
conference does not have to include a word like "meeting", "symposium"
a.s.o. any longer (slides 3-7).
One of the examples given in the "British Library guide to RDA name
authority records" (in the Toolkit, under global workflows) is:
111 2_ |a Ritual, Conflict and Consensus: Comparing Case Studies in Asia
and Europe (Conference) |d (2010 : |c Budmerice, Slovakia)
http://lccn.loc.gov/nb2012014893
So far, so good.
But I find it difficult to imagine how this rule works in practice. In
the "Ritual" example, there seems to have been explicit information in
the book which made it clear that "Ritual, Conflict and Consensus:
Comparing Case Studies in Asia and Europe" really was the name of the
event (as the 670 field shows).
But I assume that in many cases, all you've got is a resource with some
title and some indication that the contents of the resource are the
proceedings of a meeting, symposium or some such, which was held in a
certain a place at a certain time. The title of the book may be the
exact name of the conference (as it was held), or it may be something
similar to the original name, or maybe the conference was called
something quite different.
For example, there is a book with the title proper "Johannes Secundus
und die roemische Liebeslyrik" (Janus Secundus and Roman love poetry).
In the preface, a symposium in Freiburg in 2002 is mentioned, but
without giving a formal name of this. After some googling, I have reason
to believe that the official name of the conference, when it was held,
was "4. Neulateinisches Symposion" (4th Neo-Latin Symposium). Note that
I got this information not from the "preferred sources of information in
resources associated with the corporate body" which should be the first
place to look (RDA 11.2.2.2), but from "other sources (including
reference sources)". So, maybe I shouldn't have looked there at all...
But I did, and with this background information I'd now argue that
"Johannes Secundus und die roemische Liebeslyrik" was not the name of
the conference, but rather its topic. But if I had only looked at the
book (and I really don't think German catalogers have much time to spare
for research), I might instead have decided that "Johannes Secundus und
die roemische Liebeslyrik" was the name of the conference.
Or should, according to 11.2.2.5.4 Conventional Name (exception for
conferences etc.), "4. Neulateinisches Symposion" be considered to be
the "more general name as one of a series of conferences", and "Johannes
Secundus und die roemische Liebeslyrik" considered to be the "specific
name of its own"? Then the latter should be chosen as the preferred name
of the conference (although I can't even be sure that the title of the
book exactly reflects the topic as it was announced for the symposium).
I do hope somebody can ease my mind and give me some hints as to how
these things are treated in practice.
Heidrun
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Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
