James Weinheimer wrote:
On 12/20/2013 2:49 PM, Heidrun Wiesenmüller wrote:
<snip>
Adger Williams wrote:
Aren't conventional collective titles really Form/Genre headings?
(Poems. Selections, vs. Essays Selections, vs. Works Selections)
Would they not serve their function less confusingly if we treated
them that way?
Quite. They could be seen as attributes of the work and recorded in
RDA elements 7.2 and 7.3 - in addition to the "ordinary" title of the
work for the compilation/collection (RDA element 6.2).
If this was consistently applied, it would give us the possibility to
find
A) all editions of a certain compilation/collection (making use of
the title of the work)
B) all compilations/collections of a certain type (making use of the
attributes of the work)
And everybody would be happy :-)
</snip>
But people can do this right now, and they have been to do so for over
a hundred and fifty years!
Are you really sure they can? My feeling is that up to now, both aims
have been fulfilled only partly. Maybe this is what makes it so
unsatisfactory.
If we assume that somebody knows how to use the conventional collective
title in the first place (I agree that this is difficult as they are
presented now), then they will still not get a *complete* list of all
the compilations/collections of a certain type, because there always
have been and still are exceptions (and yes, I know that uniform titles
used to be optional under AARC2, anyway). According to the former LCRI,
all cases with distinct titles didn't get a CCT. Now, LC seems to have
reduced the exceptions, but you're still left with the "Leaves of grass"
type, which doesn't get a CCT. Also, you don't use a CCT if you apply
the basic rule in 6.2.2.10.3 instead of the alternative. So you'll get
some, but certainly not all of the things you want (provided somebody
wants this; I think they would, but perhaps this is a minority view).
The second aim is also difficult to reach, because a CCT is recorded not
in addition to but *instead of* the real work title. Compare: If you
have a monograph like "The live and times of X" and you have the English
edition and a German translation, then you can collocate them using the
title of the work (The live and times of X), formerly called the uniform
title. But if you have a compilation like "Best of X's short stories" in
an English and a German edition, you cannot collocate these two in the
same way, as the work title hasn't been recorded as "Best of X's short
stories" but instead as "Short stories. Selections". The "real" work
title (Best of X's short stories) is identical with the English
manifestation title, but not with the German, so you'll get only half of
what you're looking for.
That's why I think that the two things - the title of the aggregate work
on the one hand, and the information about its collective character on
the other - should better be kept apart instead of mixed together. Then
we also wouldn't need all the "casuistry" which Bernhard mentioned. You
wouldn't have to try and work out in which case the CCT should be used.
We would simply do two different things:
1. Record the title of the work - no special rule would be needed for
compilations/collections
2. Check if the work in question is a compilation/collection. If so,
give the information in the respective attribute(s).
Heidrun
--
---------------------
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
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