James,
Before making our records even more complicated (and committing more
and more ever-disappearing resources) it would make sense to find out
if collective uniform titles are/could be useful to the public and if
not, why not, and then continue from there. Otherwise, we are all
working on personal feelings or beliefs.
I don't believe that my suggestion would make our records so very
complicated, but I see your point about reliable data. It is indeed a
problem that we often don't really know what our users want.
I would love to have a demo which would show links like "collected works
of this author" or "selected novels of this author" whenever a title of
the author in question is displayed (as I suggested the other day) and
then count how often people click on these links. Perhaps I can work
something out and give it a try.
On a concrete point:
<snip>
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.
</snip>
Not quite correct. According to LCRI 25.11
https://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/25-11-translations-etc,
there is the rule:
"For partial collections containing works in translation, attempt to
distinguish between those cases in which the translation is of an
existing collection in the original language and cases in which there
is no such collection in the original language.
1) If the collection does exist in the original language, use the
uniform title of the original or, if no uniform title is appropriate,
its title proper, followed by the language of the translation.
2) If the collection does not exist in the original language, use a
collective uniform title according to 25.9A or 25.10A regardless of
the quality of the title of the translated collection. Follow the
collective uniform title with the language of the translation."
(By the way, the words "quality of the title" refers to the concept of
"adequate title" which is both very important and extremely vague)
Determining whether a translation of a collection actually exists in
the original can be a *lot* of work and demands just too much time
from the cataloger. If the information is readily available from the
item, it is no problem of course, but otherwise, even if you have a
huge collection at your disposal, it is very arguably not worth the
effort. My rule was almost always "Stay in your chair", try from a
cursory glance at the catalog whether anything looks as if it may be
suitable and hope you don't find anything(!). Otherwise just assign
the collective uniform title and go on to the next item.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of this LCRI (I'm afraid there's still a lot I
don't know about Anglo-American cataloging). Indeed this sounds rather
complicated and a lot of effort. Also, I'm not sure I've really
understood its consequences: So, the original collection might have got
"Poems. Selections" but the translation would have got "X's best poetry.
German" in 240? If so, then that would still seem something of a muddle
to me.
And would that rule still be valid under RDA? I can't remember seeing
something similar in the LC-PCC PS.
Heidrun
--
---------------------
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
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