Re: [RDA-L] [ACAT] Upper case in records
On 05/17/2011 10:43 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: snip Yeah, if RDA _required_ all capital titles, that might be bad. I don't think anyone thinks all capital titles are preferable. But in the actual real world eco-system, where we're often going to be harvesting data from other sources rather than creating it ourselves from -- and not going to have time to individually review and fix each record -- and that's the environment we're going to be in like it or not (and it's got some positives, that environment) -- it does not seem a bad choice to me to ALLOW you to take titles in the capitalization they are provided in. It certainly does not seem disastrous. Certainly if any catalogers do have the time to fix those before or once the record is in a cooperative cataloging store, that would be a service to the rest of us. Nobody is arguing that they like all-capital titles. /snip Jonathan points to the exact problem: we are supposed to be harvesting data from other sources rather than creating it for ourselves, *and* not review and edit each record individually. I agree that we absolutely must do this, but something highly important is assumed here: that the information in the records you are harvesting is of *sufficient quality*. When an experienced cataloger sees a record such as have been mentioned here--all caps, when *no standard* allows it: not ONIX, not AACR2 or any previous library cataloging rules, no citation guides, or anything else that I am aware of, the cataloger immediately become suspicious. In the past, there has been a great deal of variation allowed in these standards just as there are in in the library catalog: I remember seeing cards that were in all lower case except for the first word. It made German look very strange. I even found an example: http://tinyurl.com/67vt5z6**(I don't know if this was Princeton specific or not, but probably not, but obviously a Taylorist procedure, just as the RDA acceptance of all caps also betrays a Taylorist mentality) Also, using all caps for acquisitions records provided (still provides) information in itself: BEWARE! This is an order record!). The major variation in all of these methods is Title case, which seems to be followed in most of the citation guides, but no bibliographic standard I have seen allows all caps. So, the experienced cataloger will look at a record with this kind of absolutely elementary error and immediately think: What else is wrong with this stinky record? because if the elementary part is so obviously bad, what about the parts that really are difficult? I agree that our records must interoperate with other metadata records on the web, and harvesting is certainly one way to do it, although the methods will vary. Ultimately though, the methods don't matter: the records must work coherently with the others and the idea of data standardization in some sense becomes unavoidable. It seems to me that a record in all caps provides a clear indication that it *does not follow any standards at all* and if we want our standardized records to interoperate with these other records in a coherent way, editing will be unavoidable if we want to provide some level of standards (which I think is absolutely vital). Otherwise, we just throw up our hands, harvest any kind of junk that comes our way and hang the consequences both to ourselves and our patrons. We wouldn't stand for something like this in our water: Well, only have of the wells have typhoid, or that only 50% of the rubber that goes into making the tires on our cars is reliable. How can we try to resolve this in the real world? By trying *very hard* to coordinate metadata creators into following some basic, minimum levels of shared standards. Otherwise, I see the only option as chaos and when there are no standards the only remaining choice is probably the Google/Yahoo/Bing/etc. algorithmic solutions. The one thing, and the one thing only, that catalogers can provide to automatically-created metadata records is standardization. If that is not seen as important, it seems that we might as well throw away our cataloging manuals and look for other jobs. Apologies for being so gloomy. -- James L. Weinheimer weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Re: [RDA-L] [ACAT] Upper case in records
My speed of reading is decreased by enough that I can observe myself reading instead of just knowing what the words are without thought. It took several attempts to recognize the word TURBERVILLE. HANKINS was hard too. JOHN was easy; it's short and it has all that space around the O. All-capital print greatly retards speed of reading in comparison with lower-case type. Also, most readers judge all capitals to be less legible. Faster reading of the lower-case print is due to the characteristic word forms furnished by this type. This permits reading by word units, while all capitals tend to be read letter by letter. Furthermore, since all-capital printing takes at least one-third more space than lower case, more fixation pauses are required for reading the same amount of material. The use of all capitals should be dispensed with in every printing situation from: Tinker, Miles A. (1963). *Legibility of Print*. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press. p. 65. ISBNhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number 6316674 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/6316674. If you wish to investigate further, check out the Wikkipedia entry on All-caps, the section on readability, (from which the above quote was taken) for further discussion. For further corroboration, it might be worthwhile to look at literature on fonts or studies of the mechanisms of reading. On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 3:23 PM, Beacom, Matthew matthew.bea...@yale.eduwrote: To read the full text of a 2 or 3 hundred page monograph printed in all caps would be tiresome. However, a line or two in a bibliographic record is not much trouble to read or access. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being “I can see that some text is in mixed case and other text is in all caps, but there’s no effect on my ability to read it or otherwise have access to the information” and 10 being “I can’t read the all cap text at all, so my ability to read it is zero and as a result I am denied access to this resource” what is the difference in readability or accessibility in the following display? I’d give this a 1. Matthew Beacom *Author:* HANKINS, JOHN ERSKINE.http://traindb.library.yale.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=AuthorSEQ=20110517150630PID=Ty5Sl6Vcndib-jw55hW71MesffEA9hSA=HANKINS,+JOHN+ERSKINE. *Title:* THE POEMS OF GEORGE TURBERVILE [electronic resource] / EDITED WITH CRITICAL NOTES AND A STUDY OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS. *Published:* 1929 *Description:* 1 online resource (712 p.) *Available Online:* Online thesishttp://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertationres_dat=xri:pqdissrft_dat=xri:pqdiss:0003706 *Dissertation:* Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 1929. *From:* Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] *On Behalf Of *Adger Williams *Sent:* Tuesday, May 17, 2011 1:28 PM *To:* RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA *Subject:* Re: [RDA-L] [ACAT] Upper case in records To all who think case doesn't matter... Let me explain why I care about all upper case text. The Latin alphabet has letters that go above the line (t, d, l, b, f, h, k) (also called ascenders), letters that go below the line (descenders) (e.g. g, j, p, q), and letters that do neither. With this mix of letter types, words have a distinctive shape that makes them easy to recognize quickly while reading. (The literature on the exact mechanism of reading is large, but image recognition figures in the process at an early stage according to many.) (The word many has a different shape if you will than the word more, which makes them easy to distinguish.) Those of us with poor vision find all-caps difficult to read because in all-caps, there are no more differences between ascenders, descenders, and regular letters. This wipes out differences in word shape, and makes the process of reading more arduous than necessary. For me, it's an annoyance. If I turn my head sideways, I can read whatever I need to with some time and a good magnifying glass. But there are people who are worse off than me, who would appreciate, I feel sure, having no extra difficulties put in their way. In short, it's not just a matter of aesthetics for everyone. Apologies for the extended explanation, but it keeps coming up as a matter of taste instead of as a matter of access. On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Beacom, Matthew matthew.bea...@yale.edu wrote: Thank you. I’ve tested both thesentencecase and Microsoft Word. They do the same thing. I find the substitutions by these programs unsuccessful. They just exchange one set of errors in capitalization for another. I’m left thinking the difficulty with all caps (or all lower case, or title case, or etc.) is a matter of taste. (These records are not coded as AACR2 .) None of the case variations affect access, they just look unattractive. And I
Re: [RDA-L] Plans for Existing Bib Records?
Edit (great name!) asked:
Do you upload records converting to AACR2 format for now that we are not
sure we'll be implementing RDA
We are fortunate to so far have derived no RDA records. We tend to
catalogue less usual material.
Or are you planning on continue doing this even when all the
libraries start to implement RDA?
We will upload RDA unchanged to bibliographic utilities. Whether
clients receive RDA unchanged, or exported as AACR2 compatible, will
be the choice of each client. In our database, it will be unchanged
RDA.
Whether and when we begin original cataloguing in RDA will depend on
if/when a client requests RDA. We would not want to create records
according to different sets of rules, so all original records would be
created in RDA once any client wants them.
What is export for us, would be import for an individual library, of
course.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
Re: [RDA-L] Plans for Existing Bib Records?
Thank you, Mac, these are great! Kathleen F. Lamantia, MLIS Technical Services Librarian Stark County District Library 715 Market Avenue North Canton, OH 44702 330-458-2723 klaman...@starklibrary.org Inspiring Ideas ∙ Enriching Lives ∙ Creating Community The Stark County District Library is a winner of the National Medal for library service, is one of the best 100 libraries in the U.S. according to the HAPLR rating, and is a Library Journal 5 Star library. -Original Message- From: J. McRee Elrod [mailto:m...@slc.bc.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 2:05 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Plans for Existing Bib Records? 29 April 2011 EXPORT OF RDA RECORDS TO BE AACR2 COMPATIBLE If 040$e is rda Export with a at the beginning of RSN. Leave LDR/18 as i Remove 040$erda Remove if present 100/110/600/610/700/710$erelationship designator, $4relator code, including $2 if following, leaving concluding period. These terms are not at present being applied, ecept for illustrators of children's books. for example 700 1 $aJones, Jim,$d1930-1999,$eactor. becomes 700 1 $aJones, Jim,$d1930-1999. Create a 245$h[compound gmd] composed of 338$a : 336$a, e.g., [online resource : text]. Do not include $2. If 008/35-37 is fre, 336-338 are French. Substitute English [online resource : text] in 245$h. Do not create a 245$h for [volume : text]. If more than one $aterm in either 338 or 336, separate those terms by comma-space. Separate 338 and 336 by space-colon-space. [SLC changes repeating 336-338 fields to repeating $a in one field.] Shorten some 336 terms when exported as 245$h: 336 Content type cartographic dataset } cartographic image } cartographic moving image} [export as cartographic] cartographic tactile image } cartographic tactile three-dimensional form } cartographic three-dimensional form } tactile image} tactile music} [export tactile] tactile notated movement } tactile text } actile three-dimensional form } three-dimensional form [export form] three-dimensional moving image }[export as moving image] two-dimensional moving image } Export 250 edition as ed. In 260$a, using this list, abbreviate jurisdiction, whether in square brackets or not. NB: only abbreviate if not adjacent to $a, e.g., $aVictoria, British Columbia becomes Victoria, B.C., but $aMelbourne, Victoria becomes Melbourne, Vic. [SLC continues to supply missing jurisdictions, but spelled out.] Alabama Ala. AlaskaAlaska Alberta Alta. Arizona Ariz. Arkansas Ark. Australian Capital Territory A.C.T. Briitish Columbia B.C. CaliforniaCalif. Colorado Colo. Connecticut Conn. Delaware Del. District of Columbia D.C. Distrito Federal D.F. England Eng. Florida Fla. Georgia Ga. HawaiiHawaii Idaho Idaho Illinois Ill. Indiana Ind. Iowa Iowa KansasKan. Kentucky Ky. Louisiana La. Maine Me. Manitoba Man. Mayland Md. Massachusett Mass. Michigan Mich. Minnesota Minn. Mississippi Miss. Missouri Mo. Montana Mont. Nebraska Neb. NevadaNev. New Brunswick N.B. New Hampshire N.H. New JerseyN.J. New MexicoN.M. New South Wales N.S.W. New York N.Y. New Zealand N.Z. Newfounland Nfld. Newfoundland and LaboradorN.L. North CarolinaN.C. North Dakota N.D. Northern TerritoryN.T. Northwest Territories N.W.T. Nova Scotia N.S. Ohio Ohio Oklahoma Okla. Ontario Ont. OregonOr. Pennsylvania Pa. Prince Edward Island P.E.I. Puerto Rico
Re: [RDA-L] Plans for Existing Bib Records?
Benjamin accurately said:
I would just point out that, for most if not all of us, a hybrid catalog is=
already the norm. For example, plenty of pre-AACR2 records persist (parti=
cularly for serials) in our catalog as in LC's and the like.
The differences between the red and green books, AACR1, and AACR2
records were not as dramatic as those between AACR and RDA. I doubt
if many patrons notice 2d vs., 2nd, ill. vs. illus., nor ISBD
punctuation. Spelled out abbreviations is a greater change. There
were no main entry changes for monographs as dramatic as the dropping
of the rule of three.
For me, the most difficult earlier change was entry for serials and
series. I had spent years with Journal of chemistry being entered
under title, and Journal of the Chemical Association being entered
under the association. But that pales in comparison with the end of
GMD, unjustified added entries, no standard for number of authors to
be transcribed or traced, no defined standard for title
capitalization, no indication of typos in situ, imprint place
jurisdiction not being supplied if lacking, and *long* phrases
replacing ISBD inclusions.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
