Marie-Chantal said:
Perhaps the solution is to give rare/older materials cataloguers the
possibility to record phrases such as « published by » as an optional addition
... Otherwise, the general instruction could simply ask cataloguers to record
the name of the publisher, distributer, etc. ...
This is certainly a way it could be done. However, I wonder: Would it
really be such a bad thing if phrases like "published by" were routinely
transcribed for all resources?
From a cataloging teacher's point of view, there is a lot to say for
LC's proposal, because:
1. Exceptions are always difficult to learn and to remember.
2. A rule is easier to understand if it can be explained from a higher
principle.
According to the German rules RAK (just as in AACR2), phrases like
"published by" are not transcribed. This is not very difficult to
explain to my students, as it fits in with the main principle for
publisher's name: Keep it short!
But now, in RDA, the main principle is a different one, namely "Take
what you see!"
It's hard to see why there should be an exception here.
I think that's what they're driving at in the proposal
http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/6JSC-LC-24.pdf
when they say, as a second argument: "Publisher's name is a transcribed
sub-element. However, by instructing
catalogers to remove statements of function, part of the transcription
is lost." (Change #10, Rationale, 2)
Heidrun
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Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
