Perhaps it depends on what we mean by the "real world". {grin} I think the ambiguity appears in how the artifact in hand represents the world outside that artifact. Publishers really do have offices in some places and not others, and as Thomas Berger pointed out, the work of the publisher went on in some particular place, and the artifact was created in some particular place, and so forth. The artifact then records those activities in an ambiguous way.
One of the questions here seems to me to be the relationship between transcription and description: are the assertions we want to make,
1) annotations on a transcription of what appears in the artifact, or
2) assertions descriptive of the resource for which one kind of evidence is what appears in the artifact?
I agree with what I understood Cecilia Preston and Karen Coyle to be saying: we can only make sense of this kind of question by going back to the purposes for which we're making this data.
---
A. Soroka
The University of Virginia Library
On Aug 15, 2014, at 1:44 PM, "Bowers, Kate A." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Note, this "one piece of text" has those same meanings in the real books. The ambiguity is not being created in the bibliographic records, it is part of the real world.
>
> In short, it is nothing more precise than "Place associated with the publication, distribution, or creation of this thing, and maybe two of those, and maybe all three".
>
> Which is pretty much all the publishers are telling you about it.
>
> Kate
>
> Kate Bowers
> Collections Services Archivist
> [log in to unmask]
> 617.496.2713
> voice: (617) 384-7787
> fax: (617) 495-8011
> web: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:archives
> Twitter: @k8_bowers
> _____________________________________________________________________________________
> Harvard Library | Harvard University Archives | Pusey Library—Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138 archives.harvard.edu
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 11:23 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] Proposal to handle "Providers" differently
>
> It seems clear to me that there are at least a few meanings being overlaid on this one piece of text:
>
> 1) A place at which the artifact in hand was created.
>
> 2) The location of the central business accommodations of the publishing entity.
>
> 3) A place or places at which the publishing entity wishes it to be known that they do business.
>
> probably others…
>
> It seems to me that 1) is a property of the publishing event, and 2) and 3) are time-varying properties of the publishing entity. Perhaps they have been elided in our metadata because they have frequently, in the past, been identical-- but is that the norm today?
>
> ---
> A. Soroka
> The University of Virginia Library
>
> On Aug 15, 2014, at 11:10 AM, Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 8/15/14, 6:06 AM, Donald R. Thornbury wrote:
>>> I completely agree. Place of publication is a relationship of the publisher entity.
>>
>> It would be nice to investigate that "fact" -- with a few searches, here's what I find:
>>
>> 260 __ |a Oxford : |b Clarendon Press ; |a New York : |b Oxford University Press, |c 1990.
>> -> Clarendon press is in Oxford; Oxford University Press is in New York.
>>
>> 260 __ |a London ; |a New York : |b Oxford University Press, |c 1985.
>> -> Now OUP is in both London and New York
>>
>> 260 __ |a New York, |b H. Frowde, Oxford university press; |c [1902?]
>> -> Now it's only in New York.
>>
>> 260 3_ |3 2012- : |a London : |b Oxford University Press
>> -> Ooops, now it's in London!
>>
>> 260 __ |a Toronto : |b Oxford University Press, |c <1983- >
>> -> Hey, and it's also moved to Toronto
>>
>> I'm sure if I keep looking I'll find one that places OUP in Oxford, but I haven't encountered one yet.
>>
>> It seems that the "publisher entity" can "publish" in various places, which would make place an attribute of the publishing event, not of the publisher.
>>
>> My take: it's one thing to try to keep track of the "headquarters" of a publishing house, although those can also change. But that is not going to coincide at all times with the title page. We could consider them different pieces of information, but then I have to ask: What is the purpose of recording the place of publication? There is the transcription role; then there is the possibility of doing some statistical analysis on publication and publication rates based on times and places. Monitoring the development and movement of publishing houses seems to be a different goal than the bibliographic one that we generally take on in libraries.
>>
>> kc
>>> This bit of discussion is going over ground covered in FRBR 4.1:
>>> "For example, "place of publication/distribution" is defined as an attribute of the manifestation to reflect the statement appearing in the manifestation itself that indicates where it was published. Inasmuch as the model also defines place as an entity it would have been possible to define an additional relationship linking the entity place either directly to the manifestation or indirectly through the entities person and corporate body which in turn are linked through the production relationship to the manifestation. To produce a fully developed data model further definition of that kind would be appropriate."
>>> It's now time to develop the data model so it's not so string-y. Displays and user access to "authority" data can be configured to as to provide all relevant information.
>>> We should note that place of publication is not specified as a criterion for distinguishing monograph manifestations, per RDA LC-PCC PS for 2.1, and that in Table 6.3 FRBR has Place of publication/distribution as a low-value attribute for identifying manifestations. Transcribing place names as attributes a zillion times isn't worth the effort when we have a more efficient way to handle data.
>>>
>>> Don Thornbury
>>>
>>> Donald R. Thornbury
>>> Head, Technical Services for Special Collections Department of Rare
>>> Books and Special Collections Princeton University Library One
>>> Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544-2098
>>> Office: 609.258.0874
>>> Fax: 609.258.2324
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum [
>>> mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 8:21 AM
>>> To:
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] Proposal to handle "Providers" differently
>>>
>>> Rather than reproducing the labels of a entity (e.g. place of publication) in several places for our own technical convenience, we can supply them on the entity (the authority data) and either by indexing ahead of time or by on-demand retrieval, we can use them for display at the appropriate time (during the patron's session).
>>>
>>> Patrons can certainly have access to authority "records". In fact, one could say that this is essential to doing good Linked Data.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> A. Soroka
>>> The University of Virginia Library
>>>
>>> On Aug 14, 2014, at 8:56 PM, "J. McRee Elrod"
>>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> If we have a pointer fully-populated authority control record for
>>>>> publisher, adding location of publication is redundant at best and misleading at worst.
>>>>>
>>>> Patrons rarely have access to authority records. The brief display
>>>> should contain the place and jurisdictiion of publication, jurisdiction supplied if not in the resource.
>>>>
>>>> That is basic information, and often a clue to the viewpoint of a resource.
>>>>
>>>> We are working for patrons, not each other!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>> )
>>>> {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing
>>>> HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
>>>>
>>>> ___} |__
>>>> \__________________________________________________________
>>>>
>>
>> --
>> Karen Coyle
>>
>> [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
>>
>> m: +1-510-435-8234
>> skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600
>>
|