Mr. Weiss,
I'm just beginning to go over the proposed rules, but I wonder also
about 1.6.8 Inaccuracies. Why is it considered better to add a note
indicating how something should read than the AACR2 Rule 1.0F: "Follow
such inaccuracy either by [sic] or by i.e. and the correction within
square brackets ..."? A note is a lot more time-consuming.
Let me make a guess about this. Is it because it's feared that
interrupting the transcription with [sic] or [i.e. ...] will interfere
with keyword searches, by breaking the transcription? Now, I would
always include a 246 with the form without them, but I wouldn't feel any
guilt about littering the statement of responsibility or 260 with such
bracketed information.
If supporting keyword searching is the motive, I think that may be
bending a little too much to accommodate other "modes of
transportation." Or, at the risk of being a little chauvinistic, I
wonder if your whole choice of wagons as an analogy for MARC records
doesn't imply a bit too much humility about our wonderful cataloging
system. Yes, Dublin Core is newer, but it isn't better. Rather than
seeing MARC as the wagon, with some other system holding the place of
the jet plane, I'd be more inclined to reverse the analogy somewhat.
How about this: the Hummer is a big, powerful vehicle (the MARC record)
admired by a lot of people, so manufacturers decided to create a
miniaturized version of it for people who can't afford the full-size
version, the Mini-Hummer (Dublin Core).
Or to use a 1930's analogy, how about MARC as the Mercedes and DC as the
Volkswagen? Yes, the Volkswagen was newer than some other full-size car
the average German couldn't afford, but would we want to say it was more
advanced? And would we force Mercedes to remove some of its powerful
features because they're not included in the VW?
My apologies if I've misunderstood the motive for the new rule. But
that seemed like one possible explanation.
--Ted Gemberling, UAB Lister Hill Library of the Health
Sciences, Birmingham, AL
-----Original Message-----
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Mike Tribby
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 3:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] RDA: an analogy
I'd settle for knowing why Paul and the rest of the Imagineers on this
sprawling project want me to spend a quarter or more of my time counting
pages in kiddie books in the rumbleseat of the book-bound library
collections which, if it's been a while since you walked among the hoi
polloi, make up quite a large percentage of the libraries on this
information superhighway to hell.
Mike Tribby
Senior Cataloger
Quality Books Inc.
The Best of America's Independent Presses
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