I'm going to second Ted's observation. I very recently encountered an
undifferentiated heading, representing what were thought to be two
people. My book in hand cited previous publications of my author, which
included both publications cited in the undifferentiated NAR. Thus,
there was really only one person in question, and I was able to "fix"
the NAR accordingly, quick and painlessly. If two NARs had been
established, using |c-style qualifiers, this process would have been
considerably more lengthy.
Someday, when our environment doesn't require matching textual strings,
and maintain them manually, we will be able cluster works/publications
around names we believe to be unique identities, and modify those
clusters when required. For now, as gnarly as they are, I believe
undifferentiated NARs allow us to err on the side of caution, and
minimize future work.
Casey
Ted P Gemberling wrote:
> I don't understand the aversion to undifferentiated headings. They essentially provide a place for careful catalogers to record and share information about author identities, in hope of eventually creating differentiated headings for them. They basically mean, "we don't know enough about these people yet." If we differentiate headings right away, don't we risk doing it badly, and creating a mess that will be harder to clean up later? If there's a plethora of authors with |c qualifications related to subject or occupation, it seems it could be a big mess, with a lot of potential bib file maintenance if the differentiations are found to be incorrect.
>
> I would say the same could be true of headings qualified with LCCNs (for the authorities?), as Stephen mentioned. If the authorities were set up with uncertain information in the first place, they wouldn't differentiate the names very well, and it would be very difficult to sort things out if you had to look at multiple authority records and bibs instead of just one undifferentiated authority record.
>
> Just my two cents. I know I'm not saying anything new.
>
> I think Mary's examples we very good.
>
> Ted Gemberling
> UAB Lister Hill Library
> (205)934-2461
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Deborah J. Leslie
> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 9:36 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] a NACO question
>
> I am in complete agreement with Richard, and pronounce anathema on
> undifferentiated name headings.
> _________________________
> Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.
> RBMS Chair 2009-2010 | Head of Cataloging, Folger Shakespeare Library
> 201 East Capitol St., S.E. | Washington, D.C. 20003 | 202.675-0369
> [log in to unmask] | http://www.folger.edu
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Moore, Richard
> Sent: Wednesday, 02 June, 2010 03:41
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] a NACO question
>
> I tend to agree with John on this. Identifying authors by means of their
> headings is useful, but differentiation and collocation are of primary
> importance in retrieval, in my book (so to speak). If the rules allowed,
> I'd qualify someone by their shoe size, rather than undifferentiate.
>
> Cheers
> Richard
>
> _________________________
> Richard Moore
> Authority Control Team Manager
> The British Library
>
> Tel.: +44 (0)1937 546806
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
--
Casey A. Mullin
Discovery Metadata Librarian
Metadata Development Unit
Stanford University Libraries
650-736-0849
[log in to unmask]
http://www.caseymullin.com
--
"Those who need structured and granular data and the precise retrieval that results from it to carry out research and scholarship may constitute an elite minority rather than most of the people of the world (sadly), but that talented and intelligent minority is an important one for the cultural and technological advancement of humanity. It is even possible that if we did a better job of providing access to such data, we might enable the enlargement of that minority."
-Martha Yee
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