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BIBFRAME  November 2011

BIBFRAME November 2011

Subject:

Re: [RDA-L] Offlist reactions to the LC Bibliographic Framework statement

From:

Hal Cain <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 01:34:01 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (78 lines)

On Tue, 8 Nov 2011 18:59:50 +0000, Akerman, Laura <[log in to unmask]> wrote 
(in part):

>To me, the original "main entry" concept could more usefully be thought 
about in a larger context of  "for any field that is repeatable in a set of 
bibliographic description fields, is it useful to be able to designate one 
such fields as "primary" for purposes of selection for display, 
categorization (where a particular application requires one to "select one 
box" to characterize a resource) or other functionalities?  If so, should 
the designation be stored with the field, or separately from it?

There are, to my mind, certain structures which are properly inherent in the 
bibliographical data, *because* they're inherent in the documents (and 
document-related entities) we're describing. The fact is that we name the 
creator of a text along with its title as, or as part of, a *citation* 
(which may be regarded as a form of the name of the document [FRBR 
"manifestation"] or of the text [FRBR "work"]. We do this because we have to 
use that name in order to make consistent and coherent reference to it when 
it occurs elsewehere; as Mac Elrod pointed out, when a document or a work 
has to be cited as the subject of another document, or as a related work.

More than that, however, users work with citations, and the widely-used 
style guides provide rules and patterns for creating them. If the records we 
formulate don't correspond with those patterns, we place a barrier between 
users and our data. Since the first principle of the catalogue is to serve 
the convenience of the reader rather than the creator of the catalogue, we 
have no right to build or perpetuate such a barrier. Therefore the data as 
recorded should include the creator relationship. Whether it's recorded by 
making the creator a special element, or by attaching the relationship as a 
connection between the creator element and the title element, is secondary.  
It occurs to me to point out that in MARC 21, the relationship is recorded 
by using a special MARC tag (100/110/111) but in Unimarc it's recorded by an 
attachment (a special indicator value) to the tag used for any 
responsible/related name. In other data formats there are other mechanisms. 
Some of them may even be able to accomodate shared multiple, responsibility 
(e.g. W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan both responsible for _H.M.S. 
Pinafore_ but conventionally cited as Gilbert first, then Sullivan (contra 
AACR2 practice).

>For fields like subject, I believe there was a convention that the most 
important subject (the one upon which the primary classification number was 
based) had the first position in the record.   Since many modern systems 
permit or even force re-ordering tags in numerical order, that positional 
value can and often is easily lost.  Many of us stopped lamenting this a 
long time ago, but was it valuable?

Well, I still lament it! Seriously, I think it worth having the principal 
subject(s) specifically indicated, ancillary subjects being able to be 
omitted from brief display of data but available for more comprehensive 
display.
>
>What I don't think is valuable, is having to pick one author of a work with 
multiple authors and designate that person as the "main" one, based on the 
almost arbitrary factor of position of the name on the title page, (which is 
often alphabetical), and ending up deeming this person "Creator" and 
relegating the other author(s) to "Contributor" status.  (Nor do I think 
that dichotomy is particularly useful.)

As you may gather from the above, I disagree.  The reason for my 
disagreement is twofold: it needs to be plain that the record (or other set 
of data if "record" is inappropriate) corresponds with the document in hand; 
and it needs to correspond as well as possible with the citations users 
bring to the catalogue -- the fact that citations may be imperfect does not 
mean the data content doesn't matter. The implication is that joint 
responsibility needs to be acknowledged (as, I believe, does editorial 
compilation of existing material, like volumes of readings -- the citations 
are written that way, why not cataloguing also?) otherwise we place a 
barrier of ambiguity between user and data.  And one of the functions of 
catalogue records is to be used to create citations -- Endnote, anyone?

So long as different elements are distinguished (names, relationships, 
titles, other significant data elements) the format in which it's recorded 
is very secondary.

Hal Cain
Melbourne, Australia
[log in to unmask]

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