Ted,

The only options currently in RDA for breaking conflicts with personal 
names are to add one or more of the following:

1) dates of birth and/or death (9.19.1.3)
2) fuller form of name (9.19.1.4)
3) period of activity (9.19.1.5)
4) profession or occupation (9.19.1.6)

For your person I think your only choices are 3) or 4).

I'm guessing that the M.B. stands for Medicinae Baccalaureus (Bachelor of 
Medicine).  Most of his books seem to be about health/first aid.  Not 
everything associated with him was published by Ward, Lock & Co.

So perhaps:

$c active 19th/20th century

or

$c (Health writer)

or

$c (Health advisor)

or

$c (Medical writer)

or some other type of formulation that gets at the subjects of his books.

I agree (Editor), while allowable, is probably not a great indication of a 
profession, although if he were on the staff of the publisher as an 
editor, it might work.  Or maybe one could stretch occupation a bit to add 
the employer?:

$c (Editor at Ward, Lock & Co.)

Adam

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On Thu, 15 Nov 2012, Ted P Gemberling wrote:

> I am finishing up the RDA NACO training modules. I'm not certified on 
> RDA yet. I need to create a personal name heading for a person who 
> edited books for Ward, Lock and Co. in Edinburgh, from sometime in the 
> 1880's to sometime in the early 20th century. I say "sometime in the 
> 1880's" because the unfortunate thing is that Ward, Lock and Co. had the 
> bad habit of not putting dates on their books during that decade. So 
> it's difficult to determine just when his editorial work started. His 
> name was George Black, and the title pages often have this usage: 
> "George Black, M.B. Edin." That addition, or a variation on it, has been 
> used by a lot of catalogers. He also authored, for that company, the 
> book "The young wife's advice book."
>
> Today I thought it might be useful to ponder how RDA would mandate 
> setting up the heading. My understanding that M.B. Edin. would not be 
> permitted in a subfield c. Dates don't seem to be very useful for this 
> heading. I don't know if any occupational terms or "field of activity" 
> terms are very useful. (Editor) would seem awfully general, though I 
> suppose it could break a conflict. Also, he wasn't strictly an editor 
> since he also authored that book and one other. Is a subfield c like 
> "Author of The young wife's advice book" still allowable?
>
> Thanks,
> Ted Gemberling
> UAB Lister Hill Library
> (205)934-2461
>
>
>