Yes, it does help-- thanks. I'm familiar enough with the history to which you refer (tho' without having lived through it). What confused me was what seemed to be the implication that it could be necessary for me (or anyone, for that matter) to consult with some folks making rules for professional catalogers, any time I want to inquire into how I can better create bibliographic data to serve my patrons. I see now that that's not at all what you meant.

Perhaps the confusion arose for me because when I think of the resources described in my library's metadata stores, only a certain portion are described under AACR2 (and a tiny addition in RDA), and I believe that the portion is shrinking (as other forms of description grow faster). That's why I was so surprised to learn of the weight being given those rules in the development of Bibframe. It almost implies that Bibframe will get less, not more, useful as time goes on.

---
A. Soroka
The University of Virginia Library

On Jul 25, 2014, at 10:12 PM, Sally McCollum <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I apologize if this was confusing. I simply meant all the catalogers out there who have helped to make the rules used to describe bibliographic material. For many years the aacr2 rules were used and recently catalogers have started moving to the Resource Description and Access (RDA) rules. MARC has been the carrier of the data that is formulated according to these cataloging rules. Does this help?
> Sally
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Jul 25, 2014, at 4:34 PM, "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> I'm a little confused-- who are "the rule makers" to whom you are referring?
>>
>> ---
>> A. Soroka
>> The University of Virginia Library
>>
>>> On Jul 25, 2014, at 4:06 PM, "McCallum, Sally" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Phil and A., I agree that the investigation would be very useful and interesting, but you have to have it with the folks who make the rules. Too often we (or at least I) assume something is not important or useless or whatever until I consult the rule makers, who have given thought to many things (of course they are not perfect either:)).
>>>
>>> Sally
>>>
>>> ***********************************
>>> Sally H. McCallum
>>> Chief, Network Development and MARC Standards Office
>>> Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave., SE
>>> Washington, DC 20540 USA
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> Tel: 1-202-707-5119 - Fax 1-202-707-0115
>>> ***********************************
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
>>> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 3:00 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] bf:Title Was: [BIBFRAME] BibFrame and Linked Data: Identifiers
>>>
>>> Phil--
>>>
>>> Thanks for this-- it helps me clarify my thinking. Perhaps we can "back up" even a little bit further... Taking your example of title and title statement, we can ask ourselves what the purpose is of recording this kind of information, or to put it another way, what do we expect our patrons to _do_ with this kind of information? What are the differences in the ways that a patron might use a title and a title statement? I think those differences will tell us a good deal about how we should record that information.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> A. Soroka
>>> The University of Virginia Library
>>>
>>>> On Jul 25, 2014, at 2:11 PM, Philip Schreur <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> While acknowledging the enormous difficulty of this translation, I'd like to add a +1 to what Karen wrote (I was starting to write the same thing :)). And I'm sure Karen meant this as well but just to be more explicit, we need to make sure that the intention and meaning we had originally is still valid, that there is no better way of expressing that intent currently, and that we use the the most appropriate way of expressing that intent in the new language.
>>>>
>>>> As a means of communication, BibFrame will need to find a way of recording the intentions of various communities and sometimes those subtleties make less sense outside of that context. For instance, the distinction between bf:title and bf:titleStatement. To me, a bf:title can be almost anything, taken from any part of a resource or even made up by the person creating the data because there wasn't a title. Some cataloging rules require that you use a transcribed title from a clearly defined place in the resource (that's what the bf:titleStatement is for). To a cataloger, this is a valid distinction. Without questioning the validity of making such a distinction (at least not yet :)), what is the clearest most appropriate way of making this distinction?