The "reference type" thing is a bit complex. I think there are two ways to
look at "reference type" --
1) you can look at it structurally - this means that you divide your
universe into items published singly (books) and those published serially
(journals). (There is another category, but let's not go there for now.)
Then you can have your "types" be structural parts of those items -- i.e.
chapters of books, articles in journals. There is a code in MARC for
"monographic component part" and "serial component part." A bit terse, but
I find these very useful for data processing because they tell you what
data elements to expect and how to interpret them.
2) Some systems name "types" that are more about the nature of the
contents, but that often also include your "reference type": journal
article, conference paper, literature review, patent, preprint, technical
report, etc. These are tricky because they don't always unambiguously
correspond to one of the structural elements in 1, above, and different
communities interpret them differently. However, sometimes that's all
you're given to work with. In that case, I usually find that we have to
extrapolate using other data elements in the record (i.e. if it has an ISSN
and gives a page range, then it's probably a journal article).
I think we should strive to clarify 1 in MODS. Even that isn't easy, and
I've been working on a scheme that I'll try to post tomorrow if I get more
time to work on it.
kc
At 05:11 PM 4/12/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Karen wrote:
>
>>So if we can extend the MODS record to accommodate data from citation
>>indexing then we are working toward that goal of integrated
>>information resources.
>
>So what is missing, beyond elements for things like volume and issue
>number?
>
>One thing I'm starting to understand is this:
>
>On one hand, MODS/MARC has a "resource type" that is broader and more
>general than the "reference type" you see in applications focused on
>bibliographic formatting (where type examples include book, journal
>article, chapter, map, etc.). On the other, it has the "genre" which
>is more specific and related to content. But in order to format
>bibliographic records, you do need an intermediate categorization that
>can describe how the record ought to be formatted. I don't know
>exactly what that ought to be in practice, though, or whether MODS
>ought to try to include that.
>
>Bruce
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