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Laurence Creider wrote (in part):
>
> The problem with hanging an interpretation of AACR2's sources for  
> choosing the fullness of name on a distinction between "publication"  
> and "thesis" is that the code makes no such distinction.  Nor does  
> it make a distinction between published and unpublished works by an  
> individual in choosing a name.  As things go, most of the time,  
> evidence will come from published works, but a statement of  
> responsiblity is a statement of responsibility and can occur on  
> manuscripts, locally produced videos, or sound recordings, even  
> graphics of various sorts, etc.
>
> If folks want to change the rule or urge that RDA incorporate such  
> distinctions, great.  Go through the rule revision process.  I do  
> not believe that you can interpret the current rule to justify  
> ignoring statements of responsibility on theses or dissertations.

And Adam L. Schiff wrote:
> And with more and more theses being created in PDF or other  
> electronic forms and available freely on the web, and with AACR2  
> saying to consider all remote access electronic resources to be  
> published (9.4B2), there's another argument against treating theses  
> differently from other resources. As more and more universities  
> require ETDs and make them available online, they will no longer be  
> considered manuscript material.

Quite.  What I was getting at, without being sufficiently specific,  
was the notion "If the forms of a name vary in fullness, choose the  
form most commonly found" (AACR2 22.3A -- 1978 version, which is all I  
have at home).  We're used to counting or sampling the frequency of  
forms of name in the database we're cataloguing against.  But from the  
reader's point of view "most frequently found" is also a function of  
how widely circulated the documents are.

I certainly wasn't saying that theses are of no significance in  
formulating a name.  Indeed I didn't comment on the earlier stage of  
this discussion, which IIRC concerned the choice between forms of name  
found on two theses by the same person.

Now, I'm not arguing that in considering "most frequently found" we go  
so far as to count the holdings in OCLC.  But, reverting to my view of  
theses as sources of secondary value for that criterion, I think the  
nature of the document is relevant, and if the LCRI is to be reviewed,  
some guidance would be appropriate.  And, after all, some European  
institutions have or had rules for names on theses which are  
completely artificial and don't reflect an author's choice of usage  
(nor should we suppose that publishers invariably seek out the  
author's choice -- if they did, we might have fewer variants in  
published forms).

The question of author's expressed preference was mentioned too.  It  
is definitely the practice for LC to change an established form is a  
person clearly seeks a change.  I've forwarded several such requests  
to (then) CPSO over the years, and encountered others in NARs,  
including at least one where an author asked for the year of birth to  
be removed.

As for what may be RDA, I guess we'll be seeing the final draft shortly.

Hal Cain
Dalton McCaughey Library
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
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