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The birth and death dates in VIAF are all coming from authority records. These are currently being parsed from headings, but also pulling them from dedicated fields is on the TODO list. The "main purpose" of putting this information into authority data seem irrelevant. Jeff > -----Original Message----- > From: Metadata Object Description Schema List > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Beall, Jeffrey > Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 2:33 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [MODS] MADS/RDF for review > > Rebecca: > > Our NACO trainer said that adding the dates when establishing a heading > was done to help break a possible future conflict. So, I still think > the main purpose of dates in personal name headings is for > disambiguation, whether current or future. What other purpose could the > dates serve? Providing biographical information? That's not the purpose > of the authority records, though. > > Now with authority files being merged into services such as VIAF, birth > and death date metadata has become more valuable because of its > disambiguation value. > > > Jeffrey Beall, Metadata Librarian / Assistant Professor > Auraria Library > University of Colorado Denver > 1100 Lawrence St. > Denver, Colo. 80204 USA > (303) 556-5936 > [log in to unmask] > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Metadata Object Description Schema List > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Guenther, Rebecca > Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 8:06 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [MODS] MADS/RDF for review > > It is not correct that dates are only added to distinguish between > similar names. It has long been LC policy that birth dates are added if > readily available when establishing a name (and death dates when > available), NOT just to break a conflict. Which means that a large > number of name headings have birth dates. Institutions participating in > the cooperative programs (NACO/PCC) are required to do this. > > We added field 046 in the MARC authority format last year as part of > the changes for RDA. It is a general field for structured dates which > has been available in the bibliographic format for some time (and new > types of dates were also added there years ago). It is already being > used in records coming through as part of the RDA test-- in fact I'm > told that there are thousands of records with 046 fields containing > birth/death dates for people. And of course it doesn't have to be > limited to records prepared according to RDA but is there to be used > for any records. > > Rebecca > > -----Original Message----- > From: Metadata Object Description Schema List > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle > Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2011 12:53 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [MODS] MADS/RDF for review > > Quoting "Beall, Jeffrey" <[log in to unmask]>: > > >> Library authority records are very odd beasts, and that oddity comes > >> out in FRAD [1]. The record is NOT about the person, per se. It does > >> not include information like birth and death dates, where the person > >> lives or lived, what they were famous for... > > > > To be precise, many library authority records do contain birth and > > death date information. > > I don't know if you are referring to the year information added to name > (Smith, John, 1876-), or to other information in the record. The years > may be present in the name heading, but only when needed to distinguish > between similar names. This turns out to be confusing to non- > librarians, who wonder why we have the years on some but not all names. > > More information will appear in notes for human readers sometimes, but > the authority record does not have a field for birth/death dates. > Dates in the notes are not coded as such, so are not equivalent to > actual date information. For example, here is a note from Barbara > Cartland's authority record, in which her death notice is included to > back up the addition of "-2000" to her name: > > 670 __ |a Washington post, 22 May 2000: |b obit. (Dame Barbara > Cartland, 98, died May 21, 2000; in London; author of 723 books > published in 36 languages; born Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland in > Birmingham, England; married Alexander McCorquodale 1927, divorced > 1933; in 1936 married Alexander’s cousin, Hugh McCorquodale; 1991 Dame > Commander of the British Empire; author of non-fiction as well as > romance novels; step-grandmother of Princess Diana of Wales) > > or in this case, where the note shows that the birth year was taken > from "p. 4 of cover" (not sure what that means...) and gives the place > of birth: > > 670 __ |a Cecil Rice, Venice, sunlight and water, 2006: |b p. 4 of > cover (Zoe Cooper; b. 1963 in Leamington Spa, England) > > While the notes MAY have some birth/death information, it's not a > machine-usable form of that data. There is a lot of really good > information in notes, but it's just not coded in a way to be usable for > any kind of computation, which is a real shame. > > kc > > > > > > > Jeffrey Beall > > Metadata Librarian / Assistant Professor Auraria Library University > of > > Colorado Denver 1100 Lawrence St. > > Denver, Colorado 80204 > > (303) 556-5936 > > [log in to unmask] > > > > > > > > > > -- > Karen Coyle > [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net > ph: 1-510-540-7596 > m: 1-510-435-8234 > skype: kcoylenet