Kevin,
"Persona" strikes me as an excellent, balanced solution that would address many of the issues that have been raised here. I like it!
Tim
--
Tim A. Thompson
Metadata Librarian (Spanish/Portuguese Specialty)
Princeton University Library
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-----Original Message-----
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2016 12:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Excessive simplification / was: FRBR-LRM: "agent" as an entity
Steve McDonald wrote:
> Would you feel better if the Agent entity were named something else,
> like Potential Agents? As currently defined in the draft, Agent is
> not just things that are acting as agents. It is defined as all
> things that _can_ act as agents. Just because something is identified
> in the model as an Agent does not mean that it has ever acted as a
> creator. I think what you are feeling is a reaction to the name of the entity rather than the definition.
> That's the problem with names of concepts, sometimes.
"Potential Agent" may still be inaccurate, and is still defining the entity in terms of an action or relationship, not what it actually is. I think a better term would be "Persona". That term
is rather widely understood, is not inherently limited to human beings, and says nothing about agency. Many uses of the entities in this class would have nothing at all to do with agency, so whether or not something can act as an agent is irrelevant.
Kevin M. Randall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Northwestern University Libraries
Northwestern University
847.491.2939
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