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Ted



Please don't confuse familiarity with the rules with dedication! I agree that this anomaly creates an absurd situation; that's why I highlighted it.



Rehards

Richard

________________________________
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Ted P Gemberling [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 14 May 2016 22:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)

Richard,
This creates an image in my mind of catalogers saying to themselves, “I’ve got to look for variant usage for the name so I can add the qualifier that should’ve been added to the AAP in the first place!” I appreciate your dedication to and familiarity with the rules, but I wonder if this creates an absurd situation.

What a lot of headaches it would’ve saved us if the cataloger had just called Watson in the first place! As catalogers, I think most of us want to do things right. Probably that cataloger did, too, but he or she may have been discouraged from contacting authors.

Since we have pressure on us not to change AAP’s, especially if there is bibliographic maintenance involved, I suppose this makes a strong case for the URI approach Stephen Hearn is recommending. That way the text string in the AAP is not so important. Information at the URI can be added or changed when it becomes available.

But I do think that as long as we are using text strings at all, it’s problematic to use qualifications besides dates if dates are available. Chronological order is one of the best ways we have to keep track of real people. (I specify real because I still don’t like the dates with James T. Kirk.) We should make an effort to get dates if we can, especially if the name is fairly common.

I realize using occupational qualifiers is good as a last resort. But since, unlike dates, which are structured from centuries to years, months, and days, occupations don’t have any definite structure (who knows what a Research and Knowledge Impact Officer might do on his next job?), it seems rather risky to use them routinely.

Thanks,
Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moore, Richard
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2016 2:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)


Ted



Paradoxically (and without RDA in front of me to check), although a Variant Name is a prerequisite for creating a Variant Access Point, I don't think there's is any prohibition on going on to create multiple Variant Access Points using the same Variant Name followed by different qualifiers! So I support Adam's suggestion for change, subject to some kind of caveat to deter people from routinely creating multiple variants rather than recording the authority data in the appropriate fields.



Regards

Richard

Authority Control Team Manager

The British Library

________________________________
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Ted P Gemberling [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 May 2016 20:15
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)
Richard,
Okay, I can see your point. I still think there would’ve been some value in specifying what the rule excludes. As I said, does it allow you to add multiple qualifiers to the variant name? If the rule said “When constructing a variant access point to represent a person, do not create it simply to add more qualifiers,” there would be no ambiguity about that.

Ted Gemberling



From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moore, Richard
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 12:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)


Ted



I think 9.19.2.1 is clear. RDA has the element Name, which has sub-types Preferred Name and Variant Name. "Variant name" isn't a vague expression of an idea, it's a very specific thing in RDA. It's a form of name that was not chosen as the Preferred Name. This instruction simply tells you what kind of name to use in the Variant Access Point; that is, a Variant Name. Not the Preferred Name.



There's no requirement that qualifiers (or the presence of qualifiers) on 100 and 400 should match. None at all. An LCRI used to mandate this when we used AACR2, but there is no corresponding LC-PCC-PS for RDA. LC chose deliberately not to make one. It's entirely unremarkable that a unique 100 might have no qualifier, but a 400 gets added with a qualifier, because it is more common and the cataloguer wants to distinguish it.



Exactly the same qualifiers are available to add to Preferred Names and to Variant Names, in the construction of Authorized and Variant Access Points. It might often be tidier for them to match, but it's not required.



Regards

Richard



________________________________
From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Ted P Gemberling [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 May 2016 18:16
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)
Richard,
You’re probably right. I think 9.19.2.1 is confusing in a way. The opening sentence almost seems like a tautology: “When constructing a variant access point to represent a person, use a variant name for the person.” If that was meant to exclude something, it would be clearer if it stated it explicitly: “When constructing a variant access point to represent a person, do not create it simply to add more qualifiers.”

I can see your point that the second part of the section is probably just saying “add qualifiers to that variant name if considered important for identification.” But worded as it is, “Make additions to the name, if considered important for identification,” it seems to imply the possibility that the variant name could lack qualifiers while the AAP does not. We usually put the same qualifiers on the variant name that we put on the AAP, though not 100% of the time. At any rate, the wording implies that the qualifiers on the 400 could be independent of the qualifiers on the 100.


You wrote: “So if the 100 were Watson, Tom, then a 400 variant access point might be Watson, Thomas. If you consider it important for identification you could make an addition to that: Watson, Thomas (Children's story writer), or Watson, Thomas, 1965- .”


But surely you’re not implying that if we happened to have the usage “Thomas Watson,” we could add more qualifiers to that name but not to Tom Watson, are you? It wouldn’t make sense to allow Watson, Thomas, 1965- but not Watson, Tom, 1965-.

Ted Gemberling

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moore, Richard
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 6:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)


Tom



It looks perfectly consistent to me. You take a variant name for the person (not the preferred name), and you make additions to it if considered it important for identification.



So if the 100 were Watson, Tom, then a 400 variant access point might be Watson, Thomas. If you consider it important for identification you could make an addition to that: Watson, Thomas (Children's story writer), or Watson, Thomas, 1965- .



What RDA doesn't currently allow you to do is to use in 400 the preferred name (Watson, Tom) that you have already used in the 100. The 400 has to be based on a variant name. But you can make all the same additions to a variant name as you can to a preferred name.



Regards

Richard

Authority Control Team Manager

The British Library



----



Program for Cooperative Cataloging [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Ted P Gemberling [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 12 May 2016 19:58
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)
I don’t understand how Watson, Tom, 1965- is even contrary to 9.19.2.1. Could it be that people haven’t been reading down to the bottom of the screen to see that, after the part about adding variant access points based on variant names, there is whole section for “make additions to the name, if considered important for identification,” following the instructions at 9.19.1.2-9.19.1.8? Included there at 9.19.1.3 is “date of birth and/or death.”

So, are we to interpret those two sections as mutually exclusive, so that if there are 4XX’s based on variant names, there cannot be 4XX’s with dates? I don’t really see anything in the rule that indicates they’re exclusive.

Ted Gemberling

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Knop, Judy
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2016 1:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)

What happened to RDA as a set of “guidelines” rather than rules?  My understanding has been that the only disallowed references were those not created according to RDA guidelines for the creation of AAPs.  Are we really supposed to take the RDA wording as a proscriptive statement of what is allowed and therefore, disallowed?

Judy Knop

ATLA NACO/CONSER Funnel Coordinator
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moore, Richard
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2016 1:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)

Jay

For better or worse, your proposed 400 runs up against RDA 9.19.2.1 (my italics):

“When constructing a variant access point to represent a person, use a variant name for the person (see 9.2.3) as the basis for the access point.”

That is, and strictly speaking, we can’t have 400s that are based on the preferred name used in the authorized access point.

What we can do is make sure the date is recorded as a data element in 046.


Regards
Richard

________________________
Richard Moore
Authority Control Team Manager
The British Library

Tel.: +44 (0)1937 546104
E-mail: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

“You’re very clever, young man, very clever. But it’s turtles all the way down.”




From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Shorten, Jay
Sent: 11 May 2016 22:30
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)

I would also add a 400 with Watson, Tom, $d 1965-  . The first place I always look to identify someone is the dates, since they come conveniently right after the plain name. Then I look for Name $q, then for Name $c, and only then do I wade through the tedious Name, Intial/Middle Name.

(I guess I should also take the opportunity to advertise PERSNAME-L, the list about personal names in bibliographic and authority records, while I’m at it. You can subscribe here: https://lists.ou.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=PERSNAME-L&A=1 )

Jay Shorten
Cataloger, Monographs and Electronic Resources
Associate Professor of Bibliography
Catalog Department
University Libraries
University of Oklahoma
Co-owner, PERSNAME-L, the list about personal names in bibliographic and authority records

[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ted P Gemberling
Sent: 11 May 2016 15:03
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)

Michael,
Please also add a 670 with the information you found.

Was it difficult to reach Watson? I wonder if we should make it a practice to make an effort to reach contemporary authors before setting up occupational qualifiers. I recently encountered the heading “Williams, Chris ǂc (Research and knowledge exchange impact officer)” (n 2015187569). That’s an awfully specific job title. What good will it do if he gets another job? Since I don’t know much about the “research and knowledge exchange impact” industry, how will I be able to make the judgment that it’s the same person?

Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stephen Hearn
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2016 12:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)

The most important thing in OCLC is to uncontrol the Watson headings from the wrong authority and control them with the right authority. As Michael notes, once the headings are controlled by the correct authority, any changes to that authority's 1XX will be picked up by the bib records.  In terms of practical beneficial effect, controlling headings with the right authority is more important than changing the authorized heading to something better.

Stephen

On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 10:13 AM, Moore, Richard <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I think the result should be 667 “Do not confuse with” notes in all the NARs that could be confused ;-) This might also be a case where 672 and 673 fields could come in handy…

Regards
Richard

________________________
Richard Moore
Authority Control Team Manager
The British Library

Tel.: +44 (0)1937 546104<tel:%2B44%20%280%291937%20546104>
E-mail: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

“You’re very clever, young man, very clever. But it’s turtles all the way down.”




From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Michael Borries
Sent: 11 May 2016 15:44
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [PCCLIST] Tom Watson (Children's story writer)

Dear collective wisdoms,

I believe a situation similar to the one I am about to describe was discussed previously on at least one of these lists (and I apologize for the cross posting), but I don’t remember what the resolution was (if there was one), and I think this may be a little different in several respects.

The author of the Stick Dog and Stick Cat children’s books is Watson, Tom (Children’s story writer) (NAR nb2014002382).  However, 58 records (if I did the arithmetic correctly) have incorrect headings for this author, either without a qualifier, or with the wrong dates (one record has “1949-“, all the others have “1962-“).

I contacted the Tom Watson who writes the children’s stories.  He gave me both a date of birth and a middle name.  He is not the Tom Watson born in 1949 or 1962 (he was born in 1965).

My problem with leaving the heading as it is, in addition to the preference for dates as the means of differentiation, is that the Tom Watson who writes children’s stories also did a number of other things that are unrelated to children’s stories, as the authority record makes clear, although it seems as if the children’s stories are the only things published, at least so far (books on speech writing are not his).  Also, since there are many headings that are simply incorrect anyway, there will be the need for cleanup locally and in OCLC no matter which way we go (only 21 additional records need be changed if I change the heading, and the authority record will take care of those in OCLC).

Thoughts?

Michael

Michael S. Borries
Cataloger, City University of New York
151 East 25th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY  10010
Phone: (646) 312-1687<tel:%28646%29%20312-1687>
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>



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