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Bob, I agree, and attempted to make the same point myself earlier in this thread. I was just making a counterexample here, and apologize if that wasn't clear.

Matt

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 3:58 PM, Robert Maxwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

It has already been pointed out that neither “boys” nor “men” are gender terms, they are classes of persons who happen to be defined partly by gender and partly by age and partly by species (human).

 

Bob

 

Robert L. Maxwell
Ancient Languages and Special Collections Librarian
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568

"We should set an example for all the world, rather than confine ourselves to the course which has been heretofore pursued"--Eliza R. Snow, 1842.

 

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matthew C. Haugen
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2016 1:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Gender in 375 and macros WAS Profession/occupation terms and gender/ethnicity/nationality/religion etc.

 

I agree it doesn't make sense to try to record whether someone has achieved adulthood in 375 or elsewhere. But age can be reflected in the date of birth in 046 $f but "Adulthood" is not really a fixed category across cultures/time periods (nor is gender, really but that's another argument). It would be pretty beyond the cataloger call of duty to figure out when a person went from child to adult, legally, medically, ritually, or otherwise, and it would require more record maintenance as people age--nor can i imagine a case in which this particularly useful. So I'm not actually advocating for this, but if we did want to reflect age in 375 gender terms, I suppose it would look something like this?

 

375 Boys $2 lcdgt $s 1940 $t 1958

375 Men $2 lcdgt $s 1958

 

At the same time, identifying works created by children might actually be useful but I think this remains constant as an attribute of the works, while the person ages; so, for someone like Mozart, one could add "386 Children $2 lcdgt" to the records for works he composed as a child.

 

Matthew

 

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 2:26 PM, Wilson, Pete <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I should have waited to send my earlier message preferring “men” and “women” to “males” and “females” until I’d read the rest of the messages on the same point.

 

I see Matthew Haugen’s point—that “men” and “women” reflect age as well as gender.  But is there another part of a personal name authority record where we indicate whether a human is/was past puberty or not?   (It doesn’t really make sense.)  And what would we call a Mozart?  I don’t think using “men” and “women” in the 375 really conflicts with anything worth doing.

 

Pete Wilson

Vanderbilt University

 

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matthew C. Haugen
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2016 11:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCCLIST] Gender in 375 and macros WAS Profession/occupation terms and gender/ethnicity/nationality/religion etc.

 

As Richard points out, DCM-Z1 375 now instructs to prefer a controlled vocabulary such as LCDGT or LCSH for gender terms. It also instructs to capitalize the first term in each $a for consistency.  

 

The OCLC Connexion Client "GenerateAuthorityRecord" macro continues to supply the deprecated RDA terms, in uncapitalized and uncontrolled form (male, female, not known), and many, many existing records have the former rda terms.

 

So, I agree that it is allowable to continue to use uncontrolled terms, and even capitalization or not probably doesn't make a big difference, really. But I would argue against continuing to use "not known" as a gender value; it is no longer defined as a gender in the RDA glossary, and we do not record a "not known" value for other 3xx fields when we don't know the occupation, language, etc. attributes of the person.

 

In lcdgt, the terms Men, Women also have an age category (along with Boys, Girls) so following similar arguments about element granularity, I would advocate for using gender-only terms (Males, Females, Transgender people, etc.).

 

I worked out a "hack" to get the Connexion macro to supply capitalized and/or controlled terms, and thought I'd share the instructions for those who might be interested:

 

1. in OCLC Connexion, navigate the menu Tools-->Macros-->Manage

2. Select "GenerateAuthorityRecord" from the list of macros, and click Edit

3. Press Ctrl-F and search for the term "male"

4. This should bring you to a section, somewhere around row 1995, that reads:

 

Sub DefGendList

   ReDim sGendList(3)

   sGendList(0) = ""

   sGendList(1) = "female"

   sGendList(2) = "male"

   sGendList(3) = "not known"

  End Sub

 

5. Here, you can capitalize the gender terms within quotes, or replace them with controlled values, using Eszett (ß) in place of the subfield delimiter (ǂ). The third option "not known" can be replaced with another value (more about this in the notes below). So, for example:

 

Sub DefGendList

   ReDim sGendList(3)

   sGendList(0) = ""

   sGendList(1) = "Females ß2 lcdgt"

   sGendList(2) = "Males ß2 lcdgt"

   sGendList(3) = "Transgender people ß2 lcdgt"

  End Sub

 

6. Additional controlled or uncontrolled terms can be added to the list following the same pattern, increasing the number for each list item added, and increasing the digit in line 2 of this section to match the highest numbered option in the list, e.g.:

 

Sub DefGendList

   ReDim sGendList(6)

   sGendList(0) = ""

   sGendList(1) = "Females ß2 lcdgt"

   sGendList(2) = "Males ß2 lcdgt"

   sGendList(3) = "Transgender people ß2 lcdgt"

   sGendList(4) = "Intersex people ß2 lcsh"

   sGendList(5) = "Two-spirit people ß2 lcsh"

   sGendList(6) = "Genderqueer people"

 End Sub

 

6. Click Save and close the editor.

7. Next time you run the macro, the gender options list should show this update. It will flip the Eszett (ß) back to the subfield delimiter (ǂ) when entered into the authority record.

 

Notes:

 

The macro contains separate sections which attempt to suggest a male or female gender based on forenames, titles, and Japanese suffixes found in the 1xx field. If this process does not result in a match, the macro will supply a blank (sGendlist option 0). It's not a perfect system, but changing the order or numbering of list numbers 0,1, or 2 will interfere with that matching, so be careful if making any additional changes to the first three list options. There is no controlled vocabulary equivalent for the RDA gender term "not known" and the macro does not use it in the matching script, so it can be replaced with another value. 

 

Currently, only 4 vocabularies are valid for $2 source of term: lcsh, lcdgt, iso5218, or rvmgd. http://www.loc.gov/standards/sourcelist/gender.html Terms from other lists may be used, but must be entered without the $2.

 

Depending on your local settings, etc. this change may require administrative privileges, and it may be necessary to update the macro at each login/workstation you use.

 

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Mary Mastraccio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

No discussion, Adam, you have described perfectly what should be standard practice. “Women physicians” is not a profession. “Physicians” is a profession, etc.

 

Mary L. Mastraccio
Director of Cataloging and Authorities
MARCIVE, Inc.
San Antonio, TX  78265
800-531-7678
www.marcive.com

 


From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adam L. Schiff
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 3:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCCLIST] Profession/occupation terms and gender/ethnicity/nationality/religion etc.

 

There’s been a lot of posts in the past week about lousy qualifier choices, e.g. (Graduate student). 

 

I don’t have anything to add to that discussion, but it made me think about one of my particular pet peeves that I see in RDA records.  It has to do with what some catalogers are recording as profession/occupation.  Here are some examples:

 

374    Women physicians ǂa Surgeons ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    African American political activists ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    African American poets ǂa Authors, Black ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    African American poets ǂa Women poets ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    Women composers ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    Women translators ǂa Women missionaries ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    African American women singers ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    Mexican American musicians ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    Authors, Canadian ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    Hockey players ǂa Athletes ǂa Authors ǂa Jewish authors ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    Christian authors ǂa Women television personalities ǂ2 lcsh

 

374    Gay journalists ǂ2 lcsh

 

If you haven’t figured out my peeve yet, it’s the inclusion of gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. in profession/occupation terms recorded in this field.    One does not go to school to study to be a woman physician or an African American poet or a gay journalist or Canadian author.  Including qualifying terms serves to segregate people of the same occupation, and I don’t think this is a good thing in authority records.  Why should women composers be labeled differently from men composers?   Shouldn’t all poets be grouped together under a single term?

 

Gender already has a separate field (375) that can be recorded in authority records.  If catalogers feel that religion, nationality, ethnicity or other characteristics are important to record there IS a place for it in the MARC format:

MARC field 368 (Other Attributes of Person or Corporate Body), subfield $c (Other designation).   While RDA doesn’t include provisions for recording religion, national, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other characteristics not included elsewhere in RDA instructions, 368 $c can be used for this, and has already been by some catalogers, e.g.:

 

368   ǂc Gay men ǂc Presbyterians ǂ2 lcdgt

 

368   ǂc Catholics ǂ2 lcsh

 

368   ǂc African Americans ǂ2 lcdgt

 

368   ǂc Italian Americans ǂc Lesbians ǂ2 lcdgt

 

As long as individuals identify themselves as being in a particular demographic group, or are so identified in reputable reference sources, I don’t have any qualms with including these kinds of characteristics in 368 $c if they are useful and could help to identify persons.  Discussion??

 

Adam Schiff

 

Adam L. Schiff

Principal Cataloger

University of Washington Libraries

Cataloging & Metadata Services

Box 352900

Seattle, WA 98195-2900

[log in to unmask]

 



 

--

-- 
Matthew C. Haugen
Rare Book Cataloger
102 Butler Library
Columbia University Libraries
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 212-851-2451



 

--

-- 
Matthew C. Haugen
Rare Book Cataloger
102 Butler Library
Columbia University Libraries
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 212-851-2451



--
-- 
Matthew C. Haugen
Rare Book Cataloger
102 Butler Library
Columbia University Libraries
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 212-851-2451