(Consultant) is another really useful one.
Greta de Groat
Stanford University Libraries
Sorry, the voting polls closed. The winner is:
$c (Graduate student)
There are three personal name authorized access points in the NACO authority file with this qualifier. I would like to share why I feel this type of qualifier ought to be avoided.
Many people are current or former graduate students. Nowadays I work mostly with technical and scientific materials, so the authors of these materials who have shared names generally have been graduate students. If the person graduates or drops out of college, does the qualifier really mean anything? The person was a student at the time of writing a particular document perhaps. But it seems to me that a user might interpret that qualifier to imply that all works (including the author's earlier and later works) assigned with that access point as having been written during his/her graduate school period.
I suppose that qualifier might be justified by:
* RDA 1.19.1.2.6 "Other Designation Associated with the Person" though it is not one of the types listed (a) sacred term, (b) fictitious term, or (c) animal type.
* Or perhaps by RDA 9.19.1.6 "Profession or Occupation".
* Or perhaps by RDA 9.19.1.7 "Other Term or Rank, Honor, or Office".
* Or perhaps by RDA 9.19.1.8 "Other Designation".
To me "student" is not an occupation or profession. It is a temporary activity that does not denote someone's expertise or efforts in an area for the sake of identification. It is not a rank or "honor" (in the sense of cataloging rules). And it doesn't seem quite like a designation at all to me.
One of the three headings is: Arnold, Robert ǂc (Graduate student)
I was working on materials by another "Robert Arnold". Fortunately, I have a middle initial, birth year, and death year. He was very accomplished and probably had graduate schooling. There is a heading for another "Robert Arnold" who has a J.D. degree (but with a middle initial and fuller form of name). My point is that this qualifier just does not help to tell us why this person as a student is different.
I would think "(Student of botany)", etc. would be far better. My apologies if I missed a rule or LC-PCC Policy Statement that supports it. By the way, my library school alma mater institutional library had made that authority record. If that institution chose to catalog my specialization paper with "$c (Graduate student)" next to my name, I would not be pleased.
Ed Kazzimir
ARLIS
Anchorage, Alaska