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George,

 

You are under a couple of mistaken impressions.  It is not possible to catalog under pure RDA without policies.  Post-3R RDA is deliberately designed to provide options for any communities which may wish to use RDA.  There are no preferred options—every community (such as the Anglo-American bibliographic community) must decide by policy, application profile, and workflows, which options to follow and how.

 

However, in your first example, under both RDA and PCC, Flynn Flam would be considered a pseudonym.  Under PCC practice, we would decide whether to add the pseudonym to a name authority record for the real author, or to create a separate name authority record for the pseudonym and put see references in each record pointing to the alternate name.  RDA is silent on the actual practice of name authorities, leaving that to community practices.

 

Your second example is trickier, being a false attribution to a real entity (though not an RDA agent).  This is the issue of attribution that has been mentioned in the previous thread.  Post-3R RDA does not consider the real Koko the Gorilla to be an agent, so she could not be considered a contributor.  The best that RDA allows is ‘related entity of RDA entity’.  Alternatively, the nomen ‘Koko the Gorilla’ could be considered a pseudonym of Robert Smwth, and treated like the previous example.  PCC has not yet decided how to deal with this situation under post-3R RDA.  Therefore, we do not yet know how we would catalog this. 

 

                                                                                Steve McDonald

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From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Prager, George
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2021 4:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCCLIST] Fictitious and Non-Human Entities in Official RDA

 

Greetings all.

 

I understand the basics of LRM, and have read through the relevant parts of the official RDA (Guidance: Fictitious and Non-Human Appellations) plus the document that Kathy recently cited, thanks Kathy: Explanations of recurring issues. Despite my 35+ years as a cataloger, I have difficulty understanding how the guidance can be applied in a real bibliographic record. I have also looked at recent presentations on RDA. However, nowhere do I see actual examples of how, using the Official RDA, one could catalog a resource if it purports to be the creation of a fictitious person or non-human entity as its creator.  With all due respect, this is of course a much broader problem of very theoretical guidelines that are conceptually hard to grasp and don't yet have examples -- it really makes understanding--to say nothing of training, exceptionally challenging.   

 

Can anyone point to actual cataloging examples that illustrate how such resources would be cataloged in Official RDA? 

 

For discussion purposes, I have made up 2 hypothetical examples below, using my limited understanding of the  RDA guidance. (I do understand that LC and the PCC have not yet completed LC-PCC PS in this area. However, it should theoretically be possible to catalog something just using the Official RDA, without rule interpretations?.

 

A. Work attributed to a fictitious person: 

T.p. has:  The story of my life / by Flynn Flam. We know that Flynn Flam is not a real person, and that it was written by John Smwth. How would this be rendered in “Official RDA”? (using MARC as a shortcut here).

 

 

100 1# $a Smwth, John, $e creator person of work.

24510  $a The story of my life / $c by John Smwth.

??? Flam, Flim, $e related entity of work.

 

  1. The user may very well look in an author index for "Flam, Flim." Can this be used in an AAP on an "Official RDA" record, or only as a see also from reference on the NAR for  Smwth, or only used in a unstructured note field?

 

B. Work attributed to a non-human entity:

       T.p. has: Searching for bananas / by Koko the Gorilla. We know the work was actually written by Robert Smwyth.

 

     100 1# $a Smwth, Robert, $e creator person of work.

      24510 $a Searching for bananas / $c by Koko the Gorilla.

      ??? Koko $c (Gorilla), $e related entity of work.  

 

 I don't think Official RDA approves of the non-human entity as an access point; would it need to be just in a note in an RDA coded record? But how then would you be able to use "related entity of work", which is given in RDA?

(And does such an approach fulfill the ICP principles of "Convenience of the user" and "Representation"?)

 

Thanks for any enlightenment anyone can offer here.

 

George

 

 

George Prager

Technical Services Manager

New York University Law School Library

Phone: 917-951-0428