========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 12:58:35 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Non-Roman Sorting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jim Agenbroad asks: > ... 1. Should a future AACR include rules for sorting as > some on this list have suggested? No. What "some on this list" suggested was not sorting, but filing. Sorting is just the sequence of characters. Filing goes way beyond that, it is the arrangement of index entries and result sets, not on the character level but on the structural level. What the rules should pin down is the precise structure of index entries and of brief citations, after which the results of mechanical sorting should not be influenced much by the implementation. As an elementary example, if you define personal names as two strings of characters separated by "comma space", then implementations cannot do much wrong. Presently, implementations may lack the comma or the space. For the arrangement of titles under one author or subject heading, rules would have to specify uniform title and if absent, title proper, and date, omitting initial articles (!). In short, the rules would have to prescribe "... formal modifications in headings for the purpose of achieving by mechanized means the same order contemplated by the rules." (AACR 1967, American preface) Even shorter: Contemplation of an order is not enough, machines need precise and explicit specifications, and not just for the character sequence. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 08:50:44 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Re: Non-Roman Sorting Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: <1208F0464A@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Wednesday, October 1, 1997 I stand corrected; "1. Should AACR include rules for filing?" is preferable. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinion, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. On Wed, 1Oct 1997, Bernhard Eversberg wrote: > Jim Agenbroad asks: > > > ... 1. Should a future AACR include rules for sorting as > > some on this list have suggested? > > No. What "some on this list" suggested was not sorting, but filing. > Sorting is just the sequence of characters. Filing goes way beyond that, > it is the arrangement of index entries and result sets, not on the character > level but on the structural level. What the rules should pin down is the > precise structure of index entries and of brief citations, after which the > results of mechanical sorting should not be influenced much by the > implementation. As an elementary example, if you define personal names as > two strings of characters separated by "comma space", then implementations > cannot do much wrong. Presently, implementations may lack the comma or the > space. For the arrangement of titles under one author or subject heading, > rules would have to specify uniform title and if absent, title proper, and > date, omitting initial articles (!). > In short, the rules would have to prescribe "... formal modifications > in headings for the purpose of achieving by mechanized means the same order > contemplated by the rules." (AACR 1967, American preface) > Even shorter: Contemplation of an order is not enough, machines need > precise and explicit specifications, and not just for the character sequence. > > > > Bernhard Eversberg > Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, > D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany > Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 > e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de > Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 15:39:56 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: M J Ridley Subject: Speakers contributing to the list Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Id like to follow up some of the earlier comments about where the speakers for the confernce were in terms of contributing to the list. I felt that having put my paper up Id had an initial bite of the cherry and would have another chance to comment on the discussions in Toronto, so I wanted to see what others had to say as well as study the other papers myself. I am of course happy to answer specific questions, one of which Ive addressed in a separate posting. Mick Ridley Dept of Computing Senior Computer Officer Phoenix Bldg M.J.Ridley@comp.brad.ac.uk Univ of Bradford 01274 383946 Phone Bradford BD7 1DP 01274 383920 Fax UK ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 15:41:01 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: M J Ridley Subject: Re: Apparent Conflict? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jim Agenbroad asked if there was a conflict between my saying "relational databases may not be the ideal for bibliographic uses" and Tom Delsey's analysis. I dont think there is, but I hope I can clarify my criticism of relational databases which may have been interpreted more harshly than I intended it. I have used relational databases in a number of experimental systems for storing MARC records, or records derived from MARC records and recognise that that they are very useful and powerful particularly in the context of being able to formulate ad-hoc queries. Without going too deeply into the theory of relational databases there are however some areas where a relational database can be used but its ability to model the "real world" is somewhat limited and some contrived formulations may be needed. This is the area of the "semantic gap" between entity-relationship analysis and implementing that analysis in a relational database. A number of particular areas are worthy of note. 1) Handling Lists Relational databases, in general, should be "normalised" so that they dont contain repeating items in lists. So the "author" entity, identified from analysis, which might be a single author, or a list of authors, cannot be modelled straightforwardly. Instead separate entries in database tables will have to be made for each author and these assembled together (in the right order) for display of all the data about a work. 2) Handling Text Relational systems are in general not good at handling extended amounts of text. Normally a limit must be imposed on the length of a text string. So for instance an arbitary upper size limit might be imposed on the text in a Notes field or a contrived solution of splitting a note in two might be needed. 3) the Nature of Links Links between tables in a relational database are based on matching values between those tables. So to assemble all the data about a work, parts of the record in different tables with common values must be brought together.The values that are matched may be varied such as an author/title pair, an ISBN or some arbitary identifier. There is still a need to ensure that both ends of such a link are maintained to keep the link between records or parts of records. If one value is changed the link may be broken. Bernhard Eversberg touched on this in his Linking Part 1 posting. Many of the shortcomings of relational databases are being tackled by the new third generation of database technologies. These are object databases and extended-relational or object-relational databases. In these systems more complex objects such as lists can be handled more naturally. In these systems, more particularly object databases, you can make links between records that dont depend on the values in those records. That is, a link might be made between Shostakovich/Vth Symphony and Chostakovitch/5th Symphony although the values are different. These links are made at a low level in the database system and are close to being what Bernhard Eversberg dismissed as " no such thing as an immaterial, direct, ethereal, intrinsic, magic rubber band connection between any two records." Mick Ridley Dept of Computing Senior Computer Officer Phoenix Bldg M.J.Ridley@comp.brad.ac.uk Univ of Bradford 01274 383946 Phone Bradford BD7 1DP 01274 383920 Fax UK ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 20:35:56 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Howarth paper In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , "J. McRee Elrod" writes > >Howarth admits that this would "essentially reorder existing areas of >descriptive cataloguing", i.e., abandon ISBD. > I don't relish the thought. In the ISBD we have a very robust tool for describing documents and I think one of its strengths lies in the way it approaches the document as a "found" object, with no preconceptions about it. We describe exactly what we see in terms suggested by what we see. Thus even "realia" can fit into the same basic format. Contrast this with the "work" which is an artificial construct and one which becomes increasingly elusive as automation makes it easier to revise, publish, republish, borrow, extract and adapt other so-called "works". If the ISBDs are being adopted by archivists, museums and so on doesn't this further lessen the importance of the "work"? And as publishing output increases and cataloguer recruitment decreases four tiers is three too many. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:07:33 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Howarth paper MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Robert Cunnew writes: > ... In the ISBD we have a very robust tool for > describing documents ... > > Contrast this with the "work" which is an artificial construct and one > which becomes increasingly elusive as automation makes it easier to > revise, publish, republish, borrow, extract and adapt other so-called > "works". If the ISBDs are being adopted by archivists, museums and so > on doesn't this further lessen the importance of the "work"? To the contrary. The more versions there are, the more important it becomes to have a bracket that keeps them together. Without it, one search retrieves this and that version, another search retrieves other versions, depending on the search terms and their matching or non-matching with any of the versions. Ideally, one would find the work record first and then have the option of getting a display of the linked manifestations/editions/versions. > > And as publishing output increases and cataloguer recruitment decreases > four tiers is three too many. The code cannot restrict itself to low-level cataloging. Provisions have to be in place (e.g., those four tiers) for the most ambitious projects as well. And as there are and will be only a small number of ambitious (expensive) projects, it is all the more important to have a standard that can help make these compatible rather than force them to invent their own wheels. And if there were only a low-level code, the harder it would become to persuade employers of the necessity of hiring ANY professional staff. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:28:15 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Apparent Conflict? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Mick Ridley wrote: > > Many of the shortcomings of relational databases are being tackled by > the new third generation of database technologies... > In these systems, more particularly object databases, you > can make links between records that dont depend on the values in those > records. That is, a link might be made between Shostakovich/Vth > Symphony and Chostakovitch/5th Symphony although the values are > different. ... However, the link will always be based on a constant identifier - which is a character string. It may or may not be displayed, it may function on a low or high level, but someone has to establish the link. It cannot come into being by virtue of "third generation database technologies". IOW, there's no way to circumvent the authority control approach. Statements like the one cited tend to raise unrealistic expectations. Of course, there's also the idea of "fuzzy searching". This cannot provide reliable links, just *because* of its fuzziness. With fuzzy technology, you either get too many unwanted "hits" or you miss too many relevant items, but probably both. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:02:14 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mary Grenci Subject: Re: Apparent Conflict? Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: <25869F09B2@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Bernhard Eversberg wrote: > However, the link will always be based on a constant identifier - which is a > character string. It may or may not be displayed, it may function on a > low or high level, but someone has to establish the link. It cannot come > into being by virtue of "third generation database technologies". I have always found that the old saying 'out of sight, out of mind' is true in the library world. Those technical services functions which become transparent to the user tend to be forgotten. While I champion the idea of an authority control system that allows automatic linking between headings without the intervening step of having to choose the new heading, this type of advance tends to promote the idea that the unseen functions don't really exist and/or aren't really needed. Of course, it would be noticed if they were really to disappear! The fact of the matter is that computers and networks can only work with the information they are given--the data that is input to them. Authority control isn't a one-time process where you can input all the necessary data once, bring up the network, and go home. Things change, new terms come into existence, corporations change names, etc. Computers can't determine the relationships when this happens unless someone does the authority control work by inputting this new information. If we really want to go the way of transparent authority control (and I believe we do) we have to be very careful that it doesn't also become transparent to our administrators! Mary ****************************** Mary Grenci Serials Catalog Librarian Knight Library 1299 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1299 mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu Phone: 541-346-5607 Fax: 541-346-3485 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:38:03 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Re: Apparent Conflict? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To Mary Grenci's message I say: Amen! The primary purpose of catalogs and AACR is of course to make our libraries' collections available to those who can benefit from them. Another essential function is to facilitate performance of the necessary 'nitty-gritty' connected with maintaining the physical items. For items in the collection to be found they must also be bound and sound (in the sense of complete, intact and in a known location). Without control there is no access. It would be interesting to know the proportion of OPAC access transactions that are done by staff to insure the control that's needed to provide reliable access to a growing and well selected collection. I hope those attending the AACR conference will keep the catalog's role in this necessary overhead in mind. On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Mary Grenci wrote: > On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Bernhard Eversberg wrote: > > > However, the link will always be based on a constant identifier - which is a > > character string. It may or may not be displayed, it may function on a > > low or high level, but someone has to establish the link. It cannot come > > into being by virtue of "third generation database technologies". > > I have always found that the old saying 'out of sight, out of mind' is > true in the library world. Those technical services functions which become > transparent to the user tend to be forgotten. While I champion the idea of > an authority control system that allows automatic linking between headings > without the intervening step of having to choose the new heading, this > type of advance tends to promote the idea that the unseen functions don't > really exist and/or aren't really needed. Of course, it would be noticed > if they were really to disappear! > > The fact of the matter is that computers and networks can only work with > the information they are given--the data that is input to them. Authority > control isn't a one-time process where you can input all the necessary > data once, bring up the network, and go home. Things change, new terms > come into existence, corporations change names, etc. Computers can't > determine the relationships when this happens unless someone does the > authority control work by inputting this new information. > > If we really want to go the way of transparent authority control (and I > believe we do) we have to be very careful that it doesn't also become > transparent to our administrators! > > Mary > > ****************************** > Mary Grenci > Serials Catalog Librarian > Knight Library > 1299 University of Oregon > Eugene, OR 97403-1299 > > mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu > Phone: 541-346-5607 > Fax: 541-346-3485 > Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 20:06:26 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Howarth paper In-Reply-To: <25302373B8@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <25302373B8@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de>, Bernhard Eversberg writes >Robert Cunnew writes: >> Contrast this with the "work" which is an artificial construct and one >> which becomes increasingly elusive as automation makes it easier to >> revise, publish, republish, borrow, extract and adapt other so-called >> "works". >To the contrary. The more versions there are, the more important it becomes >to have a bracket that keeps them together. The point I was trying to make was that the boundaries between so-called works could become *so* blurred that it would be a futile exercise to construct a new code of rules on what was essentially an imaginary concept. Are we sure that the classic "work" (so often exemplified by Hamlet, a piece of writing over 400 years old) isn't a historical phenomenon? Even if it remains is it appropriate to construct a code of rules on such a flimsy basis? >> >> And as publishing output increases and cataloguer recruitment decreases >> four tiers is three too many. > >The code cannot restrict itself to low-level cataloging. Provisions have >to be in place (e.g., those four tiers) for the most ambitious projects as >well. And as there are and will be only a small number of ambitious >(expensive) projects, it is all the more important to have a standard that >can help make these compatible rather than force them to invent their own >wheels. >And if there were only a low-level code, the harder it would become to >persuade employers of the necessity of hiring ANY professional staff. I think to persuade employers you have to be able to show that the rules are practical. The massive resources required to convert existing systems and databases will require more than an academic theory to justify them. Are we sure that a satisfactory solution to the problems Howarth outlines cannot be achieved simply by developing OPAC software which better exploits the existing MARC structure? What *can't* be done using existing MARC records? Isn't all that is required from AACR an acknowledgement that different arrangements of elements may be appropriate in different situations? -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 16:36:18 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mary Grenci Subject: Re: Howarth paper In-Reply-To: <3dXqlBAyC$M0Ew$S@cunnew.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Robert Cunnew wrote: > I think to persuade employers you have to be able to show that the rules > are practical. The massive resources required to convert existing > systems and databases will require more than an academic theory to > justify them. I agree with this completely and would like to expound on it a bit. It seems like we are talking about a 'pie in the sky' concept that, while it may be a grand idea, just isn't practical with the limited financial resources available to most libraries. Also, I don't really see the point of discussing the 4-tiered, work record, concept in isolation. Is this really possible from a system vendor point of view? Are they willing and/or able to spend the money to change? Are our administrators going to come up with the money to ultimately foot the bill for the new system? And, something that's bothered me through every discussion on this list, what do the public service librarians think of the idea? They're the ones that use, interpret and explain our records. Shouldn't they have a say in what goes into them and how it's arranged? It seems like commonsense would dictate that this is the case. > Are we sure that a satisfactory solution to the problems Howarth > outlines cannot be achieved simply by developing OPAC software which > better exploits the existing MARC structure? What *can't* be done using > existing MARC records? Isn't all that is required from AACR an > acknowledgement that different arrangements of elements may be > appropriate in different situations? It's my understanding that MARC records could be made to make any type of link that we want. They can link one way or reciprocally. They can, in theory, take care of the entire 4-tier concept. What's needed would be a new code which incorparates these new ideas; many, many MARBI proposals to define new fields and or indicators; and, as stated above, big bucks which ultimately have to come from libraries. Mary ****************************** Mary Grenci Serials Catalog Librarian Knight Library 1299 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1299 mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu Phone: 541-346-5607 Fax: 541-346-3485 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 16:29:08 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Kevin M. Randall" Subject: Re: Howarth paper Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:06 PM 10/2/97 +0100, Robert Cunnew wrote: >The point I was trying to make was that the boundaries between so-called >works could become *so* blurred that it would be a futile exercise to >construct a new code of rules on what was essentially an imaginary >concept. Are we sure that the classic "work" (so often exemplified by >Hamlet, a piece of writing over 400 years old) isn't a historical >phenomenon? Even if it remains is it appropriate to construct a code of >rules on such a flimsy basis? This is a very good point. On the other hand, the current state of information technology is so fluid that I would hesitate to throw out a concept with such historical validity. What if it happens that things "settle down" to where works are more "stable" (albeit in a different physical format than we know now)? (Or am I merely dreaming?) I have to admit that I'm still having a hard time really grasping this work-expression-manifestation-item business. It seems so relative, and what level or tier is used to describe something could change according to the circumstance or the angle from which you're approaching it. (Although I do have to admit that I haven't yet read the IFLA document itself; all I know about the FRBR model is what I've read in the conference papers.) Anyway, I would hope we'd want to simplify, and the 4-tier model sounds likes it's only making things more complicated. >I think to persuade employers you have to be able to show that the rules >are practical. The massive resources required to convert existing >systems and databases will require more than an academic theory to >justify them. I have very strong doubts that our current economic climate will allow for a major overhaul of our bibliographic infrastructure. Just think of how hard it is to get OCLC alone to implement a new field or code approved by MARBI. >Are we sure that a satisfactory solution to the problems Howarth >outlines cannot be achieved simply by developing OPAC software which >better exploits the existing MARC structure? What *can't* be done using >existing MARC records? Isn't all that is required from AACR an >acknowledgement that different arrangements of elements may be >appropriate in different situations? YES!!! I do think it's good that we're looking at what direction to take AACR; it is in need of simplification and generalization, so that it can be used more easily and for a broader variety of bibliographic entities. However, it's really our CATALOGS that are broken, not so much the cataloging rules. The MARC format is very rich (well, it used to be; seems like some of what could have turned out very, very useful for us was taken away because LC didn't use it and nobody else had enough power to exploit it and show the world what could be done). We have the information in our MARC records--the description and access points are all in there. We just need to develop the catalogs that can work with the records. And this is a pretty difficult matter, because it's basically gotten out of libraries' hands and into the commercial sector. With current catalog technology, libraries can no longer afford themselves to do the development of the *catalog*. And they do not seem to have the power, or do not seem to be able to get the power (or do they even try?) through contract negotiations, to direct the development being conducted by the vendors. Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 07:54:48 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Shelby Harken Subject: Re: Apparent Conflict? TechServs In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I agree we have to keep "overhead" in mind. Staff use of an online system is high. I annually tally transactions by my staff (Acquisitions/Bibliographic Control: 2 catalogers, 8 associates, and 4 fte student assistants in a library of 1.2 million items). Transactions range between 365,000 to 500,000 each year. We were hit with a city-wide flood in April right before the end of school. We needed to tally books charged or possibly lost in the flood. We found 25,000 items were charged but of those only 8000 were charged to patrons. The rest were in processing, in binding, recataloging, mending, in storage, new book display, etc. Technical Services staff's ability to function efficiently with an online system is just a critical as public access. On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, James E. Agenbroad wrote: > To Mary Grenci's message I say: Amen! The primary purpose of catalogs and > AACR is of course to make our libraries' collections available to those > who can benefit from them. Another essential function is to facilitate > performance of the necessary 'nitty-gritty' connected with maintaining the > physical items. For items in the collection to be found they must also be > bound and sound (in the sense of complete, intact and in a known > location). Without control there is no access. It would be interesting > to know the proportion of OPAC access transactions that are done by staff > to insure the control that's needed to provide reliable access to a > growing and well selected collection. I hope those attending the AACR > conference will keep the catalog's role in this necessary overhead in > mind. > > On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Mary Grenci wrote: > > > On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Bernhard Eversberg wrote: > > > > > However, the link will always be based on a constant identifier - which is a > > > character string. It may or may not be displayed, it may function on a > > > low or high level, but someone has to establish the link. It cannot come > > > into being by virtue of "third generation database technologies". > > > > I have always found that the old saying 'out of sight, out of mind' is > > true in the library world. Those technical services functions which become > > transparent to the user tend to be forgotten. While I champion the idea of > > an authority control system that allows automatic linking between headings > > without the intervening step of having to choose the new heading, this > > type of advance tends to promote the idea that the unseen functions don't > > really exist and/or aren't really needed. Of course, it would be noticed > > if they were really to disappear! > > > > The fact of the matter is that computers and networks can only work with > > the information they are given--the data that is input to them. Authority > > control isn't a one-time process where you can input all the necessary > > data once, bring up the network, and go home. Things change, new terms > > come into existence, corporations change names, etc. Computers can't > > determine the relationships when this happens unless someone does the > > authority control work by inputting this new information. > > > > If we really want to go the way of transparent authority control (and I > > believe we do) we have to be very careful that it doesn't also become > > transparent to our administrators! > > > > Mary > > > > ****************************** > > Mary Grenci > > Serials Catalog Librarian > > Knight Library > > 1299 University of Oregon > > Eugene, OR 97403-1299 > > > > mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu > > Phone: 541-346-5607 > > Fax: 541-346-3485 > > > > Regards, > Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) > The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official > views of any government or any agency of any. > ********************************************************************* Shelby E. Harken Head, Acquisitions University of North Dakota Bibliographical Control Grand Forks, ND 58202 Room 244 (701) 777-4634 Box 9000 (701) 777-3310 (fax) Chester Fritz Library harken@plains.nodak.edu ********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 11:11:00 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Disipio Mary F." Subject: Re: MARC, and migration (was: Howarth) Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT >Mary Grenci wrote: > On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Robert Cunnew wrote: > > > I think to persuade employers you have to be able to show that the rules > > are practical. The massive resources required to convert existing > > systems and databases will require more than an academic theory to > > justify them. > > > It seems like we are talking about a 'pie in the sky' concept that, while > it may be a grand idea, just isn't practical with the limited financial > resources available to most libraries. If I can blow my own trumpet, one of the strands in an article a wrote some time ago ("Object-oriented cataloging", ITAL Sept 95) tried to address the problem. Any major change will remain pie-in-the-sky unless we examine How To Get There From Here and develop a strategy ; but ways do exist. What I suggested then were add-ons to MARC fields for those who could use them, until sufficient time had elapsed/progress had been made/data had accrued to allow the possibility of phasing out the now-redundant bits. (Robert Cunnew:) > > What *can't* be done using > > existing MARC records? Isn't all that is required from AACR an > > acknowledgement that different arrangements of elements may be > > appropriate in different situations? No way. Mathematically, and computational-logically, there are benefits to be had in computational efficiency and analytical power by grouping the elements of a set correctly. A MARC record at present can be represented as the set (A[uthor] + T[itle] + P[ublisher] + D[ate]...) i.e. (A+T+P+D...) but conceptually it's ((A+T)+(P+D)...). I can't reproduce the logic symbols here, but there's a lot more you can do with "(A+T)" than you can with "A" and "T" as individual elements in a larger set. Correctly bracketed structures are enormously helpful and sometimes essential: mathematically (A + B * C + D) is different from ((A + B) * (C + D)), and there are equivalent differences in logic, and hence in computers' ability to process data. We're attempting to do complicated things with structures that are inadequate and sometimes incorrect. Develop computer power as much as we wish, but the old GIGO acronym won't go away. Mike Heaney Associate Director (Service Assessment, Planning and Provision) University Library Services Directorate University of Oxford michael.heaney@ulib.ox.ac.uk --- End Forwarded Message --- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 14:49:56 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: Paper to be delivered in Toronto Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=====================_875940596==_" --=====================_875940596==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please see attached. Overheads will follow as a separate posting. Martha --=====================_875940596==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="What is a work paper to deliver.txt" What is a work--paper to be delivered in Toronto The following is my reaction to the listserv discussion that took place between August and October of 1997 on the AACRCONF listserv. Citations below take the following form: surname of poster-month of posting-number of posting in monthly log. For example Elrod-7-4 is a posting by Elrod in the month of July that occurs fourth on the July log of postings. What follows is what I intend to say at the meeting to supplement the paper that I have already written, and that presumably has been read by all participants. I am posting this to the listserv before delivering it, as I want to give those who have contributed to the listserv discussion, but will be unable to attend the meeting, one last chance to influence my reaction to the discussion as it pertains to work questions and issues. INTRODUCTION There are three stages to the cataloging work required to represent a given entity, such as an author, a work or a subject, in a catalog. 1. The entity must be defined. 2. The entity must be named. 3. Variant names for the entity must be identified, and syndetic apparatus provided that leads users from variants to the chosen name. [Overhead 1] In the first stage of representing an author in the catalog, the cataloger must determine, for example, whether the John Smith who writes poetry is the same John Smith who publishes texts on physics. [Overhead 2] In the second stage, the cataloger must determine how John Smith is commonly known, and, if necessary, add data, such as dates or initials, to his name to distinguish him from other John Smiths. [Overhead 3] In the third stage, the cataloger must determine whether John Smith has used other names in his publications, such as Jack Smith, and if he has, provide cross references by means of an authority record. These same three stages are necessary for representing a work in a catalog, although catalogers may be less conscious of this fact, since so much of the effort put into naming works goes into establishing the names of their authors, and the work on titles is only partially done, if at all, in most fields (a notable exception being the field of music). [Overhead 4] My paper, entitled 'What is a work?', is focused on the first stage: that of rules for determining when two items represent the same work, and when they represent two different related works. In the following I will try to summarize the discussion that took place concerning this first stage of cataloging. In my paper, I did not discuss the second and third stages, naming works, and providing access under variant names for works. However, there has been considerable useful discussion of these latter two topics on the listserv, which I would also like to try to summarize in this paper. On the listserv there has also been considerable discussion of whether or not we need to change our current record structures and methods of demonstrating relationships in a computerized and networked environment. This topic applies to more than just works, but much of the discussion has centered on the need for a work-based record, as opposed to the current practice of creating edition- or expression- based records. I would actually like to begin this paper with this more general discussion, before discussing the specifics of the three stages of cataloging works detailed above. At the end of the paper, I will try to suggest what AACR2 can do about all of these problems and issues, given our current shared cataloging environment, and suggest environmental changes that might indeed make possible radical changes in the way we do things now. RECORD STRUCTURES AND METHODS OF DEMONSTRATING RELATIONSHIPS (Relevant listserv postings: Hirons-7-6; Martin-7-12; Elrod- 8-5; Miller-8-110; Eversberg-8-130; Cain-8-133; Cain-9-77; Cain-9-85.) First of all, let me point out that in many ways we are *already* doing most of what some commentators have described as a radical new approach (and therefore impractical). Let me explain. [Overhead 5] We already differentiate one work from another (in making main entry decisions). [Overhead 6] We already name works (again, by means of the main entry). [Overhead 7] And we already create work-based records whenever we create an authority record for a work. Music catalogers, who create more of these authority records than anyone else, will probably feel that this hardly needs to be said, but I think it does need to be said for people who work in fields in which such records are rarely made. [Overhead 8] We already implement a 'superwork' concept whenever we make a work (i.e., name- title, or uniform title) added entry on the bibliographic record for another work. For example, when I make a name- title added entry for Margaret Mitchell's novel on the film Gone with the wind, I am treating the novel as a superwork, from which new works, such as the film, have spun off over time. What is needed most, I think, is clarification and statement in the code of the principles behind what we are doing now, more consistent application of those principles, and an examination of how far our current practices can be extended to help library users find the multiple-edition works that are probably the most commonly sought works in our libraries. Note that these decisions about when an item is a new work cannot be avoided. It is a fact of life that works exist in the form of editions, and as soon as there is more than one edition, there is the possibility for variation in both the author name and the title by which the work is known, cited and sought by users. Cataloging is essentially the act of decision-making about issues like these, and all catalogers should be taught to make such decisions effectively. Those who think they are avoiding such decision-making are simply representing two items that are the same work as if they were two different works; in other words they are not cataloging (doing professional work), they are creating the equivalent of a publisher's catalog, or a web search engine (doing clerical work). It is a waste of the taxpayers' money for people who add no more value than that to be paid out of the public purse for cataloging in libraries. (Relevant postings: Brenndorfer-9-148.) Some have begun to suggest that we begin to move data from bibliographic records for editions ('expressions') of works to the authority record that stands for the work itself. (Relevant listserv postings: Elrod-8-5; Miller-8-147; Martin-9-83.) I would have no objection to our studying the possibility of moving toward such an approach for all of the *access points* that apply to the work as a whole, with some important qualifications: [Overhead 9] 1) as long as the distinction can be made cleanly (i.e., this access point is not needed for this particular edition ('expression'), only for the work as a whole); [Overhead 10] 2) as long as descriptions of editions of a particular work are readily available to anyone who selects that work; [Overhead 11] 3) when and only when OPACs routinely integrate authority records with bibliographic records such that *all* searches (including keyword searches) are done on both (as far as I know, no OPAC can claim to do this now). However, I would strongly oppose moving any of the *descriptive elements* from the bibliographic record to the authority record. Consider the following. A work exists only as the set of all of its editions (or 'expressions'). If all of the copies ('manifestations' or 'items') of all of those editions were to be destroyed, the work would thereby be eliminated from our cultural record. The marks that we transcribe from an edition (or 'expression') into our bibliographic record constitute historical evidence of how the abstract work manifested itself concretely. After the main entry, all of the bibliographic description in a bibliographic record serves to identify a particular edition of a work, distinguish it from other editions of that work, and characterize it as an edition. All of this data serves to help a user select a particular edition of the work that best meets her needs. Remember that all of the following can vary between editions of a work: [Overhead 12] title, as when a work changes title between editions; [Overhead 13] statement of responsibility, as with translators, editors, illustrators (subsidiary authors), and as with an author who uses different pseudonyms across the various editions of one work; [Overhead 14] publisher and publication date; [Overhead 15] illustration statement in the physical description, as when one edition of a work is illustrated and another is not; [Overhead 16] paging, which is often the *only* indicator of a change of edition in the classic sense of a resetting of the type; [Overhead 17] series, as when one edition of a work is in a series and others are not. The edition entity has been dangerously neglected by major writers on the work, including Barbara Tillett (whose dissertation research looked only at edition statements and notes, not at the rest of the description), Patrick Wilson, Gregory Leazer, Richard Smiraglia (who at least begins to take these into account in his 'successive derivation' category, although 'successive' may be overly rigid), the IFLA Study Group on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (which seemed to define 'edition' as 'expression' in the introduction, but then ignored it in the data modelling in the tables that make up the bulk of their work), and now Vellucci (who lumps adaptations (new work) and translations (same work) together as 'derivative relationships') and Howarth (who seems to imply that elements of the bibliographic description describe the work, rather than an edition of the work). Remember, too, that this edition-specific data represents our primary source material for determining how an author or a work (or a subject, for that matter) is commonly known. When determining the form of name for any of the three major entities (author, work and subject), we need to know how the entity is usually named on the title pages of particular editions of works. To lose this information descriptive of a particular edition, or to muddle it up with information applying to the work as a whole would be a bibliographic disaster. [Overhead 18] The user may begin by seeking a particular work, but most users end their search by selecting a particular edition of it (e.g., the latest one, the illustrated one, the one from an authoritative publisher, the one with an editor known to the user). [Overhead 19] In the ideal catalog, once the user had selected an edition of the desired work, he could then select a physical format for that edition (e.g. electronic form, microform, or text; or electronic form, audiocassette, or CD; or electronic form, videocassette or 35 mm. film). DEFINING THE ENTITY WORK There were some useful reminders on the listserv of types of problems we could potentially solve with a more principled and consistently applied concept of work in AACR2. [Overhead 20] Elrod points out that, under current practice, revised editions of standard texts are scattered to the winds under new editors or changed titles; a definition of work that allowed for change in editorship or title of a text without that text becoming a new work could help library users in a number of fields that make heavy use of texts (e.g. law and medicine). (Elrod-7-4; Elrod-7-8; Elrod- 9-53; Elrod-9-73.) My original paper argues for not considering a simple change in a serial's title to have created a new work, and several commentators support this approach (Hirons-7-6; Rosenberg-9- 26). Hirons justly points out the need to consider what kinds of changes in serials might still create a new work even if our practices changed; she suggests that mergers and splits should probably be considered to create new works, but perhaps absorptions should not. She also raises the question of whether a major change in scope and contents of a serial should be considered to create a new work. I would be open to studying such a possibility, but would hope that we could define major change in scope and contents independently of title change. Title change may signal a change in scope and contents, but presumably scope and contents could change independently of the title? I would just like to see our practices be principled and consistent... Many of the problems library users have finding series (Elrod-7-9; Cain-7-10; Attig-7-11) are actually due to the fact that we do *not* currently fully catalog series. Consequently, the series work, which contains all of its members as 'component' works, gets just one access point-- the main entry established for that series. The obvious solution to this problem would be to catalog series. The bibliographic record for the series could then contain added entries for issuing bodies, editors, variant titles, etc. This is one of many cases in which our parsimony with cataloging is obviously causing problems for users. (Our failure to analyze many component works contained within collected works, anthologies, and the like, also denies users access that could be quite helpful.) As usual, the reasons for our parsimony are economic ones, not reasons of principle. [Overhead 22] Concerning works intended for performance, I would just like to point out to those who may have failed to notice that my position is much less radical than that of Miller, who calls for title main entry for all performances. (Miller-8-107; Kolmes-8-115; Kolmes-8-135; Elrod-8-137) At my most radical, I have called only for title main entry for all dramatico-musical works (as being inherently works of mixed authorship). I would still oppose treating purely musical works as works of mixed authorship when merely performed (as opposed to being recomposed at the time of performance, as may happen with certain types of music such as jazz). Recognizing that even such a radical change as that is unlikely to be adopted, my most conservative position is to argue that the creation of a film (a visual work with a screenplay, shot by a cinematographer and edited under the supervision of a director and an editor) is a kind of adaptation that necessarily creates a new work, even if it incorporates the performance of a previously existing dramatico-musical work, since that previously existing work lacks any instructions for the creation of a film work, which is fundamentally a work of photography, i.e. a visual work, not a textual or musical one. Certainly a performance of music is "different in nature" from printed music, but a translation of a text is also "different in nature" from the original text, yet we treat both as being the same work, since the function of the translation is to represent the work for someone who does not read the original language. I think it would go against common sense and our users' expectations to ignore the fact that the function of the written music is to support its performance. [Overhead 23] Finally, I'd just like to address a point raised by Hughes (Hughes-8-112) about treating a film of an opera as an adaptation of the opera (my position), as opposed to a work that contains another work (i.e., the film containing the opera) (his position). This point actually turns on how to code the second indicator of a work added entry in the USMARC format, and thus, how the relationship could potentially be represented in an OPAC. Probably representing the opera either as an adaptation or as a work contained would not be very helpful to users. The solution would probably be to change the USMARC format to code at a more detailed level, something like 'films of performances'... Of course, this still dodges the question of which films are mere recordings of a performance (same work), and which are adaptations (new works), and whether this distinction should be made visible to users in displays. In my overhead, you can see what such a distinction could look like, if we decided to make it. 'Performances of' would be for same main entry sound and video- recordings ('mere recordings'); 'films based on' would be for films (i.e., motion pictures and videorecordings) with related work added entries for the pre-existing works from which they were adapted. By the way, I would like to differ with Giles Martin's assertion that "It doesn't matter whether Shakespeare's Macbeth as a work includes all the different editions, or all the different film versions, or all the different performances," (Martin-7-5), although perhaps it is unfair to take this remark out of context (which was a discussion of how to display a work once it has been selected by a user). [Overhead 24] In any case, it does matter, because of the fact that a record can be retrieved many different ways, and may need to be displayed with many other works. Polanski's Macbeth can be represented in the catalog as either an edition of Shakespeare's play (Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Macbeth) or as an adaptation of the play into a film (Macbeth (1971)). Whatever decision is made, that is the way the film will appear in the summary display to anyone who retrieves it along with 95 other hits on say, a genre search, a subject search, a keyword within-record search, a search for a particular actor or cinematographer, etc. As Miller puts it, it is important to decide *what* is being named before naming it. (Miller-8-118) Brenndorfer reminds us, too, that "making relationships 'intelligible' is a key purpose of the main entry heading." (Brenndorfer-9- 148) (Other relevant postings: Papakhian-7-14; Martin-7-15; Hirons-8-1; Miller-8-110; CannCasciato-9-30; Heaney-9-50.) [Overheads 25-26] The fact that the main entry must identify the work to the user no matter how it is retrieved is also the reason that it would be ill-advised to allow one work to be represented by more than one main entry, as was suggested on the listserv. (Relevant postings: Hughes-8-57; Miller-8- 117; Brenndorfer-8-119; Eversberg-8-122; Brenndorfer-8-125.) If the user retrieves 95 items, and is going through a brief display of the retrieved items, it would be very misleading for the same item to show up in the list as line 18 with one name and line 85 with another; it would imply to the user that the library held two relevant works, when in fact, it only holds one. However, perhaps the authority record for the work could contain author title cross references from the other authors of a multiple-author work... NAMING THE WORK Under our current system for naming works (using the main entry), we identify a work by means of its principal author (if it has one) in conjunction with its title. When there is a principal author, this usually results in a unique heading for the work, without the need for cataloger-added parentheticals to break conflicts. [Overhead 27] However, when the title alone must be relied on, it is frequently necessary for catalogers to add qualifiers to break conflicts, to ensure that all of the editions of one work come together independently of another work with the same title. Serials catalogers are very familiar with this phenomenon. Once catalogers start tinkering with the titles in this fashion, the titles become much less predictable for users, especially in systems that are incapable of ignoring parenthetical qualifiers in filing, as most of our OPACs are. If we are really serious about trying to implement the objectives of the catalog and help users find the works they seek (demonstrating the relationships between works), we ought to try to find a way to roll back AACR2's move toward title main entry, so as to create stronger collocation points for the editions of a work. Unfortunately, OPACs are at their worst when it comes to dealing with works identified by means of author and title, probably still the most common search done in research libraries (user studies are very difficult to interpret in this regard, due to the propensity for users to do subject searches or include subject terms in their searches when looking for a known work). [Overhead 28] Systems can't seem to handle an identifier that sometimes occurs in two fields (e.g. 100 and 245) and sometimes in one field broken into subfields (e.g. 700 with a $t subfield). [Overheads 29-30] They never offer users a search for a known work, and they often force the user to choose either author or title; [Overhead 31] even when an author-title search is available, it tends to be treated as an expert or power search, and it tends to be done as a keyword within bibliographic record search, such that the authority file is not searched for name and title variants, [Overhead 32] and the only possible display is a display of bibliographic records in main entry order. Thus any work added entries that may have been retrieved will not be apparent in the display. However, rather than letting the failures of our systems determine our cataloging practices, I would urge that we figure out a better way to force our systems to behave as catalogs. It is the business of AACR2 to cause the creation of catalogs that meet the cataloging objective of allowing the user to find a particular work of which the author and/or title is known. [Overhead 33] It is very important to separate issues concerning the form of name we give an entity from issues concerning the definition of the entity (covered in the section above). [Overhead 34] The question of whether to use a uniform title to bring together all of the editions of a work is different from [Overhead 35] the question of what that uniform title should be (e.g. whether it should be in the language of the library users, English in most of the U.S., for example, or the language of the country of origin of the work in question, Japanese, for example, for a Japanese film). A number of commentators have pointed out the possibility of developing international authority records that identify the language of each heading contained in them, allowing libraries to designate their own language forms as the preferred forms for display in their OPACs. This could potentially free us from the tyranny of language that led commentators like Eva Verona to oppose the use of uniform titles because her users didn't like having to deal with foreign languages. Allowing an English-language- speaking population to search for works under their English- language titles, regardless of their titles in their countries of origin, would allow us to come closer to our principle of trying to enter authors and works under the names by which they are commonly known. (Relevant postings: Elrod-8-5; Brenndorfer-8-17; Agenbroad-9-128.) PROVIDING ACCESS UNDER VARIANT NAMES FOR THE WORK [Overheads 36-37] A number of listserv commentators point to the confusion caused by the fact that some of the variant names for a work may be found only in the form of title added entries on bibliographic records, while others may be found only in the title subfields of name-title cross references in authority records. Given the yawning gap between authority records and bibliographic records maintained by most OPACs (described above), this ensures that users' searches for works using variants of author name and/or title will be highly likely to fail in most systems. (Relevant postings: Attig-7-11; Martin-7-12; Brenndorfer-8- 4; Brenndorfer-8-144; Eversberg-8-149; Papakhian-9-96; Eversberg-9-97; Elrod-9-98; Elrod-9-99; Brenndorfer-9-112; Borries-9-118; Papakhian-9-123; Papakhian-9-131; Martin-9- 132; Papakhian-9-133.) This is an area in which work to clarify our concepts of 'work' and 'edition,' and to implement cleanly defined record structures based on these concepts (authority records for 'work' (Chapters 21, 25 and 26) and bibliographic records for 'edition' (Chapters 1-13)) could be most fruitful in making our catalogs work better for users, although OPACs will have to be better designed to make use of these records, as well. [Overhead 38] A number of commentators point out the lack of hierarchical sensitivity in our OPAC searching software. The cross reference from 'FBI' to 'United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation' needs to be applied not just to that heading, but to those hierarchically beneath it, including, for example, 'United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Intelligence Division.' A search for 'FBI Intelligence Division' should not be allowed to fail, as it would in all current OPACs. Perhaps a statement of principle in Chapter 26 of AACR2 might help convey the need for better searching software. For example, the principle might be stated as: "A cross reference to a heading should also be made available to users who access any subset of that heading. For example, a cross reference to an author should be available to any user seeking one of his works identified by means of his name and the title of the work." (Relevant postings: Brenndorfer-7-25; Watters-8-81; Elrod-8- 90; Martin-8-91; Papakhian-8-92; Elrod-8-93.) WHAT AACR2 SHOULD DO A number of commentators pointed out the need for AACR2 to more explicitly state the objectives and principles that already underlie our current practice. (Relevant postings: Brenndorfer-9-11; Cain-9-77; Cain-9-85; Eversberg-9-149.) The following are my recommendations: [Overhead 39] State the objectives and principles of cataloging clearly in the introduction to the code, and direct anyone using the code to refer to these whenever a bibliographic condition not covered by a particular rule is encountered. [Overhead 40] Include in the objectives a statement that one of the major goals of the catalog is to ensure that a user who does any kind of a search leading to the selection of a particular work should be shown in an organized display all available editions of that work, as well as works that contain it, works that are based on it, and works about it. [Overhead 41] Include in the objectives a statement that a work should be named using the name of its principal author (if there is one) and the title by which it is commonly known to the users of the library. Consider also stating that two works with the same name should be given uniform headings that differentiate one from the other whenever one is represented by more than one bibliographic record. [Overhead 42] Include in the objectives a statement that the user should be led to a desired work from any variant of its author's name or its title that the user might employ in his or her search. [Overhead 43] Include a statement of principle concerning the degree of change to a pre-existing work that causes the creation of a new edition of that work, and the degree of change that causes the creation of a new work related to the pre-existing work. [Overhead 44] I will not reiterate here the more specific suggestions for change to AACR2 that are found above, and in my original paper, but would like to remind you of their existence. CONCLUSION Considerable discussion took place on the web site concerning the various new linking devices available in a web-based world. I posted a long message concerning linking, which I hope you all read, so I won't repeat it here. However, I would like to remind you all that the uniform headings for works that I have been discussing *are* a linking device for all of the editions of a work, as well as works about it and related works; in fact, they are already being used this way in web-based catalogs. Like all links, they are unstable over time. The real problem lies in our shared cataloging environment, not in the linking device per se. Whenever a link changes, it is changed at the Library of Congress, in one of the national utilities, and in one local catalog. All other catalogs are henceforward out of sync until the broken links come to the attention of catalogers gradually over time at each other institution. It is ironic that we have invested so much effort in developing programs for sharing the work of creating bibliographic records representing particular editions of works, so that the work of describing a particular edition need be done only once, yet we have not ever figured out a cost-efficient way to share the *real* intellectual labor of cataloging, that of demonstrating relationships among the bibliographic records so that users can find the authors, works and subjects they seek. I would like to submit that the solution to the latter problem would be for us to use the information superhighway to allow us to share not just cataloging records, but a catalog. In closing, I would like to echo Kevin Randall in his expression of dismay at the number of people who posted to the listserv who apparently consider themselves to be professional librarians, and yet are completely ignorant of what we are doing when we catalog (gathering together the editions of works so that a user can do any kind of a search, and be assured that once a work is selected, he is being offered the complete range of available editions for his selection, as well as works containing it, works about it, and works based on it), and how we do it (using the main entry). To select materials that need to be part of the cultural record, and then to organize them for permanent access is at the heart of librarianship as a profession. To my mind the ignorance demonstrated on the listserv represents an appalling strain of anti-intellectualism in a profession that above all others ought to be fighting the rising tide of anti-intellectualism in the world. To argue against the use of main entry technology on the grounds that users don't know what it is is equivalent to a doctor saying that because none of his patients ever asks for dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, he never prescribes it. I recently made a remark (undoubtedly ill-considered) in the context of discussions of metadata about the barbarians being at the gate. Unfortunately, the listserv discussions of main entry seem to indicate that the barbarians may be calling themselves librarians, and even running our libraries. Perhaps Eversberg's suggestion concerning a layperson's introduction to AACR2 (Eversberg-8-20; Marquardt-8-21; Eversberg-8-139; Eversberg-9-149) should be extended to include the development of an introduction to AACR2 for the uneducated librarian and the uneducated system designer. 8 --=====================_875940596==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) --=====================_875940596==_-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 14:50:39 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: Overheads Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=====================_875940639==_" --=====================_875940639==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" --=====================_875940639==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="What is a work paper to deliver--OVERHEADS.txt" OVERHEADS Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) FIRST STAGE: Poems / by John Smith Physics : a text / by John Smith SECOND STAGE: Smith, John, 1614-1733 Smith, John (John Aloysius), 1947- THIRD STAGE: Smith, John (John Aloysius), 1947- x Smith, Jack, 1947- When do two items represent the same work? When do two items represent two different related works? We already differentiate one work from another (in making main entry decisions): Health (New York, N.Y.) Health (San Francisco, Calif.) We already name works (again, in making main entry decisions): Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770- 1827. Symphonies, no. 5, op. 67, C minor. A work-based authority record: <00>010-0 __$an80056438 <00>100-0 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tShchelkunchik <00>400-1 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tCasse-noisette <00>400-2 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tDi|bot|hor|no <00>400-3 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tN|hotkn|happar <00>400-4 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tNussknacker <00>400-5 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tSchiaccianoci <00>400-6 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tSp|farg|fator de nuci <00>400-7 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tNutcracker Superwork concept: Related work: 245 00 $a Gone with the wind $h [Motion picture] / $c Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 700 1_ $a Mitchell, Margaret, $d 1900-1949. $t Gone with the wind. Original work (Superwork): 100 1_ $a Mitchell, Margaret, $d 1900-1949. 245 00 $a Gone with the wind / $c Margaret Mitchell. 1) As long as the distinction between work data and edition data can be made cleanly 2. As long as descriptions of editions of a particular work are readily available to anyone who selects that work 3. When and only when OPACs routinely integrate authority records (for authors and works) with bibliographic records (for editions of works) such that ALL searches (including keyword searches) are done on both What can vary between the editions of a work: Title: Smollett, Tobias George, 1721-1771. The expedition of Humphry Clinker ... Smollett, Tobias George, 1721-1771. Humphry Clinker ... Statement of responsibility: The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by the author of Roderick Random. The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by Dr. Smollett. The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by Tobias Smollet, M.D., with 10 plates by T. Rowlandson. L'expedition d'Humphry Clinker / traduction de Jean Giono et Catherine d'Ivernois. Publisher and publication date: The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by Tobias Smollett, M.D., with 10 plates by T. Rowlandson. -- London : Printed for H.D. Symonds and T. Kay, 1793. The expedition of Humphry Clinker / Tobias Smollett ; edited by Peter Miles. -- London : Everyman, 1993. Illustrations: The expedition of Humphry Clinker / Tobias Smollett. -- Ware : Wordsworth Classics, 1995. 333 p. ; 20 cm. The expedition of Humphry Clinker / Tobias Smollett ; introduction and notes by Thomas R. Preston ; the text edited by O.M. Brack, Jr. -- Athens, Ga. : University of Georgia Press, c1990. ix, 500 p. : ill., map ; 24 cm. Paging: The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by Tobias George Smollett. -- New York, Century, 1902. 372 p. The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by Tobias George Smollett. -- New York, Century, 1904. 372 p. (Same edition of the same work (same setting of type), despite the different publication dates.) Series statement: The expedition of Humphry Clinker / Tobias Smollett ; edited by Peter Miles. -- London : Everyman, 1993. xxxiii, 444 p. Humphry Clinker : an authoritative text, contemporary responses, criticism / Tobias Smollett ; edited by James L. Thorson. -- 1st ed. -- New York : Norton, c1983. xxi, 436 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. -- (A Norton critical edition) The user begins by seeking a particular work, but usually ends by selecting a particular edition: latest edition illustrated edition edition with an authoritative publisher edition with an editor known to the user electronic, microform, or text electronic, audiocassette, or CD electronic, videocassette, or 35 mm. nitrate film Should all of the editions of a standard legal, medical or other text be brought together despite changes in title and editor? My paper recommends that a simple title change no longer be held to create a new serial work. What changes are substantial enough to create a new serial work?: Merger? Split? Major change in scope and contents? Works intended for performance: Are dramatico-musical works, such as operas and plays, inherently works of mixed authorship that should be named using their titles? Does the creation of a film (fundamentally a work of photography) from a play or an opera necessarily involve adaptation, i.e. the creation of a new work related to the previously existing one? Shakespeare, William, 1564- 1616. Macbeth. 1. Editions of Macbeth. 2. Works containing Macbeth. 3. Performances of Macbeth. 4. Films based on Macbeth. 5. Works about Macbeth. 6. Other works related to Macbeth. Two quite different ways of representing Polanski's Macbeth (the film) in the catalog: Shakespeare, William, 1564- 1616. Macbeth. (as an edition of the play) Macbeth (1971) (as an adaptation of the play, i.e., a new related work) Display of a work with two authors as two main entries under the subject heading 'Neurosurgery' Black, Peter McL. Neurosurgery : an introductory text / Peter McL. Black, Eugene Rossitch, Jr. -- New York : Oxford University Press, 1995. Anesthesia and neurosurgery. c1994 Black, Peter McL. Neurosurgery. 1995 Campkin, T. Victor. Neurosurgical anaesthesia and intensive care. 1980 Davis, Loyal, 1896- Principles of neurological surgery. 1963 Gilsbach, Joachim M. (Joachim Michael), 1945- Intraoperative Doppler sonography in neurosurgery. c1983 Handbook of critical care neurology and neurosurgery. 1985 Jennett, Bryan. An introduction to neurosurgery. 1983 Marshall, Merlin. Neuroanaesthesia. 1979 Mori, Koreaki. An outline of neurosurgery. c1988 Neurological and neurosurgical intensive care. c1993 Neurosurgery. c1996 Neurosurgery. 1992 Neurosurgery. 1985 Neurosurgery. c1985 Neurosurgery update I. c1990 Neurosurgery update II. c1991 Neurosurgical critical care. c1987 Neurosurgical intensive care. c1993 Pasztor, Emil. Concise neurosurgery for general practitioners and students. c1980 Rossitch, Eugene. Neurosurgery. 1995 Wouldn't even a brain surgeon think from this display that there were two different works in the library, one by Black and one by Rossitch? Using the title alone for main entry: Report (Aerojet-General Corporation. Liquid Engine Division) Report by the Railway Board on Indian railways. Report covering the operation and enforcement of liquor laws in Manitoba. Report (Forest Products Laboratory (U.S.) Report from the Select Committee on Abortion. Report (National Severe Storms Project (U.S.) Report of Chief Inspector of Locomotive Boilers. Report of the Banana Board and statement of accounts. Report of the California party boat fleet. Report of the Millinery Stabilization Commission, Inc. Report on freedom. Report on sunspot observations. Report on the Kenya Post Office Savings Bank. Report on the macaroni and kindred products industry in Canada. Report on tourism statistics in Tanzania. Report to the legislature on Brown Bag Network Program. Report (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Research Group) Report upon forestry. 527 screens of journal titles listed in ORION as of September, 1997 Work identified using two fields: 100 1_ $a Shakespeare, William, $d 1564-1616. 245 00 $a Macbeth. Work identified using one field: 700 12 $aShakespeare, William, $d 1564-1616. $t Macbeth. Searches offered on initial search screen on MELVYL's new web site: Title Author Subject Power Searches offered on the initial screen of DRA's web catalog: Any word or words Search by subject Search by author Search by title Keyword within bibliographic record search: FNT Cummings 1 Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin), 1894-1962 1 x 1 / with an introduction by Lloyd Frankenberg. -- London : Horizon, 1947. Bibliographic record that displays as: Search done: FNT Cummings 1 Hollander, John. An entertainment for Elizabeth ... 1972 ...not revealing the reason for its retrieval: Hollander, John. An entertainment for Elizabeth / with designs for costumes by Anne Hollander and introduction by Irving Cummings ... (English literary renaissance monographs ; v. 1, no. 1) ... The film Seven samurai has been released under three different titles: Seven samurai Shichinin no samurai (a transliteration of the Japanese script) Magnificent seven First issue: Should these all be brought together for the user by using a uniform title? Second and distinct issue: What form should that title take? 1) the language of the country of origin (Shichinin no samurai)? or 2) the language of the country of the library (Seven samurai in the U.S.)? Variant names for a work may be found: 1. In title added entries and contents notes on bibliographic records: 245 1_ 246 505 740 2. In name-title cross references found on authority records. When the title variant sought by the user exists as a name-title cross reference, users searching for a work by title (rather than author and title) may find the work only if a keyword within- heading search of authority record headings is available (and only if the search results are small). User searches on FTI Nutcracker <00>400-7 10$aTchaikovsky, Peter Ilich,$d1840- 1893.$tNutcracker Two authority records: United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. x FBI United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Intelligence Division. The second authority record lacks the cross reference from FBI WHAT AACR2 SHOULD DO: 1. State the objectives and principles of cataloging clearly in the introduction to the code, and direct anyone using the code to refer to these whenever a bibliographic condition not covered by a particular rule is encountered. WHAT AACR2 SHOULD DO: 2. Include in the objectives a statement that one of the major goals of the catalog is to ensure that a user who does any kind of a search leading to the selection of a particular work should be shown in an organized display all available editions of that work, as well as the works that contain it, works that are based on it, and works about it. WHAT AACR2 SHOULD DO: 3. Include in the objectives a statement that a work should be named using the name of its principal author (if there is one) and the title by which it is commonly known to the users of the library. Consider also stating that two works with the same name should be given uniform headings that differentiate one from the other whenever one is represented by more than one bibliographic record. WHAT AACR2 SHOULD DO: 4. Include in the objectives a statement that the user should be led to a desired work from any variant of its author's name or its title that the user might employ in his or her search. WHAT AACR2 SHOULD DO: 5. Include a statement of principle concerning the degree of change to a pre- existing work that causes the creation of a new edition of that work, and the degree of change that causes the creation of a new work related to the pre-existing work. WHAT AACR2 SHOULD DO: 6. Refer back to my paper for more specific recommendations for change to AACR2. 44 --=====================_875940639==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) Campus mail: 302 E. Melnitz 132306 1413 Quintero St. Los Angeles, CA 90026-3417 213-250-3018 --=====================_875940639==_-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 16:59:03 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto Comments: To: myee@UCLA.EDU In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19971003214956.0097e7a0@pop.ben2.ucla.edu> Great job Ms. Yee. I particularly liked your use of the term "main entry" as commonly used in catalogue departments, and not as defined in the AACR Glossary. I hope an early order of business will be to get that definition updated. Your concluding statement on barbarians was choice. If we do to multi-tier records, it is important that we be able to export a complete record (combining information from the work and manifestation record) to represent a particular manifestation for small PC based systems, cards, and printed catalogues. Thanks, Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 00:37:42 UT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Thomas Brenndorfer Subject: Re: Howarth paper -----Original Message----- From: International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR On Behalf Of Kevin M. Randall Sent: Thursday, October 02, 1997 5:29 PM To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: Howarth paper This is a very good point. On the other hand, the current state of information technology is so fluid that I would hesitate to throw out a concept with such historical validity. What if it happens that things "settle down" to where works are more "stable" (albeit in a different physical format than we know now)? (Or am I merely dreaming?) [] Reply: Perhaps one aspect that affects the notion of a work is copyright. Legally, it is necessary to define an entity which can be copyrighted. On a related topic, the issue of copyright on the Internet is of serious concern to many producers of information. Digital object identifiers, which, in a recent newspaper article, was likened to a Dewey Decimal system for Internet objects (text, pictures, etc.), would be attached to discrete, defineable objects. The bottom line is that fluid entities may continue to exist (somewhat like TV or radio broadcasts, or even telephone conversations), but hard and fast approaches to information (somewhat like books) will be necessary for the Internet to be taken "seriously." Obviously, this works in nicely with our jobs as librarians. On another point, there seems to be some concern about existing structures for recording cataloging data, such as the MARC format. Well, being a computer hobbyist on the side, I upgrade programs and convert complex data files on a regular basis, and I'm not really bothered by the notion of being chained to an inflexible format. While technical hurdles do exist, there does not seem to be anything compellingly difficult about converting MARC to a new format, or vice versa. As it stands now, MARC seems very much rooted in the need to convert a card catalog format into an electronic format for distribution and storage, and ultimately, print output into cards once again (just think of all the references to "Print Constants" or "Create Added Entry" in the current USMARC manual). My preference would be to have AACR revised with a greater degree of format neutrality in mind in defining its core concepts (work, expression, manifestation, item, with standard descriptions, filing rules, authority control, and relationship links embracing all formats). Card catalog output should be defined as one standard product derived from the core rules (with the understanding that this would be a truncated, compact format for logistical reasons). However, the rules should take into account that computerized storage, retrieval, manipulation, etc., will be the predominant starting point (at least for record creation and distribution), and that an OPAC will be inherently more flexible and powerful than a card catalog. If we start with hard and fast defined and unchanging "objects," so much the better for simpler translation into a computerized environment. This would be vastly preferable to shoehorning a card catalog into a computerized environment, as we have now. Such an outcome is how I will measure the AACR conference. Should anything less result, well, maybe next year. However, the world is moving on, with a networked computer infrastructure becoming as common as telephones and typewriters were a few short years ago. But a networked environment in place is not necessary to clarify and revise AACR today -- solid logic, clearly explained, with long term implications more clearly visible at this point, is all that's really needed for a successful outcome to the conference. Tom Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library thomasb@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 23:45:54 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19971003214956.0097e7a0@pop.ben2.ucla.edu> from "Martha M. Yee" at Oct 3, 97 02:49:56 pm Content-Type: text This suggestion comes up a lot. But it is not easy to implement. At least for AACR1 music cataloging (maybe even pre-aacr1), trying to determine the common English-language title became a difficult task. In fact it was so difficult, I think the AACR2 was written the way it is (for music) to avoid that difficulty (AACR2 relies on original title--which is hard enough, but still probably easier than trying to figure out what the common English form is if there is one). This would obviously be true for all minor works by composers of any nationality (oh, let me see if Babajanyan's Patkerner has a common English title?), but even for major works (well what is the common English form: Sacre du printemps or Rite of Spring? La mer or The sea? etc.) There's no easy answer. But I don't think defaulting to English-language titles is a solution, necessarily. --ralph p. Martha M. Yee said ........ Allowing an English-language- speaking population to search for works under their English- language titles, regardless of their titles in their countries of origin, would allow us to come closer to our principle of trying to enter authors and works under the names by which they are commonly known. (Relevant postings: Elrod-8-5; Brenndorfer-8-17; Agenbroad-9-128.) > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 14:17:54 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto Martha Yee wrote: >Note that these decisions about when an item is a new work >cannot be avoided. It is a fact of life that works exist in >the form of editions, and as soon as there is more than one >edition, there is the possibility for variation in both the >author name and the title by which the work is known, cited >and sought by users. Cataloging is essentially the act of >decision-making about issues like these, and all catalogers >should be taught to make such decisions effectively. Those >who think they are avoiding such decision-making are simply >representing two items that are the same work as if they >were two different works; in other words they are not >cataloging (doing professional work), they are creating the >equivalent of a publisher's catalog, or a web search engine >(doing clerical work). It is a waste of the taxpayers' >money for people who add no more value than that to be paid >out of the public purse for cataloging in libraries. >(Relevant postings: Brenndorfer-9-148.) > True, these decisions cannot be avoided as long as we hold to the standard catalog objectives. You seem to think, however, that the only way to meet the second objective is to follow the elaborate rules for main entry. In my view and the view of some others our catalog records do not need the main/added entry structure to achieve the collating, linking, and all the other things we expect of a good library catalog. The only requirement is our ability to label the relationship of one publication to another using the list of relationships the library community has decided are bibliographically interesting and provide the required linking mechanisms. If that amounts to doing clerical work, then so be it. Cataloging, as we all know, is not a special branch of philosophy, copyright law, or literary criticism. A good and functional catalog is a work of fine craftsmanship. Something to be proud of whenever we achieve it. No need to bolster its importance with a lot of heady theorizing. (Relevant postings: Miller 8/18/97 ff, Spanhoff 8/12/97, Spanhoff 9/19/97 ff) I'm sorry you feel the need to denigrate publishers' catalogs, web search engines, and clerical work. We can learn a great deal from them all. I don't know about today's booksellers, but yesterday's (16th and 17th centuries) included some very innovative people whose catalogs very likely influenced the development of the library catalog. If you doubt it, take a look at Andrew Maunsell's Catalogue of English Printed Bookes (1595). > To my mind the ignorance demonstrated on the listserv >represents an appalling strain of anti-intellectualism in a >profession that above all others ought to be fighting the >rising tide of anti-intellectualism in the world.. Unfortunately, the listserv >discussions of main entry seem to indicate that the barbarians may be calling >themselves librarians, and even running our libraries. Is that your rebuttal of their arguments against main entry? Reminds me of the response elicited from my invitation to reread Wilson's discussion of "work" : "Will the conference be avoiding post-modernist theories of the "work?" (Relevant posting: Papakhian 8/12/97) E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 13:05:37 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19971003214956.0097e7a0@pop.ben2.ucla.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <2.2.32.19971003214956.0097e7a0@pop.ben2.ucla.edu>, "Martha M. Yee" writes >In closing, I would like to echo Kevin Randall in his >expression of dismay at the number of people who posted to >the listserv who apparently consider themselves to be >professional librarians, and yet are completely ignorant of >what we are doing when we catalog (gathering together the >editions of works so that a user can do any kind of a >search, and be assured that once a work is selected, he is >being offered the complete range of available editions for >his selection, as well as works containing it, works about >it, and works based on it), and how we do it (using the main >entry). This is certainly one of the things we do in cataloguing. It is not the only thing and it may not be the most important. In some environments it can even be something which (for certain purposes) should be avoided. For example, we keep past editions of works on our core area but most users are only interested in the latest and would not thank us for a display which included all the others. Main entry clearly has a role to play but I remain unconvinced that it need be anything more than an *option* in an AACR3. > To select materials that need to be part of the >cultural record, and then to organize them for permanent >access is at the heart of librarianship as a profession. To >my mind the ignorance demonstrated on the listserv >represents an appalling strain of anti-intellectualism in a >profession that above all others ought to be fighting the >rising tide of anti-intellectualism in the world. I think this impression may arise from the fact that librarians work in many different kinds of library and in some, although cataloguing is very important (we do 100 per cent original cataloguing), the academic tradition of megaworks and prolific authors is a side-issue. This isn't anti-intellectualism. My concern is that cataloguing should be strictly results-oriented. It requires a considerable effort of intellect to ensure that this is the case. >I recently >made a remark (undoubtedly ill-considered) in the context of >discussions of metadata about the barbarians being at the >gate. Unfortunately, the listserv discussions of main entry >seem to indicate that the barbarians may be calling >themselves librarians, and even running our libraries. The barbarians are running our library schools - in the UK at any rate, where tuition in AACR can amount to one afternoon in a three-year course. But anyone participating in a listserv on AACR must care quite a bit about cataloguing, don't you think? -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 18:06:57 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto In-Reply-To: <19971004.141755.3694.0.espanhoff@juno.com> from "Elisabeth D Spanhoff" at Oct 4, 97 02:17:54 pm Content-Type: text Those who have argued against main entry have yet to demonstrate what that might mean (by means of an example or two or three). It's interesting to aver that main entry is meaningless in x, y or z environment. But what are the consequences? What would such a main-entry-less display look like? Surely those who find the notion of main-entry as useless have something in mind that can be demonstrated? Please demonstrate. I don't see that there is any need to rebut the arguments against main entry, until the advocates of main-entry-less cataloging provide some examples of the main-entry-less catalogue. Otherwise we continue to engage is theoretical gobblydeegook instead of trying to design principles of cataloging. If our cataloging theoreticians insist on talking about the concept of work, I think they owe it to us to also include post-modernist thinking on that subject. Too much to ask? --ralph p. Elisabeth D Spanhoff said > > > Is that your rebuttal of their arguments against main entry? Reminds me > of the response elicited from my invitation to reread Wilson's discussion > of "work" : "Will the conference be avoiding post-modernist theories of > the "work?" > (Relevant posting: Papakhian 8/12/97) > > > > E. de Rijk Spanhoff > State Library of Louisiana > espanhoff@juno.com > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:15:54 MET-1MST Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Muennich, Monika" Organization: Universitaetsbibliothek Heidelberg Subject: AACR2r and RAK Dear colleagues, sorry I wasn't able to contribute before. Due to a lengthy vacation (but with IFLA in between) and a very busy start it took me some time to read all papers and mails. We - the German ,rule makers", i.e. the Working Group for Descriptive Cataloging (as working area, and its parent body Cataloging Rules Conference - the decision area) is about to redesign RAK. There has been some discussion of adopting AACR2r, but there has been agreement to wait for AACR to become real international and online oriented. We'll try harmonizing with some AACR2r rules (e.g. transcribing the title proper as it is given in the item) on the one hand, on the other hand anticipating at least some codes for an online environment (see my upcoming article in CCQ). As far as authority work is concerned most of us do hope to join as soon as possible an IAF (international authority file), providing national access points. As four of our regional networks will migrate in 1998 we'll try to consider some aspects that might be transferred automatically: + changing the "ranking" of title proper and ,Ansetzungsachtitel" (kind of a filing title), + encoding some formal terms as ,Sammlung" (collective uniform title as works and so on), Festschrift etc. as well as the language (then working without qualifiers in uniform titles ...) + finding rules for standard citation (no oil to the fire!), e.g.: to ,mark" the first and only author (an author according to RAK is strictly defined to his/hers intellectual work), and a generic title being able to add a person or esp. a corporate body. We don't propose to reduce any authority work (as I said, for many of us international participation is the goal, though we have to change our codes concerning the missing differentiation of names of persons). + giving up an additional hierarchy level for certain divisions in multivolume works which are not numbered continuously. There is a consensus not to give up hierarchies for multiparts in general (Bernhard made severals postings to that topic), we rather try to find a clue for exchanging with American records (esp. in the REUSE project with OCLC). + giving up title redundancies: having (almost) reduced the form of the title proper to just transcribing, we think, most of additional titles (esp. in notes) need not be written twice, i.e. for a note and an additional entry (even mounting makes no sense). So if we would use a repeatable field with subcodes (e.g. type of title or introductory phrases, title proper, statement or responsibity - linkage to authority fields ? - uniform title etc.), thus serving the ISBD and access points. As the formats (at least ours) are highly criticised for too many tags this would be a nice side effect. By the way the Deutsche Bibliothek already has given up parts of these title redundancies. These are only a few and tiny steps ahead. We certainly won't fundamentally change any definitions as e.g. work but rather hope that the international cataloging community will soon in an evolutionary process come to internationally accepted codes. There are wonderful models as FRBR, the four tier model in discussion. I am sure the Germans would like to join the international cataloging community as soon as possible. I am looking forward to Toronto. Monika Muennich (Coordination, Heidelberg University descriptive catalogs; Chair, Working Group for Descriptive Cataloging) ------------------------------------ Monika Muennich Universitaetsbibliothek Postfach 105749 D 69047 Heidelberg Tel. +49 (6221) 542574 Fax +49 (6221) 542550 E-Mail muennich@ub.uni-heidelberg.de ------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 08:33:09 EDT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Wayne Jones Subject: a barbarian grunts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I read a lot of postings on the subject of main entry and all the other topics addressed by the AACR conference and listserv -- even posted my own humble thoughts on seriality -- but I think it is unfair to characterize any of it as being "ignorant" or "anti-intellectual". Merely supporting the (to some) radical notion that main entry may be an outdated concept, or even if it is not outdated that there might be a better way of accomplishing what main entry attempts to accomplish, does not necessarily mean that you don't know anything about cataloging. It _might_ mean that you have incorporated the values and the art of cataloging to such an extent that you are willing to consider that some of the details -- even some of the fundamental principles -- deserve examination and perhaps even change. We don't have these AACR conferences "every tick of the clock", as my grandfather used to say, so when the opportunity does come, all suggestions, crazy and otherwise, should be entertained without denigration until all the votes are in. Sometimes a barbarian is just a visionary with no clothes on. w ===================================== Wayne Jones Associate Head for Serials Cataloging Serials and Acquisitions Services MIT Libraries, Room 14E-210A 77 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 waynej@mit.edu (617) 253-4637 (617) 253-2464 (fax) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 14:58:53 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT In response to M. Yee's additions to her paper, E. Spanhoff writes: > > > ... You seem to think, however, that the only > way to meet the second objective is to follow the elaborate rules for > main entry. In my view and the view of some others our catalog records > do not need the main/added entry structure to achieve the collating, > linking, and all the other things we expect of a good library catalog. Not all catalogs are alike, surely, but large catalogs (millions of entries) hold challenges of their own that are not encountered or can be glossed over in small catalogs. The code has to be a code for all seasons and sizes and thus must be able to meet the challenges of the large catalogs. Those who then feed records from large databases into their small or medium OPACs may well feel there to be unnecessary overhead, esp. if they have to conform to the same rules when doing original records. AACR2 does make provision for three levels of descriptive detail, but can this be extended to the quality of access points and to authority work? Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 08:10:01 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Main entry in small catalogues Comments: To: EV@BUCH.BIBLIO.ETC.TU-BS.DE In-Reply-To: <8C0E9B7D39@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> >Not all catalogs are alike, surely, but large catalogs (millions of entries) >hold challenges of their own that are not encountered or can be glossed >over in small catalogs. We have customers who used an OPAC software which dumped 1XX and 7XX entries into one "author" field. Now that they are trying to export records for migration to a larger system, they find that they are severely handicapped in that they can not export MARC, and that they can not take full advantage of the new system, including authority control. I would urge no library to sacrifice the detail of AACR as coded in MARC in their local systems, even if at the moment they are not using all those distinctions. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 09:37:12 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: Challenge to the anti-main entry crowd Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have tried to make it plain in my postings on main entry that I am as aware as anyone of the imperfection of the main entry device for carrying out the second objective even in a card catalog, let alone an OPAC. I think users often end up at the main entry because authors are still heavily used by library users in searching (despite the best efforts of OPAC designers to discourage them) , but when they don't wind up at the main entry, they miss things. My quarrel with the anti-main entry crowd is that they invoke vague magical devices that are supposed to make main entry unnecessary, yet they never demonstrate how these are supposed to work in a shared cataloging environment, in real OPAC searches and in real OPAC displays. Until we design a *better* device, I think it would be an act of cultural vandalism to jettison the main entry, which at least works a lot of the time, and which works all of the time for librarians who understand how it works, and who use it to aid users who are having difficulty using the catalog. So I echo Ralph Papakhian in challenging you to show us what you are talking about... Martha Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) Campus mail: 302 E. Melnitz 132306 1413 Quintero St. Los Angeles, CA 90026-3417 213-250-3018 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 17:05:33 -0230 Reply-To: cpennell@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Charley Pennell Organization: QEII Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland Subject: Re: Challenge to the anti-main entry crowd (long-winded response) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Folks- It seems fairly clear that there are two camps on the issue of main entry. Those in favor of main entry tend to come from libraries where title indexing makes little sense without the intermediary of the single person who was responsible for the creative act resulting in the piece being catalogued. Certainly it is extremely common for catalogue users to approach creative works, such as works of art, musical compositions, literary works and the like, through the name of the creator before, or at least with, the name of the created object. We all recognize that while "Le sacre du printemps" or "The rites of spring" are recognizable distinctive titles (unlike "Trio no. 3 in Am"), most people are searching for Stravinsky's orchestral composition or Nejinsky's choreographical work and they will likely approach the piece with its creator in mind. While the creative argument cannot be made to the same degree for legal and cartographic materials, the nature of the often generic titles for these make the concept of "author or title as pointer" to a particular descriptive record less useful than a combined producer/work approach. This is why the cartographic community developed their own set of rules after the release of AACR2 some 15 years back. "Main entry" is how cataloguers have come to express primary responsibility for these works in standardized form within the catalogue record, although the author's relationship to the work should also be expressed through the statement of responsibility (245|c- omitted for brevity in the card era in favor of the main entry). In the interest of clearer catalogue displays (80 characters by 26 lines may be bigger than a 3x5 card, but it is still a limit in presenting information), both within the card catalogue and the OPAC, we have hidden the free-text, often long-winded statement of responsibility and replaced it with a hierarchical display which makes the creator look more important than the created work. Perhaps this is why so many of us are looking to the Toronto conference to change things like the MARC format, OPAC displays, and filing. Presentation of information to the public IS important, as it helps the patron construct logical relationships between discrete areas within a bibliographical description. We have, however, become so tied to the presentation media of this age, that it is hard to imagine other ways of constructing these relationships. Instead, we tend to think of these relationships in ways that make sense to our clientele's particular approach to the catalogue. Author, work, and edition are all meaningless without each other in more cases than we can ignore, so how can we construct a framework which both preserves context in the way that main entry keeps the name of a particular act with its jurisdiction, and also enables the more wide-open approach advocated by those who favor abandonment of main entry? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that so far, both sides in this argument seem to be in favor of a main entry, either under a creatively responsible person or group, or under a title. The former seem to posit a faceted approach to bibliographical data, one which preserves hierarchical relationships between data elements, and the latter posit a more relational approach in which all headings are single access points to the record. Both of these approaches have some legitimacy as a means of getting patrons to information and they will likely have to coexist until such time as the surrogate is replaced by the physical piece as the object of our pointers. When we evolve to this stage in technology, then we will be able to have both single entity relationships (author, subject, title, classification) and multi-faceted ones (composer/uniform title, jurisdiction/law/edition) in ways we cannot at present. In the meantime, we will continue to have these silly squabbles. _______________________________________________________________________ """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Charley Pennell cpennell@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Head, Acquisitions/Cataloguing Division voice: (709)737-7625 Queen Elizabeth II Library fax: (709)737-3118 Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's, NF Canada A1B 3Y1 World Wide Web: http://sicbuddy.library.mun.ca/~charl8P9/chuckhome.html Cataloguer's Toolbox: http://www.mun.ca/library/cat/ _______________________________________________________________________ """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 14:39:47 -0600 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: John Hammer Subject: Re: Main entry in small catalogues Comments: To: "J. McRee Elrod" In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On Mon, 6 Oct 1997, J. McRee Elrod wrote (in part): > We have customers who used an OPAC software which dumped 1XX and 7XX > entries into one "author" field. Now that they are trying to export > records for migration to a larger system, they find that they are > severely handicapped in that they can not export MARC, and that they > can not take full advantage of the new system, including authority > control. > > Mac > Are there systems that cannot provide authority control for 7XX fields? As far as I know, all but the 740 should be under authority control. Must be an extremely rudimentary system. *********************************************************************** John C. Hammer 318/357-4462 Head of Technical Processes and Cataloger Watson Library Northwestern State University fax 318/357-3201 Natchitoches, LA 71497 hammerj@alpha.nsula.edu *********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 12:48:52 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Main entry in small catalogues Comments: To: hammerj@ALPHA.NSULA.EDU In-Reply-To: >Are there systems that cannot provide authority control for 7XX fields? >As far as I know, all but the 740 should be under authority control. Must >be an extremely rudimentary system. There must be a distinction between 100/700 on the one hand, and 110/720 on the other, for authorities to work, not to mention 111/711. These are now all in a single "author" 700 field. Also 600/610/650/651 are all in one 650 subject field, so only the real 650s will verify. On pre AACR2 records with no 245$c, you have 260$bThe Corporation with no referent; it becomes quite confusing if there is more than one 710. The publisher (once the main entry) can wind up being the second or later 710. There will have to be a major redo of older records if main entry goes. MARC *out* as well as MARC *in* should be a basic requirement for all systems. And AACR should *say* so. Or say AACR in and AACR out if they won't want to mention MARC. The difficulty is the non MARC nature of the exported records, with all main and added entries in 700, and all subject entries in 650, not the new system. I know of very few systems which will flip field tags and indicators. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 13:56:37 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Layperson's intro In-Reply-To: <19971004.141755.3694.0.espanhoff@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 4 Oct 1997, Elisabeth D Spanhoff wrote: > I'm sorry you feel the need to denigrate publishers' catalogs, web search > engines, and clerical work. I believe she simply labeled a certain type of task as clerical; that's not a form of denigration. I would agree, however, with Ms. Yee's assessment that if someone is being paid to be a professional cataloger, then he or she should be highly engaged in the professional aspects of cataloging. I'll add that that involvement would be most important especially when that area of endeavor becomes difficult and time consuming (which is not a de facto indication of a flaw in the code). A number of posting have referred to simplification as a goal of the conference. I don't believe that, of itself, ought to be a goal. Possibly by having a statement of principles at the beginning of AACR we would be better able to enjoy (or justify) the more time consuming aspects of cataloging. "Save the time of the patron" is one of my principle goals as a cataloger. Frequently, this leads me to spending a fair amount of time clarifying just what a corporate body calls itself, or when is one person the same as another, or what was the original title of a work. I guess it was Mr. Eversberg who first started calling for a layperson's introduction. I'm liking that idea more all the time. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 14:24:42 GMT Reply-To: AACR@sesame.demon.co.uk Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: John Clews Subject: Transliteration standards and AACR Transliteration standards and AACR 1. The nature of the problem AACR is one of those group of de facto standards, which for a variety of reasons - many of them good reasons - have developed outside of the International Organization for Standardization committee responsible for bibliographic standards (ISO/TC46/SC2: Information and Documentation. Nevertheless, AACR makes a considerable number of recommendations about catalogue entry, which aim to enable the user to accurately find specific known records. One area where even AACR makes it less easy to predict, is in dealing with publications in non-Latin scripts, where transliteration is often necessary in many libraries. Although many libraries will use Library of Congress transliteration, because that is what bibliographic record suppliers produce, the way in which these tables were developed independently of each other, and their differences from other commonly used transliteration systems, means that it is not always possible for the casual user to predict search terms when looking for some authors and titles, and some language-specific keywords. In a recent paper to the Egyptian Library Asociation, Roderic Vassie also indicated that errors in transcription are very easy to make, even in some of LC's regional offices. No doubt all of us have experienced at some time bobliographic records of some sort, and of whatever origin, where there were clear errors in transcription, and where it would be impossible to find specific records if transliterated text were involved. 2. Possible solutions AACR does not specify particular transliterations, but it may be useful for AACR developers to consider some guidelines in this area: the variety of transliteration results can be completely different and unpredictable, as Mick Ridley (University of Bradford) showed in his AACR conference paper, citing examples in Greek. I would also be interested to see some discussion on this issue as related to AACR, either on the AACR list or on the tc46sc2@elot.gr email discussion list on transliteration, which some of you may be interested in joining. This currently has discussion of a wide variety of transliteration issues, covering all scripts from time to time, not just limited to discussing ISO standards in this area. 3. Background to ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages I am the chair of the International Organization for Standardization subcommittee responsible for transliteration (ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages). This met from 12-14 May 1997 at the British Standards Institution in Chiswick, London, to review international standards in this area - both already published and under development. I am interested in any participation that you or any of your colleagues may be able to undertake, either in meetings or electronically, given your own necessary involvment in the multilingual use of computers. Despite computing standards like ISO/IEC 10646 and Unicode, there will always be a need for transliteration as long as people do not have the same level of competence in all scripts besides the script used in their mother-tongue, and may have a need to deal with these languages, or when they have to deal with mechanical or computerised equipment which does not provide all the scripts of characters that they need. The secretary (Evangelos Melagrakis from Greece) and I intend to make transliteration and ISO/TC46/SC2 far more visible and far more relevant to end users than it has been in the past. To enable this, an electronic mailing list for ISO/TC46/SC2 (tc46sc2@elot.gr) and an associated Web site (located at www.elot.gr/tc46sc2) has now been set up by ELOT (the Greek national standards body). We hope this list will attract researchers and scientists who can add useful information which might assist in developing standards on the Conversion of Written Languages. 4. Scope of transliteration work in ISO/TC46/SC2's working groups. [WG1:] Transliteration of Cyrillic (work now combined with that of WG5) [WG2:] Transliteration of Arabic (work now combined with that of WG11) WG3: Transliteration of Hebrew WG4: Transliteration of Korean WG5: Transliteration of Greek, Armenian, Georgian and Cyrillic WG6: Transliteration of Chinese WG7: Transliteration of Japanese WG8: Transliteration and computers WG9: Transliteration of Thai WG10: Transliteration of Mongolian WG11: Transliteration of Perso-Arabic script WG12: Transliteration of Indic scripts SCRIPTS USED IN OFFICIAL LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE, AND SOME COMMON ORIGINS NB: to avoid distortion, resize your viewer/printer if the word "origins" in the above line is not at the end of a line, and view or print with a mono-spaced (non-proportional font). Latin Cyrillic Devanagari - - - Tibetan \ / / Gujarati \ / - Armenian / Bengali _ Mongolian \ / / Gurumukhi / Greek - Georgian / Oriya SOGDIAN Chinese | / SCRIPT / | / Telugu / PHOENICIAN BRAHMI - - Kannada IDEOGRAPHIC - Japanese / SCRIPT \ SCRIPT Malayalam SCRIPT \ / | \ \ Tamil \ Hebrew | Arabic \ Korean | \ \ - - Sinhala | \ | \ \ _ Burmese | \ Khmer | \ \ Ethiopic Divehi \ _ Thai (Ethiopia, (Maldives) Lao Eritrea) Key: Scripts shown in CAPS are the historical source script for other scripts shown, now essentially superseded. These scripts are used in over 99% of the worlds official languages shown in the rest of the diagram. Scripts used in non-official languages, and historical scripts, are not shown above. 5. The tc46sc2@elot.gr list on transliteration There are quite a few with an interest in transliteration in library catalogues on the list, but there are other potential users of transliteration too. One major advantage of email is the ability to involve far more people in the development of a common purpose than were involved before, to get user feedback, and expert opinion from various sources. There are now over 270 subscribers to tc46sc2@elot.gr, from 43 countries and territories, providing a global interest group in this area, covering all the scripts shown above. 6. Subscribing to the mailing list for ISO/TC46/SC2 In order to join the list you should be actively involved in using transliteration systems, or in developing transliteration systems, and should be prepared to contribute to the list from time to time. If you wish to join the list, send an email to majordomo@elot.gr with this message in the body of the text: subscribe tc46sc2 your@email.address (but with your real email address replacing the string your@email.address). To find out further commands you can use, send the command "help" as the text of an email either to tc46sc2-request@elot.gr or to: majordomo@elot.gr To unsubscribe, send the command "unsubscribe" instead, omitting the "quotes" marks in both cases. This will tell you how to obtain copies of past messages etc., and other useful features. Once you are subscribed, you can send messages to tc46sc2@elot.gr and receive messages from other members of the list. Please reply where possible to the list as a whole, so that all can benefit: using the Group Reply function (pressing G on some email software) is the simplest way to achieve this. Other members will also be interested to see who else is joining the list, so it is useful to send a brief introduction (say, one or two short paragraphs) to tc46sc2@elot.gr at the outset, saying what languages, scripts and other things you are involved in. That is the most likely way to stimulate others to write on the subjects you are interested in! I look forward to seeing new participants on this list. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else who may be interested in transliteration standardisation issues, and to send any queries about the list to me. Yours sincerely John Clews and Evangelos Melagrakis (Chair & Secretary of ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages) -- J. Clews, SESAME, 8 Avenue Road, Harrogate, HG2 7PG, England Email: Converse@sesame.demon.co.uk; tel: +44 (0) 1423 888 432 E. Melagrakis, ELOT, 313 Acharnon Str., GR-111 45 Athens, Greece Email: eem@elot.gr tel: +30 1 201 9890 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 07:52:15 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Velma Parker Subject: ...no subject... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION ON THE FUTURE OF AACR2 1. CONTENT VERSUS CARRIER (Rule 0.24) Having to use the GMD and the SMD areas to code the carrier rather than the content has caused distress. For many media librarians, the media is the important thing and the physical carrier is of secondary importance. For some media the GMD, area 3 and the physical description all tie together and so these various parts of the description must be considered together. A small subcommittee of the Anglo-American Committee on Cataloguing Cartographic Materials met in Santa Barbara almost two years ago to discuss cataloguing geomatic data bases. The issue of content versus carrier arose and the following proposals for dealing with the situation were set forth. GMD Treat the carrier as a qualification to the GMD for the content in an manner analogous to what is done for materials for the visually impaired. The result would look as follows: [cartographic material (computer file)] [cartographic material (manuscript)] [cartographic material (microform)] [cartographic material (tactile)] [cartographic material (tactile and braille)] (This would cover cases where there is braille text on the tactile map, or braille text in the atlas.) This pattern follows that devised by the Rules for archival description but does not go as far as it does in allowing up to three GMD terms to appear in this area. 2. GENERAL MATERIAL DESIGNATION (Rule 1.1C1) The GMD list 2 is becoming more and more like an accumulated list of SMDs. I think that the difference between the GMD and the SMD should be reinforced and list two and list one merged. British list is more truly a list of GMDs. However, neither list is perfect and more thought might go into finding more apt terms. For example, braille is not a very good term for materials for the visually impaired as it does not cover tactile materials. The last paragraph in 1.1C1 would have to be amended to apply to list one as well. It is interesting to note that at the Santa Barbara meeting mentioned above, all of the map librarians (from both the US and Canada) preferred "cartographic materials" as the GMD and rejected "map" and "globe" as being too narrow. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 08:10:09 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Shelby Harken Subject: Re: Challenge to the anti-main entry crowd Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Folks, I would like to continue the challenge messages from Charley and Martha. A library patron does not come into a library wondering what main entry he/she should use; they look for words they think will get them what they want. Between AACR2(3?) and vendor software we need to be able to give it to them. I have less quarrel with AACR2 and main entry - I find it very easy to explain to staff - than I do with vendor software that manipulates all the possible data as USMARC record can contain. Some of the up/down linkages can already be handled through 77X fields; we just haven't used them. Most vendors don't give us options to create a wide variety of searches each incorporating a variety of fields chosen by the library to be included in the search. Once we get to the display, again we get one display format - most often a main entry display. I am spoiled by having a system that unfortunately is going away by 2001, that will allow either a browse display or a title display to users. We have input as to which fields and subfields are included in a search and what labels are used for the display. Users can mix things like a contents note keyword and a 700 #t term and limit by date in their initial search. As we look to a new system, we want options to pre-sort and re-sort displays. Not one person in the state has brought up a problem with main entry concept as a problem; they have just asked for more options to do something with what we have. We even took several classes of freshmen students and had them evaluate several different online systems. The one they rated highest is one that always displays a main entry format. So I too ask for some one to show how adding more layers of records to create links or no main entry at all will be an improvement over a situation where all possible features of a MARC record have been implemented for both catalogers and users. ********************************************************************* Shelby E. Harken Head, Acquisitions/Bibliographic Control Box 9000, Room 244 Chester Fritz Library University of North Dakota Grand Forks, ND 58202 (701)777-4634 fax (701)777-3319 harken@plains.nodak.edu ********************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 22:58:55 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Challenge to the anti-main entry crowd In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19971006163712.0095c388@pop.ben2.ucla.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <2.2.32.19971006163712.0095c388@pop.ben2.ucla.edu>, "Martha M. Yee" writes >My quarrel with the anti-main entry crowd is that they invoke >vague magical devices that are supposed to make main entry unnecessary, yet >they never demonstrate how these are supposed to work in a shared cataloging >environment, in real OPAC searches and in real OPAC displays. >So I echo Ralph Papakhian in challenging you to show us what you are talking >about... > I'll try. There seem to be four functions put forward for the main entry. For many libraries there are more satisfactory ways of performing these functions. This is what we do: 1. Subarrangement within a class number. We subarrange by item numbers assigned in accession order: ABC 001, ABC 002 etc. This means the newest books are at the end. Looseleafs and serials get item numbers in the range 900-999. Our classification is limited to five letters but it is specific enough for most classes to contain only a small number of items for subarrangement. If subarrangement is so critical it could be that the scheme or its application is insufficiently specific? 2. Citation in catalogue outputs and other single entry listings. The default sorting order for our system is by accession number and this is satisfactory for listings of up to 50 records. Beyond that we might sort by date, subject keyword or title. I have never wanted to sort by author. The actual records have the following format: Form descriptors Subject descriptors Full bibliographic description, beginning with title Notes Local data We don't normally output author or corporate source index terms: these are for indexing only. 3. Citation in works about a work. If the subject of item B is item A we would assign to item B (as subject terms) the title proper of item A and all author and corporate source headings assigned to item A. This is much more effective than main entry plus title proper: if item A had two authors, for example, the catalogue use would have to know which was the main entry to pick up item B. We list such name entries in the order AUTHORS/ CORPORATE BODIES/ TITLES but there is no reason why they could not be grouped if more than one work was dealt with. 4. Bringing together different editions of the same work. If item A and item B are editions of the same work they should both be assigned all author and corporate source terms relevant to the work. If the titles differ we would link the two with cross references and/or ensure the title of one appears as an added entry (call it a uniform title if you like) in the record for the other. I accept that some libraries, eg music collections, will prefer to use the main entry concept to perform the above functions. But for many libraries - including many using the concept - there are better approaches. Clearly we need to retain the concept but I would like to see the chapter on main entry have the same status as the chapter on uniform titles, ie an option, with the rest of the rules neutral. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 18:01:31 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Clearly our drastic brevity has led to two unfortunate consequences: one of us has been misunderstood and the other not understood at all. Let me offer a remedy, tell you where I stand, and give you the examples you crave. First of all, I should say that I am interested only in cataloging principles and questions of design. What I do in my library is uninteresting and strictly irrelevant to the points at issue. I support the second objective of the catalog in principle, knowing full well that in some settings it may be unimportant or even a disservice to patrons for the catalog to express the relationships among editions in one's collection, as Mr. Cunnew was kind enough to point out in his last post. I also think authority control is vitally important. Because I find the present catalog record to be a conceptual muddle and incapable of taking full advantage of the computing possibilities of modern systems, I am generally sympathetic to recent calls for clarification or even deconstruction of the MARC record as exemplified in the papers of Leazer (1992) and Heaney (1995), both cited by our conference participants. Again, I am aware of the practical impediments, the weight of so many years of practice, that may stand in the way of our efforts at such clarification/deconstruction. At the same time I appreciate the opportunities for a fuller sharing of bibliographic data elements among catalogers, archivists, bibliographers, and others in allied professions which our efforts in that direction might make possible. I was therefore delighted to read Eversberg's posting on linking, part 2 (August 21) in which he attemped "to present a minimal implementation of record linking into USMARC without so much as a single new field or subfield, yet capable of handling a wide range of logical links." Using Tillett's taxonomy of relationships and Smiraglia's extensions, he showed in some detail how linking field 787, through its appropriately defined second indicator and the necessary authority records, could take over the linking task usually performed inter alia by the main/added entry device and do it better. My post of September 19 was merely a footnote to his. It seemed a small step, I thought, to apply his method mutatis mutandis to expressing relationships of intellectual responsibility, another major function performed by the main/added entry structure and possibly doing it better. With two of its major functions thus shifted to other mechanisms, the main entry would be reduced to little more than a naming mechanism, a conventional method of citation, in most instances equivalent to the author/title display. Unlike Mr. Eversberg, what I proposed was all in the realm of theory, with no implementation to back it up. I will gladly illustrate at this time the sort of thing I had in mind. What follows will of necessity be very crude and sketchy, but, I trust, not altogether mad. If in the process, however, I distort or misrepresent Mr. Eversberg's views, I apologize to him in advance. Consider the following simple record: 100 1 $aSayre, Kenneth M., $d1928- 245 10$aPlato's analytic method $b[by] Kenneth M. Sayre. 650 0$aKnowledge, Theory of. 600 00$aPlato. Main entry in this record appears to function in the following ways: 1. It expresses primary intellectual responsibility, in this case, authorship. That is, after all, the meaning of the 100 field. 2. It relates the author to the work. 3. Depending on our software and the context in which this record is used, it may do many other things besides, such as link this work to other works by Sayre or to other editions of the same work. 4. Together with the title, it names the work, publication, and item and forms the conventional way of citing it. Ask me what I'm reading and I'll tell you, "Kenneth Sayre's Plato's Analytic Method." In bibliographies we normally cite it as Sayre, Kenneth M. Plato's Analytic Method... We could, inspired by the example of Eversberg, shift the functions of the main entry in this record to another field, say the 700 field, and assign the following values to the second indicator (now undefined): 1 author 2 editor 3 translator 4 compiler 5 commentator etc. etc. We might then recast the above record to look something like this: 245 10$aPlato's analytic method $b[by] Kenneth M. Sayre. 650 0$aKnowledge, Theory of. 600 00$aPlato. 700 11$aSayre, Kenneth M., $d1928- [author] Not much of an improvement, you might say. Let's see, though, what that same procedure would do to the following, more complex record: 100 0 $aPlato. 240 10$aTheaetetus. $lEnglish. $f1978 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by Francis M. Cornford. 700 1 $aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. 700 0 $aPlato. $tSophistes. $lEnglish. $f1978. How is main entry functioning in this record? 1. It expresses primary intellectual responsibility: Plato as author. The presence of the first added entry, however, tells us that this may not be the whole story. If responsibility is shared, we won't know it from looking at the 700 alone. It takes a reading of the 245 to give the 700 substance. 2. It relates the author to the work. But what is the work here? Is it the Theaetetus, the Sophist; or the Theaetetus and Sophist; or Cornford's translation of the Theaetetus and Sophist with commentary? Again, the formal structure of the record, i.e. the meaning of the tags and indicators alone, won't anwer these questions. It takes a reading of the 245 to give substance to the relationship. 3. As with the first record, it may do many other things besides. 4. Does it, together with the title or uniform title(s), name the work, publication, and item and form the conventional way of citing it? Well, yes and no. Ask me what I'm reading and I'll tell you, "Plato's Theory of Knowledge by Cornford." In bibliographies this is in fact how it is cited. Ask me what it is, though, and I'll answer that it is a translation and commentary of Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist. So the picture is pretty complicated. Let's try to clarify somewhat by using Eversberg's linking device along with my proposed articulation of intellectual responsibility. With Eversberg's list of relationships and the following authority records, 001 a555 100 10$aCornford, Francis Macdonald $d1874-1943 001 a222 100 00$aPlato. $tTheaetetus 001 a444 100 00$aPlato. $tSophistes we could recast the above record to look something like this: 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by Francis M. Cornford. 700 13$aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. [translator] 700 15$aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. [commentator] 787 19$aPlato. $tTheaetetus [translation] 787 13$aPlato. $tTheaetetus [commentary] 787 19$aPlato. $tSophistes [translation] 787 13$aPlato. $tSophistes [commentary] or: 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by Francis M. Cornford. 700 13$na555 [translator] 700 15$na555 [commentator] 787 19$wa222 [translation] 787 13$wa222 [commentary] 787 19$wa444 [translation] 787 13$wa444 [commentary] The advantage of these new forms of the record is that all the relationships that were implicit or incompletely articulated in the original have now been made explicit. Even the need to decide what the work really is seems to fade away once the relationships have been adequately described. The benefits are greater clarity in our record structure and greater flexibility in controlling displays. To paraphrase Eversberg, the links in the 700 and 787 can enable software to find and display the work and name authority records upon demand, and to collocate and display records related to a work and name authority record in all the various ways. The 700 and 787 as defined here are all that's needed, the rest is "only" software. Mad? Half-baked? I welcome your responses. E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 00:57:15 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian In-Reply-To: <19971007.180132.9990.0.espanhoff@juno.com> from "Elisabeth D Spanhoff" at Oct 7, 97 06:01:31 pm Content-Type: text Greetings, Thank you, Elizabeth, for the example. I must have a mental block or mental lack or something similar. The following seems to me to represent something quite similar to the example you provide, and this, I believe, conforms to current AACR2 and current USMARC (throwing in some LCSH). I fail to see the radical difference, except that a 100+240 has become "main" instead of some kind of additional access point. To me, dealing with the literature of music, having a main entry for subsorting makes sense. In this case, a search on Cornford (is he still in fashion?) would (i.e. could) result in a sub-arrangement by Plato (since Plato is the "main entry"). I find that more desirable than a subarrangement by title (in a vast majority of cases). As Linda Barnhart pointed out some weeks (probably months) ago, the Music Library Association has attempted without success to have the 100+240 combination changed to 100+t. That would make the (now) anomolous 240 conform to name/title conventions in all other cases (6xx 7xx). But I do fail to see how Elizabeth's example below is substantially more desirable than this AACR2 (+LCSH) example. 7 100 0 Plato. 8 240 10 Theaetetus. $l English 9 245 10 Plato's theory of knowledge : $b the Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato / $c translated with a running commentary by Francis Macdonald Cornford. 10 260 London : $b K. Paul, Trench, Trubner ; $a New York : $b Harcourt, Brace, $c 1935. 11 300 xiv, 336 p. ; $c 22 cm. 12 440 0 International library of psychology, philosophy, and scientific method 13 600 00 Plato. $t Theaetetus. 14 600 00 Plato. $t Sophist. 15 700 1 Cornford, Francis Macdonald, $d 1874-1943. $4 trl $4 cmm 16 700 02 Plato. $t Sophist. $l English. What, in this example, cannot be derived that is included in Elizabeth's example below? If anything, in the above, we have at least the inclusion of "English" as the text of the work and the analytic. That, to me, seems an improvement, provided that authority (aka "syndetic") structures provide for heirarchical referencing. Of course, the relation "commentary" has, in this case, become a subject (author-title). Is the brouhaha about the irrelevance of main entry come down to this? It might be more interesting to think about a catalog based on post-modern theories of authorship. The possibilities are intriguing and truly interactive. For example, one could posit the requirement that main entry be determined by logon username. Everything one consulted in the catalog would become one's work. Cordially, and always ready and willing to join the struggle for clearing the bibliographic jungle (my thanks to CT for that formulation), --ralph papakhian Elisabeth D Spanhoff said > .... > > > 100 0 $aPlato. > 240 10$aTheaetetus. $lEnglish. $f1978 > 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the > Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by > Francis M. Cornford. > 700 1 $aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. > 700 0 $aPlato. $tSophistes. $lEnglish. $f1978. > > How is main entry functioning in this record? > 1. It expresses primary intellectual responsibility: Plato as > author. The presence of the first added entry, however, tells us > that this may not be the whole story. If responsibility is > shared, we won't know it from looking at the 700 alone. It takes > a reading of the 245 to give the 700 substance. > 2. It relates the author to the work. But what is the work here? > Is it the Theaetetus, the Sophist; or the Theaetetus and Sophist; > or Cornford's translation of the Theaetetus and Sophist with > commentary? Again, the formal structure of the record, i.e. the > meaning of the tags and indicators alone, won't anwer these > questions. It takes a reading of the 245 to give substance to > the relationship. > 3. As with the first record, it may do many other things besides. > 4. Does it, together with the title or uniform title(s), name the > work, publication, and item and form the conventional way of > citing it? Well, yes and no. Ask me what I'm reading and I'll > tell you, "Plato's Theory of Knowledge by Cornford." In > bibliographies this is in fact how it is cited. Ask me what it > is, though, and I'll answer that it is a translation and > commentary of Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist. > > So the picture is pretty complicated. Let's try to clarify > somewhat by using Eversberg's linking device along with my > proposed articulation of intellectual responsibility. With > Eversberg's list of relationships and the following authority > records, > > 001 a555 > 100 10$aCornford, Francis Macdonald $d1874-1943 > > 001 a222 > 100 00$aPlato. $tTheaetetus > > 001 a444 > 100 00$aPlato. $tSophistes > > we could recast the above record to look something like this: > > 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the > Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by > Francis M. Cornford. > 700 13$aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. [translator] > 700 15$aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. [commentator] > 787 19$aPlato. $tTheaetetus [translation] > 787 13$aPlato. $tTheaetetus [commentary] > 787 19$aPlato. $tSophistes [translation] > 787 13$aPlato. $tSophistes [commentary] > > or: > > 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the > Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by > Francis M. Cornford. > 700 13$na555 [translator] > 700 15$na555 [commentator] > 787 19$wa222 [translation] > 787 13$wa222 [commentary] > 787 19$wa444 [translation] > 787 13$wa444 [commentary] > > The advantage of these new forms of the record is that all the > relationships that were implicit or incompletely articulated in > the original have now been made explicit. Even the need to > decide what the work really is seems to fade away once the > relationships have been adequately described. The benefits are > greater clarity in our record structure and greater flexibility > in controlling displays. > > To paraphrase Eversberg, the links in the 700 and 787 can enable > software to find and display the work and name authority records > upon demand, and to collocate and display records related to a > work and name authority record in all the various ways. The 700 > and 787 as defined here are all that's needed, the rest is "only" > software. > > Mad? Half-baked? I welcome your responses. > > E. de Rijk Spanhoff > State Library of Louisiana > espanhoff@juno.com > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 12:02:57 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Howarth paper Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 00:37 04/10/97 UT, Thomas Brenndorfer wrote: > >As it stands now, MARC seems very much rooted in the need to convert a card >catalog format into an electronic format for distribution and storage, and >ultimately, print output into cards once again (just think of all the >references to "Print Constants" or "Create Added Entry" in the current USMARC >manual). > >My preference would be to have AACR revised with a greater degree of format >neutrality in mind in defining its core concepts (work, expression, >manifestation, item, with standard descriptions, filing rules, authority >control, and relationship links embracing all formats). Card catalog output >should be defined as one standard product derived from the core rules (with >the understanding that this would be a truncated, compact format for >logistical reasons). However, the rules should take into account that >computerized storage, retrieval, manipulation, etc., will be the predominant >starting point (at least for record creation and distribution), and that an >OPAC will be inherently more flexible and powerful than a card catalog. If we >start with hard and fast defined and unchanging "objects," so much the better >for simpler translation into a computerized environment. This would be vastly >preferable to shoehorning a card catalog into a computerized environment, as >we have now. I agree strongly. It would be very sad and foolish at the beginning of a new millenium to produce rules tied to an obsolete medium, the card catalogue. Someone pointed out that card catalogues still exist, and that some libraries are still making them. These must be libraries so resource-poor that they cannot afford even a pair of desktop computers to use for cataloguing and public enquiries? Even one computer for both functions if (as likely) they have only one professional librarian? I certainly sympathize with the plight of such libraries. However, in my view it would be folly to design our tools for the situation of a decreasing minority caught in yesterday's technology, rather than for the mainstream in which electronic databases are the only possible option. Marianne Vespry ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 12:03:03 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 13:05 05/10/97 +0100, Robert Cunnew wrote: >In article <2.2.32.19971003214956.0097e7a0@pop.ben2.ucla.edu>, "Martha >M. Yee" writes >> To select materials that need to be part of the >>cultural record, and then to organize them for permanent >>access is at the heart of librarianship as a profession. Are we hearing from any special librarians on this? They probably have a rather different take on what constitutes "the heart of librarianship as a profession" (may even think it has something to do with providing proactive service to their clientele, or helping to enhance and manage the information/knowledge resources of their organization). Likewise in most public libraries that have no mandate to maintain serious research collections, beyond their collections of local authors and local history. A new AACR has to provide for the needs of the research collections, but it should not act as a drag for those whose clientele want tomorrow's information today. >>To my mind the ignorance demonstrated on the listserv >>represents an appalling strain of anti-intellectualism in a >>profession that above all others ought to be fighting the >>rising tide of anti-intellectualism in the world. The battle has to be fought on many fronts. Facilitating the work of scholars who spend their careers comparing successive/alternative editions of their subject's works may not even be the most important of those fronts? 8-} Marianne Vespry ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 12:03:06 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 18:06 05/10/97 -0500, Ralph Papakhian wrote: >Those who have argued against main entry have yet to >demonstrate what that might mean (by means of an example >or two or three). It's interesting to aver that main entry is meaningless >in x, y or z environment. But what are the consequences? >What would such a main-entry-less display look like? Whatever you like. Has your OLPAC only one display format? If you print lists, do you always use the same format? 'What would the catalogue look like?' is the same question as 'what does the database look like?' A directory database can 'look like' a list of names and addresses, like a telephone list, like a list of acronyms and full names, like a list of corporate names and acronyms, like a list of cities and long distance codes -- limited only by the data contained and the imagination of the person designing displays. A bibliographic database can 'look like' an author listing, a subject listing, a corporate list, a titles or series list; a shelf list; even an LC card; you just have to decide to do it, and decide what else you want to/can afford to show after any particular access point. But what's 'IN IT' is primary; what it 'looks like' is flexible and time- and need-driven. Some sample formats (not particularly original or beautiful, but then, neither is the catalogue card): 'FULL' FORMAT Author 1; Author 2; Author n Corporate 1 Corporate 2 Corporate n Title. Edition. Imprint. Collation. (Series 1; Series 2 etc.) Conference Other notes (can also add in ISBD, price, holdings and locations, whatever is germane; spacing, type faces and punctuation used to separate out the various elements). 'AUTHOR FORMAT' Author 1; Author 2; Author n Title block, date, then as much of the other info as you need. For this you probably want a second entry under Author 2, Author 1; Author n, and a third one with Author n first. 'TITLE' FORMAT Title block first; then e.g. authors, corporates, date and as much of the other info as needed. This will have entries with the alternate Titles first. 'CORPORATE' FORMAT Corporate 1 ... Corporate n Title block, etc. Again, Corporates rotate so that each get to the head of the entry. These are samples only. None of them require a pre-selected 'main entry'. Any concerned librarian can suggest equally valid formats. These suggested formats don't allow you to reconstruct the title page of a document, or distinguish between two editions in the same year. They probably meet the needs of well over 99 percent of user-requests. For users concerned with identifying or comparing manifestations of a particular work, a ISBD record or an LC card may be helpful, or list by date and author, or a CD-ROM of facsimiles of title pages. To summarize: What's in a database is a separate question from print/display formats. Data should be presented in formats that are economical (don't require special coding, or too much paper if a printout is required) and best meet the users' needs. Needs of 0.01 per cent of user/requests should not define rules and drive procedures and/or formats in such a way that they add cost or needless complexity for everyone else. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 13:55:01 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Beth Guay Subject: main entry, Comments: cc: CONSRLST@RS8.LOC.GOV, Jeanne Baker , John Schalow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII I might call this posting "main entry, or, a cataloger's lament for card catalogs" This is my 2 cents worth on the subject of main entry, forgive me if I repeat what's already been said (my head hurts sometimes from reading the postings on this list so it sometimes shuts down) but please let's revisit the AACR2 definition of a catalog: "Catalogue. 1. A list of library materials contained in a collection, a library, or a group of libraries, arranged according to some definite plan." Main entry played an important part in catalog arrangement and in bibliographic presentation of works, back when we had card catalogs: in author/title catalogs main entry fulfilled the "collocating function", it, together with filing rules, allowed catalogers to present in wonderful ORDER first the work, then the works about the work or the related works; in subject catalogs, like "works" were together, the role of main entry was its bibliographic presentation of the work (which was something to file by). Anyway, what card catalogs had, and main entry allowed for, was arrangement by some definite plan. As a cataloger, I made (and make) an intellectual decision as to the chief responsibility for the work. I had (and still have) concrete rules to go by. I produced a main entry which helped to fullfill the gathering function of the catalog. (According to AACR2 main entry is "The complete catalog entry of an item, presented in the form by which the entity is to be uniformly identified and cited"--I call this the bibliographic presentation of the work) Do I want to go in another direction, perhaps deeper than the status quo, with work/manifestation/expression level cataloging? To quote Kevin Randall, "I have to admit that I'm still having a hard time really grasping this work-expression-manifestation-item business." But catalog "arrangement" has moved into a different arena. I'll gladly go with whatever revisions to AACR, because, well I'll just say that some of the postings that make my head hurt at the same time reassure me that the intellects driving the revisions are GREAT ones! ---------------------- Beth Guay Serials Cataloging Unit McKeldin Library University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742 (301) 405-9329 bg53@umail.umd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 12:25:09 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: What is AACR's role in defining a bibliographic record? In-Reply-To: <19971007.180132.9990.0.espanhoff@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A couple of comments regarding main entry have brought up a slightly different issue for me, that of what constitutes the bibliographic record? What are it's parameters? [I'll point out right at the top here that I don't have an answer to my question. This is an essay, an attempt, to clarify my question. I'm not even able, at this point, to say that I've done a very good job of it.] Posts throughout this discussion process have mentioned databases, the data in the database, etc. How could they not? I've found it interesting that I refer to our catalog as a database, too, but in light of past messages on this list I'm wondering if that's such a good idea. When people start mentioning somewhat intensive subcoding of data for it's extraction by database software (very sensible, it seems) I begin also wondering what it is we're trying to do with AACR. If the use of AACR is to assist us in creating a database (not necessarily electronic) that fulfills certain cataloging objectives, how do we know when we've attained the objective and AACR's prescriptions are through? That is, is the bibliographic record a set of data, or the presentation of that data in a certain format to patrons? Can it be both? I'd guess it could be both, and maybe that's what we've been talking about in some ways. If I provided some bogus MARC-like fields of: 245 04 |a The best in Italian cooking /|c41 ; illustrations from the works of |f42 260 |a PLA0008 :|bPUB00001 , |c 1999 700 1 |a NAR00001 -- record for Pancetta 700 1 |a NAR00002b -- record for Cassatt as "illustrator" and the software would then extract: Pancetta, Italo The best of Italian cooking / by Italo Pancetta ; illustrated by Mary Cassatt New York, N.Y. : Good Books, 1999 Cassatt, Mary, illustrator. [I happen to like relator codes. I'd also be happy not to have to type New York, N.Y. ever again.] Would this work? Does AACR enter into the first half of that example, or is it most useful only for defining what data would be in there, regardless of how it's stored? I realize that, in a sense, this is what we're already doing somewhat. The actual MARC record is a string of data (much of it textual, though) that I have trouble making sense of, yet when I'm working in our OPAC or OCLC it's displayed in a way that's sensible to me as a cataloger. When that same stored and coded data displays to the patron, it's in a different format. So, since this is what we are doing already, to some extent, what's AACR's role in defining subfield tagging or data-storage of authority record numbers rather or text strings, etc. Does it have a role in this area? It seems mostly intent on prescribing the data elements and only vaguely telling us how to store/present that data (which used to be synonymous). 0.6 doesn't tell us much about display. 1.0B and 1.0D address this somewhat and then we get brief illustrative examples in Ch. 21 and 25. Should there be ANY examples at this point? Would we be better off with prescribed data elements (description and access) in AACR and leave the coding and display entirely out? Some of the discussions have argued that they are inextricably linked, but I don't see that that's true. Right now our work environment links them, but I can still sit down and type out a catalog entry based on AACR elements in any format I deem important and it will never have been input into a computer nor retrieved from one. Perhaps an AACR that: states objectives, gives up front some variant illustrative displays of how those objectives could be fulfilled via displays, acknowledges software and MARC's role in conveyance, storage, and display of this data for much of the cataloging world, then confines itself to specifying the data elements of a bibliographic record would be a positive future development. Thus, discussion of what a system can do via links becomes secondary to whether or not the catalog should deliver those links. For example, right now via our WebPAC you can click on the call number field and the system does a call number search. Later, perhaps, it will provide a prompt asking whether the patron wishes to do a call number search or retrieve the actual item electronically. The fact that retrieval is possible electronically doesn't need to be accounted for in AACR. The same would be true of other access points (title field, for example). AACR doesn't need to account for this delivery mechanism, because this isn't a change in what we've ever done. It's a heck of a lot faster, spiffier in some ways, but basically secondary to the goal of getting the patron to an information source via a surrogate (the bib record). Open stacks, closed stacks and the paging of materials, electronic delivery of some items, etc., are secondary. The AACR defined part of this process hasn't significantly changed. Hmmm ... I've run out of steam. While I agree with many that coding of the data is important and can be exploited to better advantage, I don't think AACR is the tool for those types of changes. Thank's for your patience in having read through this. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 22:25:15 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto In-Reply-To: <199710081603.MAA09812@mail0.tor.acc.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <199710081603.MAA09812@mail0.tor.acc.ca>, Marianne Vespry writes >Needs of 0.01 per cent of user/requests should not define rules and drive >procedures and/or formats in such a way that they add cost or needless >complexity for everyone else. This should be inscribed on a banner and suspended from the ceiling at the conference. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 18:30:06 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian I am well aware that the Cornford example I lifted from OCLC was an antique record. What's more, I pared it down to its bare essentials so as not to distract from the point I was trying to make. I could have revised it, but, being at home and without my tools, I didn't. Perhaps I should have, since Mr. Papakhian stumbled over it. His improved version, however, is not essentially different from mine, at least with respect to the point I was trying to make, except that it does bring up something I did not mention, namely, that MARC already has several subfields in the 700 (among others) for relator terms and codes. I suppose I could have proposed their use in favor or my manufactured second indicator. Frankly, I forgot about them, because for a long time now they have been out of favor. In any event, this is only a detail of implementation. The conceptual question I tried to discuss (and perhaps I should have confined myself to the conceptual level, since what I was baking apparently needs more time in the oven) is really very modest. Once the main entry has been divested of its burden of expressing bibliographic relationships and linking, what compelling reason is there for keeping it? What compelling reason is there against treating authors the same way we treat other responsible parties associated with a bibliographic record. Why not treat all responsible parties the same, not in terms of display necessarily, for we might wish to keep the author+title citation, but in terms of the record's structure? Why keep the structural dichotomy? E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com On Wed, 8 Oct 1997 00:57:15 -0500 Ralph Papakhian writes: >Greetings, >Thank you, Elizabeth, for the example. I must have a mental block >or mental lack or something similar. The following seems to me >to represent something quite similar to the example you provide, >and this, I believe, conforms to current AACR2 and current USMARC >(throwing in some LCSH). >I fail to see the radical difference, except that a 100+240 has >become "main" instead of some kind of additional access point. >To me, dealing with the literature of music, having a main entry >for subsorting makes sense. In this case, a search on Cornford >(is he still in fashion?) would (i.e. could) result in a >sub-arrangement >by Plato (since Plato is the "main entry"). I find that more >desirable than a subarrangement by title (in a vast majority of >cases). >As Linda Barnhart pointed out some weeks (probably months) ago, >the Music Library Association has attempted without success to >have the 100+240 combination changed to 100+t. That would make the >(now) anomolous 240 conform to name/title conventions in all other >cases (6xx 7xx). >But I do fail to see how Elizabeth's example below is substantially >more desirable than this AACR2 (+LCSH) example. > > 7 100 0 Plato. > 8 240 10 Theaetetus. $l English > 9 245 10 Plato's theory of knowledge : $b the Theaetetus and the >Sophist of Plato / $c translated with a running commentary by Francis >Macdonald Cornford. > 10 260 London : $b K. Paul, Trench, Trubner ; $a New York : $b >Harcourt, Brace, $c 1935. > 11 300 xiv, 336 p. ; $c 22 cm. > 12 440 0 International library of psychology, philosophy, and >scientific method > 13 600 00 Plato. $t Theaetetus. > 14 600 00 Plato. $t Sophist. > 15 700 1 Cornford, Francis Macdonald, $d 1874-1943. $4 trl $4 cmm > 16 700 02 Plato. $t Sophist. $l English. > >What, in this example, cannot be derived that is included in >Elizabeth's >example below? If anything, in the above, we have at least the >inclusion >of "English" as the text of the work and the analytic. That, to me, >seems >an improvement, provided that authority (aka "syndetic") structures >provide for heirarchical referencing. Of course, the relation >"commentary" >has, in this case, become a subject (author-title). > >Is the brouhaha about the irrelevance of main entry come down to this? > >It might be more interesting to think about a catalog based on >post-modern theories of authorship. The possibilities are intriguing >and >truly interactive. For example, one could posit the requirement that >main entry be determined by logon username. Everything one consulted >in the catalog would become one's work. > >Cordially, and always ready and willing to join the struggle for >clearing the bibliographic jungle (my thanks to CT for that >formulation), ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 01:00:03 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian In-Reply-To: <19971008.183008.9758.2.espanhoff@juno.com> from "Elisabeth D Spanhoff" at Oct 8, 97 06:30:06 pm Content-Type: text Hi Elisabeth, please refer to me as Ralph. Some years ago I loved to read V. Nabokov because of the details of the implementation. But now we can deal with the concept, especially the modest concept. The compelling reason to keep the concept of the main entry is practicality and tradition (that much I feel confident about), and also for sorting lists, citations, etc. I am hesitant to deal with bibliometrics (becuase I know so little about it). On the other hand there have been impassioned expositions recently on this list that only 99.9% counts and the rest can go bug off. So for statistics, the vast majority of monographic materials (in the neighborhood of 60 to 70%) are materials written by one person who has not written or will never write another monograph. I think that was Lotka's law. For that volume of library material, the discussion of main entry is moot. Getting to the minority..... the other 30-40% may have produced more than one monograph. The percentage really decreases when you consider two or more monographs. That's life. But the facts of life are that the minority instances of authors (composers, etc.) are the high library use folks (I'm not talking about certain insurance libraries or law libraries, i'm talking about public libraries in their thousands and community college libraries and college libraries and university libraries and national libraries). So the odds are that someone using a library is more likely to be looking up Shakespeare as opposed to Papakhian. Mozart rather than Ovsepian. and so on. Elisabeth suggests: "Once the main entry has been divested of its burden of expressing bibliographic relationships and linking, what compelling reason is there for keeping it? ." I think the compelling reason is that most stuff in library catalogs have one and only one entry, and the other stuff can benefit by identifying a main entry mostly for mundane reasons like making reasonable index displays, etc. I am not positing any kind of theoretical position. I am extremely worried about the multi-level authority structure being discussed because I don't think anyone is willing to pay for it, and because that level of complexity is really useful for a minority of library acquired publications (despite some interesting dissertations claiming a multitude of bibliographic relationships--not all of which I have read, I confess). My impressions all derive from working in the field, as it were, for some 20+ years. If you buy my argument that most books are written by one person, and that most of those persons never write more than one book, I just don't see how you can be opposed to main entry on a conceptual level. In those cases, it just doesn't make a difference but the main entry concept would correspond to normal citation practice (author+title). In other cases, especially in the humanities, main entry can provide important focus for indexing and display. It's that simple. And for the life of me I can't understand why people are so enthusiastic in their opposition to this idea that has been around for a while anyway. What great human good is accomplished by the elimination of the main entry? Will there be any less cancer? Will libraries be flooded with endowments? Will catalogers and technical servants be showered with goodies? (I refer you to my column about Cataloger Envy in the MOUG Newsletter a few years ago). So, (in a friendly way I ask), what gives? What great good is achieved when the main entry is "divested of its burden of expressing bibliographic relationships and linking"? Is that sort of like a white man's burden? Does the main entry really have burden? --ralph p. Elisabeth D Spanhoff said > > I am well aware that the Cornford example I lifted from OCLC was an > antique record. What's more, I pared it down to its bare essentials so > as not to distract from the point I was trying to make. I could have > revised it, but, being at home and without my tools, I didn't. Perhaps I > should have, since Mr. Papakhian stumbled over it. His improved version, > however, is not essentially different from mine, at least with respect to > the point I was trying to make, except that it does bring up something I > did not mention, namely, that MARC already has several subfields in the > 700 (among others) for relator terms and codes. I suppose I could have > proposed their use in favor or my manufactured second indicator. > Frankly, I forgot about them, because for a long time now they have been > out of favor. In any event, this is only a detail of implementation. > > The conceptual question I tried to discuss (and perhaps I should have > confined myself to the conceptual level, since what I was baking > apparently needs more time in the oven) is really very modest. Once the > main entry has been divested of its burden of expressing bibliographic > relationships and linking, what compelling reason is there for keeping > it? What compelling reason is there against treating authors the same > way we treat other responsible parties associated with a bibliographic > record. Why not treat all responsible parties the same, not in terms of > display necessarily, for we might wish to keep the author+title citation, > but in terms of the record's structure? Why keep the structural > dichotomy? > > > E. de Rijk Spanhoff > State Library of Louisiana > espanhoff@juno.com > > On Wed, 8 Oct 1997 00:57:15 -0500 Ralph Papakhian > writes: > >Greetings, > >Thank you, Elizabeth, for the example. I must have a mental block > >or mental lack or something similar. The following seems to me > >to represent something quite similar to the example you provide, > >and this, I believe, conforms to current AACR2 and current USMARC > >(throwing in some LCSH). > >I fail to see the radical difference, except that a 100+240 has > >become "main" instead of some kind of additional access point. > >To me, dealing with the literature of music, having a main entry > >for subsorting makes sense. In this case, a search on Cornford > >(is he still in fashion?) would (i.e. could) result in a > >sub-arrangement > >by Plato (since Plato is the "main entry"). I find that more > >desirable than a subarrangement by title (in a vast majority of > >cases). > >As Linda Barnhart pointed out some weeks (probably months) ago, > >the Music Library Association has attempted without success to > >have the 100+240 combination changed to 100+t. That would make the > >(now) anomolous 240 conform to name/title conventions in all other > >cases (6xx 7xx). > >But I do fail to see how Elizabeth's example below is substantially > >more desirable than this AACR2 (+LCSH) example. > > > > 7 100 0 Plato. > > 8 240 10 Theaetetus. $l English > > 9 245 10 Plato's theory of knowledge : $b the Theaetetus and the > >Sophist of Plato / $c translated with a running commentary by Francis > >Macdonald Cornford. > > 10 260 London : $b K. Paul, Trench, Trubner ; $a New York : $b > >Harcourt, Brace, $c 1935. > > 11 300 xiv, 336 p. ; $c 22 cm. > > 12 440 0 International library of psychology, philosophy, and > >scientific method > > 13 600 00 Plato. $t Theaetetus. > > 14 600 00 Plato. $t Sophist. > > 15 700 1 Cornford, Francis Macdonald, $d 1874-1943. $4 trl $4 cmm > > 16 700 02 Plato. $t Sophist. $l English. > > > >What, in this example, cannot be derived that is included in > >Elizabeth's > >example below? If anything, in the above, we have at least the > >inclusion > >of "English" as the text of the work and the analytic. That, to me, > >seems > >an improvement, provided that authority (aka "syndetic") structures > >provide for heirarchical referencing. Of course, the relation > >"commentary" > >has, in this case, become a subject (author-title). > > > >Is the brouhaha about the irrelevance of main entry come down to this? > > > >It might be more interesting to think about a catalog based on > >post-modern theories of authorship. The possibilities are intriguing > >and > >truly interactive. For example, one could posit the requirement that > >main entry be determined by logon username. Everything one consulted > >in the catalog would become one's work. > > > >Cordially, and always ready and willing to join the struggle for > >clearing the bibliographic jungle (my thanks to CT for that > >formulation), > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 01:27:20 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Paper to be delivered in Toronto In-Reply-To: <199710081603.MAA09812@mail0.tor.acc.ca> from "Marianne Vespry" at Oct 8, 97 12:03:06 pm Content-Type: text Marianne's observations are, of course, very interesting and stimulating. But it no instance has she indicated why AACR2 now inhibits her from doing what she wants. After thinking about it for a while, I can't figure out why she cannot construct her dream database using AACR2 (let alone AACR3). So what's the prob? Is there someting specific in AACR2 that makes your life difficult? Does chapter 21 just drive you crazy every day? Wow. I guess I have never had such a visceral response to that chapter. I'll work on it. --ralph p. Marianne Vespry said > > At 18:06 05/10/97 -0500, Ralph Papakhian wrote: > >Those who have argued against main entry have yet to > >demonstrate what that might mean (by means of an example > >or two or three). It's interesting to aver that main entry is meaningless > >in x, y or z environment. But what are the consequences? > >What would such a main-entry-less display look like? > > Whatever you like. Has your OLPAC only one display format? If you print > lists, do you always use the same format? > > 'What would the catalogue look like?' is the same question as 'what does the > database look like?' A directory database can 'look like' a list of names > and addresses, like a telephone list, like a list of acronyms and full > names, like a list of corporate names and acronyms, like a list of cities > and long distance codes -- limited only by the data contained and the > imagination of the person designing displays. A bibliographic database can > 'look like' an author listing, a subject listing, a corporate list, a titles > or series list; a shelf list; even an LC card; you just have to decide to do > it, and decide what else you want to/can afford to show after any particular > access point. But what's 'IN IT' is primary; what it 'looks like' is > flexible and time- and need-driven. > > Some sample formats (not particularly original or beautiful, but then, > neither is the catalogue card): > > 'FULL' FORMAT > Author 1; Author 2; Author n > Corporate 1 > Corporate 2 > Corporate n > Title. Edition. Imprint. > Collation. (Series 1; Series 2 etc.) > Conference > Other notes > (can also add in ISBD, price, holdings and locations, whatever is germane; > spacing, type faces and punctuation used to separate out the various elements). > > 'AUTHOR FORMAT' > Author 1; Author 2; Author n > Title block, date, then as much of the other info as you need. For this you > probably want a second entry under Author 2, Author 1; Author n, and a third > one with Author n first. > > 'TITLE' FORMAT > Title block first; then e.g. authors, corporates, date and as much of the > other info as needed. > This will have entries with the alternate Titles first. > > 'CORPORATE' FORMAT > Corporate 1 > ... > Corporate n > Title block, etc. > Again, Corporates rotate so that each get to the head of the entry. > > These are samples only. None of them require a pre-selected 'main entry'. > Any concerned librarian can suggest equally valid formats. > > These suggested formats don't allow you to reconstruct the title page of a > document, or distinguish between two editions in the same year. They > probably meet the needs of well over 99 percent of user-requests. > > For users concerned with identifying or comparing manifestations of a > particular work, a ISBD record or an LC card may be helpful, or list by date > and author, or a CD-ROM of facsimiles of title pages. > > To summarize: > > What's in a database is a separate question from print/display formats. > > Data should be presented in formats that are economical (don't require > special coding, or too much paper if a printout is required) and best meet > the users' needs. > > Needs of 0.01 per cent of user/requests should not define rules and drive > procedures and/or formats in such a way that they add cost or needless > complexity for everyone else. > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 01:40:57 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: What is AACR's role in defining a bibliographic record? Comments: To: dcc@mumbly.lib.cwu.edu In-Reply-To: >A couple of comments regarding main entry have brought up a slightly >different issue for me, that of what constitutes the bibliographic record? >What are it's parameters? Currently, the ISBD enriched (where appropriate) with a main entry other than the title proper, and additional access points, usually including subject terms or class numbers (classed subject catalogues are rare in English speaking areas however). This is working just find in my opinion, and we should not mess with it. Some of my customers still maintain card catalogues because their patrons (the owning lawyers) demand it. Some of my customers have printed book catalogues produced, because their patrons like them, and they can be distributed to the offices of computer phobic firm members. Those customers who do have OPACs want a main entry sort of legal texts as a display, and to be able to produce such as an on demand printout. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 10:23:21 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: M J Ridley Subject: Re: Apparent Conflict? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Bernhard Eversberg wrote > in response to to what I >Mick Ridley wrote: > >> >> Many of the shortcomings of relational databases are being tackled by >> the new third generation of database technologies... >> In these systems, more particularly object databases, you >> can make links between records that don't depend on the values in those >> records. That is, a link might be made between Shostakovich/Vth >> Symphony and Chostakovitch/5th Symphony although the values are >> different. ... > >However, the link will always be based on a constant identifier - which is a >character string. I don't wish to appear pedantic but I feel I must follow this up. It is simply not the case that such identifiers are character strings. And if librarians use such terms they are likely to be misunderstood by those with a computing background who are working on automated systems for libraries. Properly such identifiers are oids (object identifiers) which at a bottom level are bit strings, sequences of 0 and 1 which must then be interpreted by programs like any data in a computer. >It may or may not be displayed, it may function on a >low or high level, but someone has to establish the link. It cannot come >into being by virtue of "third generation database technologies". Of course, and I wasn't suggesting such a thing. My point was that these technologies offer a platform on which many of the things librarians and users want are possible and that issues such as the maintenance of links may be easier on these systems where the links do not depend on the *values* in the records as tends to be the case in relational systems. >IOW, there's no way to circumvent the authority control approach. >Statements like the one cited tend to raise unrealistic expectations. > >Of course, there's also the idea of "fuzzy searching". This cannot provide >reliable links, just *because* of its fuzziness. With fuzzy technology, you >either get too many unwanted "hits" or you miss too many relevant items, but >probably both. > What you say about fuzzy searching may be true but it was not the issue I was addressing and suggests to me that you misunderstood my point. I was not concerned with a fuzzy match between Shostakovich and Chostakovitch. If I can make the point with a different example I was thinking of the link that might be made between Kurasawa's Ran and King Lear where the record for Ran might be all in Japanese script. Mick Ridley Dept of Computing Senior Computer Officer Phoenix Bldg M.J.Ridley@comp.brad.ac.uk Univ of Bradford 01274 383946 Phone Bradford BD7 1DP 01274 383920 Fax UK ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:08:39 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Apparent Conflict? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Mick Ridley wrote, about identifiers: > > I don't wish to appear pedantic but I feel I must follow this up. It > is simply not the case that such identifiers are character strings. On the bottom level, *everything* in a computer consists of bits. In files, bits are grouped in 8-character bytes. In this sense, every identifier, like any other piece of data, can be looked upon both as a bit string and a character string, and all programs treat bit strings as byte strings. Not all characters are necessarily *printable*. > And if librarians use such terms they are likely to be misunderstood by > those with a computing background who are working on automated systems > for libraries. Properly such identifiers are oids (object identifiers) > which at a bottom level are bit strings, sequences of 0 and 1 which > must then be interpreted by programs like any data in a computer. > OK, one should say "byte strings" instead of "character strings", but this changes absolutely nothing. > > My point was that > these technologies offer a platform on which many of the things > librarians and users want are possible and that issues such as the > maintenance of links may be easier on these systems where the links do > not depend on the *values* in the records as tends to be the case in > relational systems. > On what *do* those links depend then? You seem to imply that object-oriented linking has some fundamentally new ability or potential. A link has to consist of either a field value (text string) in a record, or an IdNumber (character or byte string), and the link has to be established by a person. The IdNumber is easier to manage in any case, object-oriented or not, because changes have to be made in the authority record only. If an IdNumber is not represented by a character string, it is still a part of the record in question, and its potential is in no way different from fields represented as character strings. > What you say about fuzzy searching may be true but it was not the issue Certainly not, but this idea sometimes comes up in discussions, regardless of what the issue is, and I just wanted to exclude it here, as being beside the point. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 10:58:44 EDT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: John Riemer Subject: Gorman/Oddy Paper (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Comments on the Gorman/Oddy Paper for the International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR The Catalogers Group University of Georgia Libraries Pg. 1: The current code is touted as a major departure from the past. For every reason one can give for claiming a large break between AACR1 & 2: * abandonment of corporate main authorship concept, * diminished collocation role of the catalog through a deemphasized main entry and making entire uniform titles chapter optional, * reversed workflow with access points following description, and * a shift in clientele from academic libraries to all types, there is another for seeing a larger break between the two most recent codes and what preceded them: * advocacy of direct entry for corporate headings and calling an entity by what it calls itself on chief sources, * continued progression away from ad hoc entry-choice rules for all kinds of material, * prescription of successive entry for serials, and * the conscious internationalism of a Paris Principles foundation. Pg. 5: Citing "the politics of bibliographic fear" in criticism of the main entry is not a cogent argument. What do people hope to gain by its elimination? How are we to accomplish, in a simpler way, the things accomplished by main entry? Pg. 6: If it represents progress to see "an 'author' not necessarily being coextensive with a person," how about considering corporate bodies as authors again, basing the concept of authorship on taking responsibility for a work? Pg. 10: Given the amount of material we have seen approved over the years by the JSC for inclusion in the code that was originally in the LCRI, one is tempted to see the RI as a healthy venue for experimental rules that can be field-tested before being enshrined in the code. Pg. 12: If LCRI are to be decried for the "Higher Authority" role they entail, then why would any of the various satellite codes ("specialist manuals") need JSC approval for the content not deemed worthy of inclusion in AACR? Pg. 13: It is counterproductive to talk of the "microform issue" (seventh recommendation) as opposed to the reproduction issue. The paper highlights the need for standardization in some contexts (record sharing, the inadequacy of keyword access) while downplaying it in others (e.g. the role of the main entry in representing a citation form for one work represented among the added entries on the record of another). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 11:12:28 -0600 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Margaret Wilson Subject: problems with AACR2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain In a recent post, Ralph Papakian asks the question "Is there something specific in AACR2 that makes your life difficult?" I previously have not participated in these fascinating discussions, leaving them to nimbler minds than mine. However, Ralph's question provided an opportunity to promote the excellent paper by Jean Hirons and Crystal Graham. In my opinion, serials are not always especially well-served by AACR2. The Hiron/Graham paper addresses many problems, and Martha Yee's paper touches on another, namely, what is a serial work? Margaret Wilson Serials Cataloging University of Kansas Libraries mwilson@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:44:31 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Pam Deemer Subject: Main entry doggerel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Not being a heavy-weight thinker and my mind swimming from all the discussion, I apologize for playing (being?) the fool and offering this for a little end of the week light-heartedness. Wouldn't it be nice If all works had single authors; Wouldn't it be nice- No corporate authors at all; Wouldn't it be nice If there were no translators. Main entry would be easy to call. Wouldn't it be nice If compilers were banished; Wouldn't it be nice- No performances at all; Wouldn't it be nice If mult'ple authors vanished And adapters away would crawl. Wouldn't it be nice If serials didn't exist; Wouldn't it be nice If titles didn't change a bit; Wouldn't it be nice If splits and mergers were missed And caused no cat'loger a fit. Wouldn't it be nice If works were all one format; Wouldn't it be nice If all were readable text; Wouldn't it be nice- No other versions to cringe at And feel a cataloger's hexed. Wouldn't it be nice- To have just one big catalog; Wouldn't it be nice To agree on online display; Wouldn't it be nice To hear no vendor's monlogue On lack of competitive play. Wouldn't it be nice If no person must Cutter; Wouldn't it be nice If we all had closed book stacks; Wouldn't it be nice If not a patron would mutter At lack there of main entry tracks. Main entry: It's not just for card catalogs and lists. I don't remember seeing much on the following particular aspect of use: Catalogs may be composed of metadata that can be searched and displayed in many ways, but the physical can be arranged only in one way at a time on the shelves. Most public and university libraries (in the U.S. at least) intend to have browseable stacks and use the Cutter/Sanborn tables with the classification systems. Rules for main entry provide some consistency for assigning Cutter/Sanborn numbers which collocate on the shelf author's works on a particular subject. If a catalog is the only place a user can browse (true of many if not most, special libraries?), determining main entry may not seem important. Pam Deemer, Assistant Law Librarian, Cataloging Services Hugh F. MacMillan Law Library Emory University 1301 Clifton Rd. Atlanta, GA 30322-2780 libped@law.emory.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:17:42 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Helen Buhler Subject: Re: Main entry doggerel In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 09 Oct 1997 12:44:31 EDT." Pam, >Not being a heavy-weight thinker and my mind swimming from all the >discussion, I apologize for playing (being?) the fool and offering this >for a little end of the week light-heartedness. Thanks! I for one enjoyed that. My head has been hurting a bit too from all the expert and conflicting opinions. Amd that was a very good point about phisical items being able to go on a shelf in only one place. If they are to be found easily... Helen Helen Buhler, The Templeman Library, The University, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NU. Fax: +44 (0)1227 827107 or 823984 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 15:07:41 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU Subject: Re: Challenge to the anti-main entry crowd Thanks to Robert Cunnew for a very coherent attempt. Omitted is the question of variant titles (for the same work). These might be original title, translated title(or titles, since they may vary, as in "Red and the black" & "Scarlet and the black"), variations on what is the title ("Peterson's Two year colleges" vs "Two year colleges" or "Van Gogh drawings" vs "drawings"), English vs American title, different titles on different editions, spine & cover titles, various titles item has become known as ("Richard III", "King Richard III", "History of King Richard III", each of the former with "the third", etc.) These cause problems in 3) (works about or related to a work) and in 2) Maybe if people don't expect hits to be in any order they look harder, but we find if they expect them to be in order and they don't see what they're looking for under t he title they have in mind, they quit--and, to be fair, it's often not clear that a completely different title is the same title. These problems occur in OPACs anyway since main entry is not so clear (e.g. if you search the title "Alice in wonderland" and get two hits, how do you know there are seven more, but the place to find all of them is "Alice's adventures in wonderland." I'd love another and better way to solve these problems -- and the "continues" and "continued by" for serials -- but I haven't seen one yet. Cheers, Cynthia Watters Catalog Librarian Middlebury College watters@myriad.middlebury.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:00:05 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: OCLC 050 vs. 090 question. Comments: To: brians@unllib.unl.edu In-Reply-To: <199710091733.KAA10029@bmd2.baremetal.com> >I'm seeing more and more non-DLC OCLC member libraries using the 050. Why >aren't they using the 090? What advantage is there in using the 050 when >you are *not* the Library of Congress? My personal preference is for the field to reflect the schedule used, not the library doing the work. Therefore I *like* numbers assigned from the LCC schedules to be in 050 (.4), from NLM to be in 060 (.4), etc. NLM assigned numbers from the LCC tables in 060 bug me, not to mention accession numbers. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:50:43 PST Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Laurel Jizba Subject: Summary notes in AACR2R Summary note enhancement/development by Laurel Jizba October 9, 1997 AACR2R natural language summary note principles and instruction can be enhanced and developed. The following discusison is relevant to Lynne Howarth's paper, Martha Yee's paper, to the FRBR, and to the ISBD (ER). This proposal supports and enhances the provision of standard cataloging descriptive elements and authority-controlled access points (names, titles and subjects) which are very necessary for effective, systematic retrieval of information and logical navigation in bibliographic catalogs and databases. It does not support substitution of natural language in place of (or at the expense of) the other standard cataloging elements found in a bibliographic record, but, when appropriate, enhances the catalogers ability to supply the latter. Based on some historical and current literature regarding summary note construction (see my article "Reflections on summarizing and abstracting implications for Internet Web documents and standardized library cataloging databases" in Journal of Internet Cataloging, 1, no. 2:15-39), AACR2R could use development and expansion of summary note construction. Common content standards--even at an expanded minimal level, with or without optional treatment suggestions--are needed for summary notes. No adequate language currently exists either in AACR2R or in other bibliographic standards. Providing greater AACR2R instruction in summary note construction would bring the work, manifestation, item issues into greater clarity and actually assist in making the transition from the theoretical to the practical. 1. The rationale is as follows: a. In catalogs or databases of heterogeneous materials, summary notes enable browsing of material that is not browsable, supplying a natural language content assessment to users of audiovisual/non-book /computer resources. Summary notes address the nature/type of material, the scope of content, as well as serve in a number of other descriptive capacities by employing natural language in phrases and sentences which convey the essence of an object (or collection of objects) in a form which is accessible to the common user, without any encoding other than a literate knowledge of the written language. b. Currently the text of AACR2R is inadequate with respect to summary notes. The summary element has not been given enough attention in AACR2R. AACR2R remains, relatively speaking, biased towards books, which, in open stack libraries, are easily browsed and represent the most commonly understood carrier for information. The book is a carrier with characteristics in little need of explanation, and even less in the way of content decoding, other than literacy skill development. (See chapters 1,2,4,6,7,8,10,11.) c. Adequate principles and instruction need NOT be lengthy nor difficult to include in the text of AACR2R. New language could readily be developed, if informed by some research of the available literature on this topic from multiple view points(scholarly publishing, journal databases, specialist library cataloging texts, the archival community). d. Summary notes can be constructed by catalogers without undue effort. Collectively catalogers in libraries already construct summary notes (at least part of the time)for various computer file/audiovsual/nonbook resources. In fact, audiovisual/nonbook and computer file resource catalogers have been constructing summary notes for years. These specialist catalogers have proven that with adequate training and instruction, summary note construction can add clarity and understanding with some, but not much, additional time per record. The training, the quality and the quantity in production for these catalogers has proven to be manageable and successful, but could be improved and adopted on a larger scale if there were more standard guidance in AACR2R. e. The ISBD (ER) International Standard Bibliographic Description for Computer Resources includes more instructive language than does than the current Chapter 9 of AACR2R. f. The PCC Core Bibliographic Record for Computer Files Task Group Final Report lists the summary note as a core element for computer files, because they are non-browsable. g. The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set calls for the equivalent of the AACR2R summary note to be one of the essential elements for the Dublin Core set. This element is labeled "Description". It is characterized as: " A textual description of the content of the resource, including abstracts in the case of document-like objects or content description in the case of visual resources. Future metadata collections might well include computational content description (spectral analysis of a visual resource). h. User demand for summary notes for non-browsable material is increasing, in bookdealer databases, and in Internet databases (i.e., in AMAZON.COM, in OCLC's Netfirst database, and in other databases). i. Visionary cataloging and archival experts have written that summary notes are keys to providing the kind of contextual information about the nature of non-browsable resources (particularly in the Internet context), where the summary is becomes the surrogate for the material. (See the JIC article previously cited.) 2. The current language of AACR2R: Presently, AACR2R addresses summary note information (that is a summary of the nature of the contents) in chapters: 1,2,4,6,7,8,9,10,11. a. Chapter 1 and nonbook chapters. Enhanced language (principles, instructions and examples) would be very useful, particularly in Chapter 1 and in the nonbook Chapters (4,5,7,8,9,10,11). The current language is too abbreviated to be of much assistance to the cataloger. b. Chapter 2. Chapter 2 could use some additional work, even given that books will remain the browsable carriers of information that they are, because user expectations may rise due to the inclusion of summary notes in bookdealer databases (regardless of format), on and off the Internet. c. Chapter 12. In Chapter, the instruction is totally omitted. If we look to a future which includes an extended definition of serial and seriality plus an increase of serial works once expressed only in print moving more and more into the realm of electronic publication, then we need to revisit the historical decision not to include this instruction in Chapter 12. This is particularly true for Internet serial documents/resources. Archivist build summaries for continuing, open collections - relevant to serials (which are continuing, open collections of articles). Their expertise can be incorporated in this context. d. Current AACR2R text. Currently at rule 1.7B17 Chapter 1 (page 53) reads: 1.7B17. Summary. [There is only one example, and no explanation of underlying principle or principles and no instruction, let alone adequate examples.] Arguably, the most elaborate instruction anywhere in AACR2R is given in Chapter 9 (page 238) and it could use elaboration. 9.7B17 Summary. Give a brief objective summary of the purpose and content of an item unless another part of the description provides enough information. [There are only brief explanation of underlying principles and no detailed instruction. Four examples are given, but more would be more helpful, regardless of the caution that examples are not prescriptive]. 2. If new language, that is new textual changes to AACR2R, were to be proposed, it would be useful to take into account language in existing documents from multiple disciplines, such as those quoted below, and other documents as well (see the JIC article "Reflections on summarizing and abstracting"). Such proposals could flesh-out principles (i.e., with respect to work, manifestation and item (see Lynne Haworth's paper "Content versus carrier"), instruction and examples. Since this enhancement could capitalizing upon existing rules and AACR2R structure, this change could be made relatively easily and effectively. a. For example, proposed textual changes would fall along the lines of the wording found in Saye and Vellucci's book Nonprint Cataloging for Multimedia Collections, 1987, as follows. "When other parts of the description, especially the title statement and titles recorded in a contents note, do not sufficiently explain the type of material, the scope, the point of view of the material, or significant artistic characteristics, this information can be given in a summary. This note is sometimes also the most appropriate place to explain the relationship of a person(s) named in the statement of responsibility, or in a related note, to the work. It can also be used to indicate the responsibility of an individual who was not mentioned previously in the description. The summary note should be both brief and objective. Information in the summary note can be taken from other sources without attribution. Although this rule limits the use of a summary note to works that are either entirely or predominantly of [XYZ type of media], it can be applied, if necessary, to [XYZ types of media]." The text shown above is not intended to serve as an actual proposed textual change for any one Chapter of AACR2R, but serves to illustrate the kind of standardized instruction that is called for. Any proposed wording should benefit from thorough research of the audiovisual/nonprint/computer file training literature, as well as of standard instruction for authors of journals and for indexers and abstractors who write in the scholarly literature. This is research that can be done within a reasonable time frame, and would be best built upon the mass of work that has come before, culling the best elements encountered in such research. b. The ISBD (ER) , which could also serve as a model for both Chapter 1 and Chapter 9, as well as other non-print chapters (as applicable and appropriate) could be followed--if not entirely, then at least in part. It currently reads: "The summary provides a factual, non-evaluative account of the subject coverage. In content and expression the note may draw upon statements found in the item, its container, documentation or accompanying textual matter. Information on the use of special techniques or processes my also be included. e.g. -- Uses shopping situations in a supermarket and a department store for the purpose of illustrating basic math concepts, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Provides user exercises and drills to reinforce the concepts . -- Gives information on higher civil servants in U.S. federal agencies, including personal characteristics, educational background, and occupational mobility. - An interactive multimedia tool for studying the human anatomy. Users can select anterior, posterior, medial or lateral views, each with dozens of layers, as well as specify gender and ethnic appearance " 3. The multiple benefits to the cataloging community and library users are: a. Greater AACR2R instruction for Chapter 1 and all applicable nonprint/media chapters would provide long needed instructions lacking since AACR (1967), and which would have been very useful for the last 30 years. b. Greater AACR2R instruction in Chapter 9 will bring Chapter 9 in closer alignment with the revised ISBD (ER). c. Greater AACR2R instruction in Chapter 9 will bring Chapter 9 in closer alignment with the Dublin Core Element Set for Metadata. Mapping from the Dublin Core would be facilitated, and AACR2R could become a key descriptive standard for the using the Dublin Core. d. Greater AACR2R instruction in summary note construction will not obviate the need for continuing and future automated efforts in summarization, but will enhance the effectiveness of all bibliographic databases, including access to Internet sites through Z39.50 server interfaces with bibliographic databases. e. Greater AACR2R instruction in summary note construction will bring AACR2R into closer alignment with archival community standards f. Greater AACR2R instruction in summary note construction would bring the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) concepts of work, manifestation, item issues into greater clarity. This enhancement would actually assist in making the transition from the theoretical to the practical, because catalogers trained to create well constructed summary notes should relatively easily be able to conceptualize whether it is the work, manifestation, item or combination that is being cataloged. g. Natural language summaries assist users in assessment, serving as surrogates when a work/expression is non-browsable or its nature obscured or unclear. h. This proposed change could be acoomplished either within the existing organization of AACR2R or within models proposed in other papers. i.Specifically, in terms of FRBR terminology, the summary note can be recognized both as an "autonomous work" of the cataloger and as an indicator that the catalog is cognizant of the existence of a work and/or expression and can distinguish a work from an expression. (Actually, the catalog record as a whole is also a surrogate substitute for the work. A summary is just a decoded surrogate in an encoded surrogate.) A summary created according to enhanced standard AACR2R guidelines would reflect the nature of the work and/or expression in natural language. This exercise should assist the cataloger in developing the appropriate standard headings of all types (name, title subject) as well as enhancing user assessment and access. It would even help in the process of determining main entry. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:45:23 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Challenge to the anti-main entry crowd Comments: To: WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU In-Reply-To: <971009150741.33096@myriad.middlebury.edu> >These problems occur in OPACs anyway since main entry is not so clear >(e.g. if you search the title "Alice in wonderland" and get two hits, >how do you know there are seven more, but the place to find all of them >is "Alice's adventures in wonderland." > >I'd love another and better way to solve these problems -- You can solve the problem through AACR's and MARC'S permissiveness for additional entries. Perhaps that provision needs a bit more emphasis. It's fine to make an entry for "Moonlight sonata" even if it is not on the item in hand; 246 is not a transcribed field. We now do: 246 1 $iAlso known as:$aWhatever Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 22:34:13 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Summary notes in AACR2R In-Reply-To: <199A5296990@godzilla.lib.pdx.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <199A5296990@godzilla.lib.pdx.edu>, Laurel Jizba writes >AACR2R natural language summary note principles and instruction can be >enhanced and developed. The following discusison is relevant to Lynne Howarth's >paper, >Martha Yee's paper, to the FRBR, and to the ISBD (ER). Yes, I agree that summary notes have an important part to play, particularly for non-book materials and in remote databases. But it can be very difficult and time-consuming to construct summaries which are brief, informative and grammatical. It can place a great burden on those responsible for quality control. We include in our database/catalogue many records for journal articles and a lot of these have meaningless titles designed to demonstrate the wit and invention of the editor rather than to inform, so they routinely require elucidation in the notes area. We have found that the most cost- efficient way to do this is to rely on transcribing information from the chief source, in particular from the editorial blurb or "standfirst" (to use the journalist's term). For example: "There are many ways of improving AACR records and adding summary notes is one of them. Laurel Jizba takes a closer look ... " Such notes are *not* objective but they are easy to provide because they are transcribed, and they *do* give some flavour of the original. (In this case they also stand in for the statement of responsibility.) The same approach can be taken with books, which often carry a publisher's blurb. But for books a (transcribed) contents note may be even more useful. So yes, but I would extend the use of transcription rather than calling for greater input from the cataloguer. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 08:43:03 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Elizabeth Spanhoff, on Oct. 7, suggested logical extensions to the minimal linking model I had put forth on Aug. 21 in "Linking. Part 2". She provided this example: OLD: 100 0 $aPlato. 240 10$aTheaetetus. $lEnglish. $f1978 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by Francis M. Cornford. 700 1 $aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. 700 0 $aPlato. $tSophistes. $lEnglish. $f1978. NEW: 245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by Francis M. Cornford. 700 13$aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. [translator] 700 15$aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. [commentator] 787 19$aPlato. $tTheaetetus [translation] 787 13$aPlato. $tTheaetetus [commentary] 787 19$aPlato. $tSophistes [translation] 787 13$aPlato. $tSophistes [commentary] Much can be said for this model, and Elizabeth said it. Later, she hinted that the different functions might better be coded by reviving the (late lamented) "relator codes" ($4). What I have to add to this is only one remark: Suppose the title was just "Theory of knowledge". What citation line can software derive from these two records, for short title result set browsing displays? From the OLD, it will always be either this one: Plato: Thaetetus. English 1978 or this: Plato: Theory of knowledge 1978 From the NEW? Either Cornford: Theory of knowledge 1978 (with Plato out of the picture) or indeed Plato: Thaetetus. English 1978 but that's assuming we attribute to the first 787 the special function of defining the short display, and to override the 245 - like the 240. That would mean a main entry in disguise as it would involve the same decisions. The vexing question is, from what data elements do we construct the short display? (And there can be only one per book!) In the absence of all main entry indications, the 245 is all one can reasonably and practically use for the short display. If the 240 is retained, the bigger part of the main entry decision remains. My final remark to the main entry debate: In the universe of USMARC data, taken as a whole, there is very little consistency. For any database programmer, it is indeed a nightmare. One principle that has been consistently applied is in fact the main entry principle, together with the date of publication in the 008/07-10. Based on this we can at least construct meaningful short displays, for the vast majority of records. The larger our database gets (and they all grow!), the more vital are meaningful citation lines for result set browsing. If the main entry principle is eliminated, the code has to say what to construct citation lines of. (In my opinion, the code has to define that anyway - though not for card catalogs of course.) And by and large, it amounts to the same decisions. The bottom line: to eliminate the main entry principle means to destroy what little (but vital!) consistency there still is and what elevates the quality of catalogs over contemporary search engines. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:12:22 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: FORESTS AS MAIN ENTRY Comments: To: BOWMAN@MAIL.LOC.GOV In-Reply-To: <199710101308.GAA20738@bmd2.baremetal.com> >Forests are tagged 151. "Note that when entities >tagged 151 in the authority file are used as main or added >entries in bibliographic records (110, 710, 810), the first >indicator is set to the value 1.)" "If the heading is in the >subject authority file but not represented in the name authority >file, request CPSO to move the heading." Move, or duplicate? If moved, would the heading as subject then be 610? Doesn't 1st indicator 1 in X10 mean entry under government? Wouldn't it be 2 if entered directly? Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 08:48:31 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: <3B00F76350@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> The following is not suggested as a model for others to follow, it is simply reported as what our customers want, i.e., nothing between the main entry and the title as transcribed, and access directly by every distinct title contained within the title, plus standard forms of the title. The difference between Sophist and Sophistes would not be seen as great enough to warrant the 700, which would create what they would view as a duplicate entry. Remember we are talking about collections which would have *one* edition of Thaetetus, and no need for collocation. What to draw from this? The AACR international standard should continue to include the main entry, and the uniform title should continue to be optional, in order to meet the needs of small collections. How the uniform title could be optional given work records is difficult to envision. >100 0 $aPlato. >245 10$aPlato's theory of knowledge : $b(the Theaetetus and the >Sophist of Plato) /$ctranslated, with a running commentary, by >Francis M. Cornford. -- 246 30 $aTheory of knowledge 246 30 $aTheaetetus and the Sophist of Plato 246 30 $aSophist of Plato 260 $a 300 $a 600 .0 $aPlato.$tTheatetus. 600 .0 $aPlato.$tSophistes. 650 .0 $aKnowlege, Theory of >700 1 $aCornford, Francis Macdonald, $d1874-1943. 730 00$aTheatetus.$lEnglish.$f1979. 730 00EsSophistes.$1English.$f1979. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 11:50:03 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model Bernard Eversberg is absolutely right that, to be consistent and not reintroduce the main entry in disguise, the short display would probably have to be Cornford: Theory of knowledge 1978, or something to that effect. But result sets need to be looked at not in isolation, but in the context of specific searches. It would not bother me at all if a search on Cornford brought up the above display, so long as its relationships to Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist were clearly articulated in the record. After all, that is the everyday way of citing this publication. What would and does bother me in a lot of catalogs is a search on Plato that is unable to deliver the following kind of hierarchically structured displays: Plato Works Theaetetus Translations Cornford: Theory of knowledge 1978 Commentaries Cornford: Theory of knowledge 1978 Under Eversberg's model and my extension, the catalog can deliver this or something like this. Incidentally, I find the above less confusing than: Plato Works Theaetetus Translations Plato: Theaetetus. English 1978 or Plato: Theory of knowledge 1978 I grant we do give up something when we restructure the Cornford record along the lines suggested. We give up the claim that Cornford's publication and Plato's represent the same work, at least as long as we support Yee's statement that "Giving two items the same main entry implies they represent the same work (p. 5)." But I wouldn't want to make that claim anyway. The concept of work which makes such identification possible is a very idiosyncratic one, which, moreover, up to now has defied definition (see Yee's paper). I think that what catalogers are about when they place a work like Conford's under the heading for Plato is to express certain relationships which in a single-entry or card catalog environment cannot be expressed in any other, clearer fashion. In book or single-entry catalogs there were very limited ways of expressing relationships between works. In the very early days, arrangement under author was employed as a first crude device. In Hyde's catalog (Bodleian 1674), for example, the work and its translation were entered under the same author. Later a second device was added, still somewhat crude, the uniform title. These two are still the chief means of assembling related texts, even though in the modern electronic catalogs better mechanisms may be available. But catalogers seem reluctant to let go of the old paradigms, even when the rules for entry become troublesome, as illustrated in Martha Yee's paper. In my ideal cataloging world (which could be here today) we don't need to consult elaborate rules for entry. We need only describe the book carefully and articulate all its relationships and then make very very sure that our software will do the rest. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 20:33:30 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model In-Reply-To: <19971012.115005.8726.0.espanhoff@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > In my ideal cataloging world (which could > be here today) we don't need to consult elaborate rules for > entry. We need only describe the book carefully and articulate > all its relationships and then make very very sure that our > software will do the rest. I've never understood this sort of claim. I don't find the rules the source of all that much difficulty. Usually, they just reflect the difficulty involved when trying to carefully describe something that is inherently troublesome. Take away the rules and you still have a puzzle. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 20:38:08 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Michael Gorman Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model In-Reply-To: from "Daniel CannCasciato" at Oct 12, 97 08:33:30 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > > In my ideal cataloging world (which could > > be here today) we don't need to consult elaborate rules for > > entry. We need only describe the book carefully and articulate > > all its relationships and then make very very sure that our > > software will do the rest. > > I've never understood this sort of claim. I don't find the rules > the source of all that much difficulty. Usually, they just reflect the > difficulty involved when trying to carefully describe something that is > inherently troublesome. Take away the rules and you still have a puzzle. > > Daniel > ------------------------------------------- > Daniel CannCasciato > Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans > Central Washington University Library > 400 East 8th Ave > Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 > 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) > dcc@cwu.edu > -- ________________________________________________________ Michael Gorman michael_gorman@csufresno.edu Dean of Library Services telephone: (209) 278-2403 CSU-Fresno fax: (209) 278-6952 5200 N. Barton Fresno, CA 93740-8014 *It is better to curse a candle than to teach a man to fish in the darkness* ________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 11:49:53 -0400 Reply-To: Pam Deemer Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Pam Deemer Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Elisabeth Spanhoff said: "But catalogers seem reluctant to let go of the old paradigms, even when the rules for entry become troublesome, as illustrated in Martha Yee's paper." It is very hard to let go of old paradigms for cataloging when you still have physical items to arrange on shelves and patrons who still expect to browse those shelves. The Library of Congress classification for P is based largely on author main entry. Yes, metadata manipulation and linkages in an online catalog may make the concept of main entry obsolete IN AN ONLINE CATALOG, but sometimes the arguments against main entry often seem to divorce the metadata from the physical arrangement of physical items. This divorce can't be done in an open-stacks library. Like it or not, cataloging rules not only describe works, but affect the placement of physical manifestations in this type of library. Sometimes the discussion has reminded me a recently told incident in another context where a woman was told what a beautiful child she had in her arms and she replied, "Oh, but you should see her pictures!" Pam Deemer, Assistant Law Librarian, Cataloging Services Hugh F. MacMillan Law Library Emory University 1301 Clifton Rd. Atlanta, GA 30322-2780 libped@law.emory.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 16:53:58 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ann Kebabian Subject: Main entry (yet again) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable I must confess that I can't see what all the fuss is about main entry. Perhaps if we called those with primary responsibility the "prime suspect" we could more easily use it when it fits and drop it when it doesn't? And to consign the concept of main entry/ primary responsibility to an outmoded technology (card catalogs) and a limited audience (catalogers) is short-sighted. Witness the following excerpt from International Standard ISO 690-2, Information and documentation - Bibliographic references - Part 2: Electronic documents or parts = thereof (http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/iso/tc46sc9/standard/690-2e.htm) 5.1 Electronic monographs, databases and computer programs 5.1.1 Entire document Element:=20 Primary responsibility (Required) <<** Title (Required)=20 Type of medium (Required)=20 Subordinate responsibility (Optional)=20 Edition (Required)=20 Place of publication (Required)=20 Publisher (Required)=20 Date of publication (Required)=20 Date of update/revision (Required)=20 Date of citation (Required for online documents; Optional for others)=20 Series (Optional)=20 Notes (Optional)=20 Availability and access (Required for online documents; Optional for others)=20 Standard number (Required)=20 SELECTED EXAMPLES (see print version for additional examples)=20 CARROLL, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [online]. <<** Texinfo ed. 2.1. [Dortmund, Germany] : = WindSpiel, November 1994 [cited 10 February 1995]. Available from World Wide Web: . Also available in PostScript and ASCII versions from Internet: .=20 Meeting Agenda [online]. Gif-sur-Yvette (France) : Centre d'Etudes Nucl=E9aires, Saclay Service de Documentation, March 1991- [cited 30 September 1992]. Updated bimonthly. ASCII format. Available from QUESTEL.=20 Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology [online]. 3rd ed. New York : John Wiley, 1984 [cited 3 January 1990]. Available from: DIALOG Information Services, Palo Alto (Calif.).=20 AXWORTHY, Glenn. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? <<** [disk]. Version for IBM/Tandy. San Rafael (Calif.) : Broderbund Software, 1985. 1 computer disk; 5 1/4 in. Accompanied by: 1986 World Almanac and Book of Facts. System requirements: IBM/Tandy compatibles; 128 kB RAM; MS DOS 2.0, 3.0 series; graphics adapter required. Designers: Gene Portwood and Lauren Elliott.=20 The same type of "main entry" is used in the sections under parts of monographs, articles and other contributions, electronic messages, and any other instance where primary responsibility can be assigned. So what's the big deal for us? When we can assign primary responsibility, the main entry concept helps-- it helps patrons quickly identify different works with the same title, it helps collocate works both in the catalog and on the shelves, it simplifies cuttering (take a look at RC607.A26 A34... or the comparable Dewey number for AIDS in = any moderate-sized catalog), and it fits in with what other bibliographic/citation methodologies use. When we can't assign primary responsibility pretty easily, we generally move to title as main = entry and move on! =20 > Ann Kebabian, Head of Cataloging (Prime suspect for this > post!) > Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346 > Phone: 315-824-7309 > FAX: 315-824-7934 > EMail: akebabian@mail.colgate.edu >=20 >=20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 19:13:34 PST Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Laurel Jizba Subject: Layperson's intro. & MARC, etc. Layperson's introduction to AACR2R & markup languages 1. I would support the development of a brief lay person's summary/introduction and/or appendix in AACR2R. As Marquardt (8/6), Eversberg (date?), Agenbroad (9/29), CannCasciato (10/6), and Taylor (9/29) mention, it would be helpful in serving the very real role AACR2R has as teaching tool--for catalogers in classrooms and for catalogers in cataloging departments. A layperson's portion could briefly place AACR2R in the context of world information systems, as a standard for content description for MARC-based systems and beyond. As part of AACR2R it could get the widespread reading that results from a standards document publication, and that such a discussion deserves. 2. I agree with Taylor that AACR2R and MARC can't be merged, as they serve differing functions. Still, the concept of a set of paragraphs that at least place AACR2R in the greater contemporary computerized context would be exremely helpful in teaching about AACR2R. AACR2R is applicable and/or can be related to: * MARC (i.e., USMARC and UNIMARC and/or other MARCs) * Dublin Core Element Set * SGML TEI headers * Other standard markup/carrier languages (mention of a few prominent ones are all that is necessary to make the points about relationships). A brief table mapping AACR2R to MARC, Dublin Core and TEI (even at an elementary level) for the sake of illustrating compatibility and interoperability and even disjuncture would be very useful. There are reasons for making such table into a totally separate document (i.e., a separate document could go into much more depth than what I am proposing here). Still, a brief table could readily be made into a one-to-three-or-so page intro. or appendix, an appendix intended to be added to, as new encoding formats become dominant and widely utilized. It might look something like the following. One page or a separate page could be devoted to each prominent carrier/encoding/markup format/language. The degree of specificity might be determined after mock-up examples were formulated and consultation with the greater cataloging community occurred. (A similar project can be seen in the Dublin Core/MARC Crosswalk at http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/dccross.html, only more abbreviated.) A CC:DA Task Force is looking to relationship questions, incidentally, so some inter-relationship work is started. AACR2R USMARC Dublin Core Elem. Set TEI Purpose of AACR2R Purp. of USMARC Purp. of Dublin Core Purp. of TEI This might include how rules for a one author resource look or "map" in each, very abbreviated (could be 1 page or less): AACR2R USMARC Dublin Core Element Set TEI Rules 22.1A,1B &22.5A1 (Cf. Chapter 22) 100 field Author or creator Rule l.1 245 field Title A disclaimer footnote/end note or qualifying paragraph in the text would be necessary for each carrier/encoding/markup format, i.e.: *The above table is serves as a general cross-mapping between AACR2R, XXX and YYY encoding formats, and is not to be taken as prescriptive directions. Please consult the AACR2R, XXX and YYY documentation for principles of usage and specific applicability instructions. 3. All of this need not add much to the length of AACR2R. The existing preface may need to be reworked ( although the existing preface is valuable history, we may not now need every word of that history in the rules themselves)-- if some room is sought for a layperson's introduction. Laurel Jizba Portland State University Portland, OR 97201 Jizba@lib.pdx.edu Voice: 503-725-4550 Fax: 503-725-5799 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 00:02:04 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:00 09/10/97 -0500, Ralph Papakhian wrote: >The compelling reason to keep the concept of the >main entry is practicality and tradition (that much I feel confident >about). Why does this kind of statement frighten me? It was at one time practical and traditional to chain books to the shelves. We have outgrown many practical and traditional ways of dealing with the world and each other, some of which are indeed a loss, and some most emphatically not. To quote from Lord Tennyson (sorry, this is from memory, so may not be exact): The old order changeth, yielding place to new And God fulfills himself in many ways, LEST ONE GOOD CUSTOM SHOULD CORRUPT THE WORLD. > only 99.9% counts and the rest can go bug off. Your words, not mine. Every special collection/clientele has its own needs; who can say they are not as urgent as those of the scholarly collections and those who use them? The special needs including scholarly needs have to be served; the code should include provisions for them. And only the librarians working in those special fields will be able to say how best their materials should be inventoried, listed, arranged and generally made accessible to their clientele. But no special group should impose the solutions it requires on the rest. Some of us barbarians still doubt, of course, whether even the scholarly community needs a main entry. An author-title citation can be constructed without the idea of main entry. A title (e.g. The Magic flute/Die Zauberfloete) can be added to an entry to meet the expectations of the local user. An additional author-title access point can be constructed if needed. Authors' names can be established and cross referenced from pseudonyms and variant forms; dates or other qualifiers can be added to distinguish among the John Smiths et al. All these things can be done without anyone spending time/money deciding which is the main entry. > So for statistics, the vast majority of monographic materials >(in the neighborhood of 60 to 70%) are materials written by one >person who has not written or will never write another monograph. >I think that was Lotka's law. So, we have an author and a title. You can tell the clerk inputting the record to put the author's name in the main entry field, but why not just put it in an author field? >For that volume of library material, the discussion of main entry >is moot. Getting to the minority..... the other 30-40% may have >produced more than one monograph. The percentage really decreases >when you consider two or more monographs. That's life. > But the facts of life are that the minority instances of >authors (composers, etc.) are the high library use folks (I'm not talking >about certain insurance libraries or law libraries, i'm talking about >public libraries in their thousands and community college libraries >and college libraries and university libraries and national libraries). >So the odds are that someone using a library is more likely to be >looking up Shakespeare as opposed to Papakhian. Mozart rather than >Ovsepian. and so on. So, Shakespeare and Mozart are authors, are they not? And the other folks that produce the thing that lands in the library are editors, translators, compilers, commentators, illustraters, conductors, orchestras, soloists, directors, producers and so on; we used to designate them as such, and I suppose it is still done? If it seems reasonable to give an access point for -Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliette- and for -Shakespeare, William. Othello- to the play "Good night, Desdemona, good morning Juliette", then it can be done. Likewise if you need a simple title to get around the "Tragical histories" and other prefatorial verbiage before what we have come to regard as the main title, that also can be done. Our code should allow for, should encourage all the access points each special group needs to serve its clientele. What it should not require or even encourage is another step, another decision, beyond those that serve our clientele. I catalogued in a university library once, (and even in public libraries and a national library); I remember looking up doubtful cases in LC and the National Union Catalog. I remember finding one item listed four times under four separate main entries contributed by four no doubt skilled and conscientious cataloguing departments. It was in its way fun making such decisions (and/or tracing what decisions others had made), otherwise I would have stopped looking at the first hit; since searching was so onerous in those days, I generally stopped when I found an entry I agreed with. So, having had the fun myself, it may seem mean-spirited of me to want to deny it to the young cataloguers out there. However, later in my career came other responsibilities. And my colleagues and I started to think about decision-manking. We came to a few conclusions (not necessarily original), to wit: (a) decisions take time; thus they are expensive; (b) complex decisions are typically made by highly trained staff (they may even ask me to decide!); thus they are very expensive; (c) backlogs are intolerable; (d) decisions should be made only when they can in fact be made consistently (when the result is considerably more consistent than flipping a coin would have been); (e) decisions should be made only when they have a demonstrable utility; when not having made them would cost demonstrably more than making them costs. Then we stopped assigning main entries. And nothing happened. Nobody noticed; nobody missed them. Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 23:15:54 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Comments: To: vespry@ICAN.NET In-Reply-To: <199710140402.AAA13697@mail0.tor.acc.ca> >Some of us barbarians still doubt, of course, whether even the >scholarly community needs a main entry. An author-title citation >can be constructed without the idea of main entry. But this is changing a one time decision (Shakespeare is the main entry for Hamlet) to a decision to be made over and over and over and over every time an added entry is needed for Hamlet. When we refiled the old LC depository card set by title, we found three cards for the same book in the same year with differing main entries. But now that editors, compilers and usually corporate bodies are not main entries, the particular case I found would not happen today. Even further simplification might be in order. I could live quite happily with main entry under other than title being restricted to the single works of single personal authors (e.g series, and works by more than one author, entered under title). The concept of authorship in our society has been getting stronger at least since the Renaissance; we would be mistaken to depart from it. No great time is required to select the single author of a monograph as the primary access point for that work. The time spent establishing the form of the name is the same, whether it be as main entry or not. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 09:38:15 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian In-Reply-To: <199710140402.AAA13697@mail0.tor.acc.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 14 Oct 1997, Marianne Vespry wrote [in part]: > the expectations of the local user. An additional author-title > access point can be constructed if needed. Authors' names can be > established and cross referenced from pseudonyms and variant forms; > dates or other qualifiers can be added to distinguish among the > John Smiths et al. I'd argue two points: Constructing additional author-title access points (if needed) is more time consuming (and variable) than creating an authority record and assigning a main entry. NAR Pancetta, Italo. Cucina italiana. English Pancetta, Italo. Italian cooking Pancetta, Italo. Italian kitchen ... BIB Pancetta, Italo. Cucina italian. English The Italian kitchen ... [I've got to start eating breakfast.] The current method has the added benefit of creating references from other versions of the translation (variant, whatever) without requiring that sort of bibliographic searching and references to be re-done again and again on an as needed basis, whatever that might be. (Patron wandering with a citation from a recent article will be assisted in finding a version previously unaware of). I feel this best serves our patrons in a very broad sense of patron, that is, worldwide catalog users, including other catalogers. > All these things can be done without anyone > spending time/money deciding which is the main entry. I'd also argue that assignment of main entry is not a time consuming task. I personally spend almost no time thinking about it -- when not reading this list, that is. Perhaps that's due to my own circumstances (smaller academic library), but the same has been true when at my previous position (much larger academic library). I consult AARC on this matter only for corporate body authorship and maps, etc. However, the consulting time spent isn't much. My main goal is to verify that I'm making a decision that will work with most other peoples catalogs as well as our own, thus fulfilling one of the purposes of AACR. At this point, I'm still not ready to have my paradigm shifted. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:51:30 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: A catalog that does not use main entry? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lars Nielsen (L.P.S.Nielsen@comp.brad.ac.uk), Fred Ayres (F.H.Ayres@comp.brad.ac.uk) and Mick Ridley (M.J.Ridley@comp.brad.ac.uk) have developed a prototype OPAC called BOPAC2 which searches multiple catalogs using Z39.50 and integrates the results into a single A-Z display, in which the editions of a work seem to be brought together. They claim to do this without use of the main entry (although their complex algorithm for doing this has not yet been made public, and I am suspicious!), so I urge the readers of this listserv to contact one of them, request the URL, visit and use BOPAC2, and comment on the catalog that results when an attempt is made to create a catalog without the use of main entry. Martha Yee Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) "I have always imagined Paradise to be a kind of library." --Jorge Luis Borges. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 16:26:49 PST Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Laurel Jizba Subject: Main entry and works A few thoughts about main entry and works Main entry does have value in organizing links between "authors" and their "works/documents"(or standard work/document citations where there are no acknowledged primary authors). After all of the arguments have been made (over many years), it seems that what it gets right down to is that main entry provides a sort of permanent filing order and permanent linkage of "works" across diverse systems -- where filing order is not officially or overtly addressed or regarded in application to keeping various manifestations of works in immediately adjacent proximity. Thus employing main entry results in more order and slightly less chaos than might otherwise be the case. This is good. Particularly in the absence of uniform filing rules, this is good. For most catalogers it is fairly easy and not too time consuming to determine main entry (there are always exceptions). It has been estimated that most works are one-author works, incidentally, although the number of multiple-author/contributor works is rising. In most cases, taking a macroview point, it's already cheaper, better, faster. At the same time, it could be, and has been, argued that there could be even more flexibility in AACR2R in allowing catalogers to apply such concepts as corporate main entry more frequently than is done now. For example, take the case of one-time monographs issued by corporate bodies where title main entry seems a weak access point. Martha Yee has discussed this. (I leave the question of series and monographic sets aside since corporate main entry could potentially result in a greater number of title changes rather than fewer). Even agreeing that serials successive entry for main entry changes has earned a hallowed place, perhaps the arguments for judicious and partial return to latest entry (as a work-related type of uniform title, the kind of umbrella purpose which monograph uniform titles serve) may also have its place. See Hirons and Graham's paper: a) recommendation no. 6 on looseleaf databases and other ongoing publications and, b) recommendation 7 on meaningless title changes. A judicious allowance for return to latest entry may in fact enable the addition of even more order to continuous publications over a long period of time (a.k.a. quasi-monographic treatment for some serial-like works). There would be some, (though not total) reduction in the number of records and title changes. This would be good. These thoughts are simply to tie together, from yet another variant perspective, the previous discussions on main entries and works found in some of the papers and list messages already posted. Laurel Jizba Branford P. Millar Library Portland State University Portland, OR 9720l jizba@lib.pdx.edu Voice: 503-725-4550 Fax: 503-725-5799 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 22:19:13 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Main entry and works Comments: To: jizba@lib.pdx.edu In-Reply-To: <21542FB5621@godzilla.lib.pdx.edu> > At the same time, it could be, and has been, argued that there could > be even more flexibility in AACR2R in allowing catalogers to > apply such concepts as corporate main entry more frequently than > is done now. I applaud all Laurel's points except this one. The time consuming part of main entry choice used to be deciding between corporate and personal entry. The cases of multiple records for the same work were usually caused by one under corporate entry and one under personal entry. The end to most cases of corporate entry (coupled with the end to entry under editors and compilers) greatly reduced the complexity of main entry choice. Let's keep it that way. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 09:14:37 +0600 Reply-To: Celine Noel Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Celine Noel Subject: Hitlist without main entry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For those of you who would like to see the future today, you might try searching the OCLC Intercat database of Internet resources (http://orc.rsch.oclc.org:6990/). The first level hitlist is a very brief title/publisher display that can produce some eye-catching entries. A recent search of the database for search term "Shakespeare" in the default basic index produced the following display: ************************************************************** 1.What is man? and other essays of Mark Twain [computer file]. Project Gutenberg, 2.The first folio and early quartos of William Shakespeare [computer file] University of Virginia Library, Electronic Access: http 3.Manuscripts, Electronic Access: http 4.Papers, Electronic Access: http 5.The complete works of William Shakespeare [computer file] / The Tech, Electronic Access: http 6.Tales of Shakespeare [computer file] / Project Gutenberg, 7.Sixteenth century Renaissance English literature (1485-1603) [computer file] / A. Jokinen, Electronic Access: http 8.Racine et Shakspeare. [computer file] / Electronic Access: http. 9.Racine et Shakspeare. [computer file] / Electronic Access: http. 10.The collected works of Shakespeare [computer file] Basser Dept. of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Electronic Access: http *********************************************************************** Moreover, if you choose a fuller display for item 5 you get: *********************************************************************** Title/Author: The complete works of William Shakespeare [computer file] / Jeremy Hylton, The Tech. Summary: Contains the complete works of William Shakespeare from the original electronic source of the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare. Contents: About the glossary -- Plays by chronological listing and category -- Barlette's familiar Shakespearean quotations. Electronic Access: Mode of Access: http Location: http://purl.oclc.org/OCLC/OLUC/33295406/1 Note: http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html Electronic Access: Host Name: the-tech.mit.edu Contact For Access Assistance: Jeremy Hylton, The Tech, P. O. Box 397029, MIT Branch, Cambridge, MA 02139 Location: mailto:jeremy@the-tech.mit.edu Type of Data/File: Text. Computer System Details: Mode of access: Internet. Host: the-tech.mit.edu Other Access Points: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Hylton, Jeremy. Tech (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Publisher/Date: [Cambridge, Mass.] : The Tech, [1995] OCLC Number: 33295406 ******************************************************************** Shakespeare is now a humble "other access point." As to what items 3 and 4 are ... For those interested in the BOPAC2 mentioned in Martha Yee's recent post, the URL is in footnote 5 of Mick Ridley's paper (http://www.comp.brad.ac.uk/research/database/bopac2.html). There is an interesting description of the project but there don't seem to be any actual records or displays available. Celine Noel Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cnoel@unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 08:03:51 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: beden@NHMCCD.CC.TX.US Subject: Re: Layperson's intro. & MARC, etc. Comments: To: jizba@lib.pdx.edu I totally agree with Laurel on this. In fact, as chair of the TEI header subcommittee for CC:DA, I have been waiting over 9 months for LC to construct a TEI/MARC crosswalk for me, as they have done for the Dublin Core, but apparently this has not been one of their priorities. Dr. Brad Eden beden@nhmccd.edu ---------- From: jizba To: AACRCONF Subject: Layperson's intro. & MARC, etc. Date: Monday, October 13, 1997 10:13PM Layperson's introduction to AACR2R & markup languages 1. I would support the development of a brief lay person's summary/introduction and/or appendix in AACR2R. As Marquardt (8/6), Eversberg (date?), Agenbroad (9/29), CannCasciato (10/6), and Taylor (9/29) mention, it would be helpful in serving the very real role AACR2R has as teaching tool--for catalogers in classrooms and for catalogers in cataloging departments. A layperson's portion could briefly place AACR2R in the context of world information systems, as a standard for content description for MARC-based systems and beyond. As part of AACR2R it could get the widespread reading that results from a standards document publication, and that such a discussion deserves. 2. I agree with Taylor that AACR2R and MARC can't be merged, as they serve differing functions. Still, the concept of a set of paragraphs that at least place AACR2R in the greater contemporary computerized context would be exremely helpful in teaching about AACR2R. AACR2R is applicable and/or can be related to: * MARC (i.e., USMARC and UNIMARC and/or other MARCs) * Dublin Core Element Set * SGML TEI headers * Other standard markup/carrier languages (mention of a few prominent ones are all that is necessary to make the points about relationships). A brief table mapping AACR2R to MARC, Dublin Core and TEI (even at an elementary level) for the sake of illustrating compatibility and interoperability and even disjuncture would be very useful. There are reasons for making such table into a totally separate document (i.e., a separate document could go into much more depth than what I am proposing here). Still, a brief table could readily be made into a one-to-three-or-so page intro. or appendix, an appendix intended to be added to, as new encoding formats become dominant and widely utilized. It might look something like the following. One page or a separate page could be devoted to each prominent carrier/encoding/markup format/language. The degree of specificity might be determined after mock-up examples were formulated and consultation with the greater cataloging community occurred. (A similar project can be seen in the Dublin Core/MARC Crosswalk at http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/dccross.html, only more abbreviated.) A CC:DA Task Force is looking to relationship questions, incidentally, so some inter-relationship work is started. AACR2R USMARC Dublin Core Elem. Set TEI Purpose of AACR2R Purp. of USMARC Purp. of Dublin Core Purp. of TEI This might include how rules for a one author resource look or "map" in each, very abbreviated (could be 1 page or less): AACR2R USMARC Dublin Core Element Set TEI Rules 22.1A,1B &22.5A1 (Cf. Chapter 22) 100 field Author or creator Rule l.1 245 field Title A disclaimer footnote/end note or qualifying paragraph in the text would be necessary for each carrier/encoding/markup format, i.e.: *The above table is serves as a general cross-mapping between AACR2R, XXX and YYY encoding formats, and is not to be taken as prescriptive directions. Please consult the AACR2R, XXX and YYY documentation for principles of usage and specific applicability instructions. 3. All of this need not add much to the length of AACR2R. The existing preface may need to be reworked ( although the existing preface is valuable history, we may not now need every word of that history in the rules themselves)-- if some room is sought for a layperson's introduction. Laurel Jizba Portland State University Portland, OR 97201 Jizba@lib.pdx.edu Voice: 503-725-4550 Fax: 503-725-5799 ....................................................................... 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Remove anything before this line, # then unpack it by saving it in a file and typing "sh file". # # Wrapped by openmail at mail on Wed Oct 15 08:03:59 1997 # # This archive contains: # 02uca16 # echo Compiling unpacker for non-ascii files pwd=`pwd`; cd /tmp cat >unpack$$.c <<'EOF' #include #define htoi(c) (c<='9' ? c-'0' : c-'A'+10) main() { register int c, c2; while ((c=getchar())!=EOF) { if (c=='\n') continue; c2 = getchar(); putchar((htoi(c)<<4) + htoi(c2)); } } EOF cc -o unpack$$ unpack$$.c rm unpack$$.c cd $pwd echo x - 02uca16 '[non-ascii]' /tmp/unpack$$ >02uca16 <<'@EOF' 789F3E220000010B800100230000003230303039443837383830286129676F647A696C6C612E6C 69622E7064782E65647500A10A @EOF chmod 660 02uca16 rm /tmp/unpack$$ exit 0 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 09:55:30 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Dan Kniesner Subject: Multiple versions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain There is a post on Autocat today that illustrates the need for a resolution in AACR2 of at least some multiple version problems. The problem referred to on Autocat is whether a computer program that comes on 5.25-inch floppies needs a separate bib record from an existing record that refers to the same program on 3.5-inch floppies. Less than ten years ago, it was common to be able to order a program from a software company in either 5.25-inch or 3.5-inch (just specify when ordering). Later it became common to specify between 3.5-inch double-density and 3.5-inch high density. Today we can specify between 3.5-inch high density (many disks) or one CD-ROM. Why do we need two records in an international database like OCLC for these? October 15, 1997 Dan Kniesner Oregon Health Sciences University Library Portland, Oregon Internet: kniesner@ohsu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 15:18:47 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Thom Saudargas, CCLA" Subject: Some general comments I have been reading posts to this list for some time now and will finally add some brief comments since I have time as I am recupurating from some leg and knee surgery. Nothing like being immobilized and on pain medication to let one catch up! 1) The Conference & the papers What a mix! I am not sure what can or will be accomplished. I keep getting a fruit salad view of the conference--mixing apples (the code), oranges (MARC) and coconuts (OPACs) together with some pineapple (HTML, SGM, Metadata, etc.) Having read the papers more than one time, the paper that strikes me as the one that presents a strong and clear case for revision is the Hirons and Graham paper on seriality. The concepts and ideas they put forth are long overdue. Their models for incorporating change are also well documented and thought out. I have a strong belief that the cataloging code should be independent of any other code that is used to implement it it. In other words the code could be applied to MARC, SGML, whatever the platform chosen. It would be liking writing a software program that would only run on a particular operating system--not much sense in this true era of globalization. As others have noted in posts to this and other lists the development or revision of a code independent of ISBD is certainly short sighted in today's reality of internalization. I personally have a strong bias against legalistic rule making and am a firm believer in "cataloger's judgement" based on a prescriptive code. I like interpretive supplemental materials to the code to be issued independently to the code. 2) Multi-tier approach to works, etc. I like the concept of a "work record" with manifestations linked to it. I certainly endorse this concept as express by the IFLA FRBR papaer. MARC certainly could accomodate this by restructuring the holdings record to accomodate the fields for descriptive elements currently in the bibliographic format. Linking fields to other records could also be accomodated within the holdings record. (If we can use an 856 in a bib record why not a 260 or 300 in a holdings record?) I envision implementation of this approach at the local level where more sophisticated programming would filter the designated fields out from an imported MARC record from a utility or system that had a unified work/manifestation bibliographic record and automatically put them into the holdings record. I certainly agree with those comments that users are not served from overwhelming hit lists, etc in the online environment but is that a failure of AACR2, MARC or local system implementations? And does that perceived failure really call for inherent restructuring, revision or just more sophisticated software? I am teaching advanced cataloging this fall. My students have certainly come to see that cataloging can be where the action is! _________________________________ Thom Saudargas Library Applications Specialist for Technical Services College Center for Library Automation 1238 Blountstown Highway Tallahassee,Fl 32304 Voice: (904)922-6044 Fax: (904)922-6431 Internet:thom@ccla.lib.fl.us ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 22:11:27 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Arlene Taylor Subject: Re: Some general comments In-Reply-To: <971015151847.2040bb4c@lincc.ccla.lib.fl.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 15 Oct 1997, Thom Saudargas, CCLA wrote: > > I am teaching advanced cataloging this fall. My students have certainly come > to see that cataloging can be where the action is! > > _________________________________ My students also are learning that there is action in cataloging! Tonight we discussed the principles for choice of access points, and they and I both wonder why we still have the "magic 3" rule in this era when the number of multiple authors is increasing. Especially distressing is the description rule that says to record only the first of 4 or more authors [contributors] and then to represent the others with et al. As a result these authors cannot even be searched by keyword. Has this been discussed in this forum and I just missed it? If so, I apologize. But I really do think this needs attention. We also discussed the fact that series titles are controlled in authority files, but serial titles are controlled in bibliographic files. Does this really make sense? **************************************************** Arlene G. Taylor ** Associate Professor Department of Library and Information Science School of Information Sciences University of Pittsburgh ** Pittsburgh, PA 15260 e-mail: taylor@lis.pitt.edu ** voice: 412-624-9452 fax: 412-648-7001 ** http://www.pitt.edu/~agtaylor **************************************************** "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly." --Richard Bach ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 23:27:17 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model (fwd) Comments: To: Pam Deemer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:49 13/10/97 -0400, Pam Deemer wrote: >It is very hard to let go of old paradigms for cataloging when you still >have physical items to arrange on shelves and patrons who still expect to >browse those shelves. The Library of Congress classification for P is >based largely on author main entry. Ah yes, shelving the collection... In general, we probably agree as follows: 1. a. We've got to get it off the floor. b. Everything has to be somewhere. c. It's nice to be able to browse, so if we can afford the room, let's put similar stuff together. 2. a. Shelving is linear, while knowledge (and fantasy) are multidimensional. b. Thus shelving can show only one linear set of linkages (among many possible conceptual links) and browsing is never going to be all that efficient. c. The serious searcher is going to have to consult the OLPAC from time to time, unless his/her needs and thought patterns are completely congruent with Dewey, UDC, the LC classification, or whatever scheme we are using. So the problem is call numbers. We are stuck with our classification, whatever it is (outside the scope of AACR). We can construct the next element ('book number'? 'cutter number'?) on the basis of author's name (or corporate responsible) and title, and add a date to sequence editions. We can manipulate this basic scheme to shelve commentaries beside (following) the various editions, translations etc. of an original work. All this we do; all this we can do just as well if we have never heard of a 'main entry'. Indeed, for commentaries on works that do not have their own class numbers, we may well 'cutter' commentaries according to their subject, before or rather than their authors, though the authors names currently lead off the main entry for such commentaries. And did everyone stop grouping works of corporate bodies together when those entities lost their 'main entry' status? At present we instruct our staff: "'Cutter' for the main entry unless it is more reasonable to do something else". Is that an easier or more productive rule to apply than simply saying: "'Cutter' for the first author unless it is more reasonable to do something else"? (Of course in either case one then goes into details, but this isn't the place for them.) Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 23:16:03 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Spanhoff's model (fwd) In-Reply-To: <199710160327.XAA01876@mail0.tor.acc.ca> from "Marianne Vespry" at Oct 15, 97 11:27:17 pm Content-Type: text I'm so glad that Marianne has definitively informed us about the nature of knowledge and fantasy. Epistemology is in safe hands. --ralph p. Marianne Vespry said > > 2. a. Shelving is linear, while knowledge (and fantasy) > are multidimensional. > Marianne Vespry > vespry@ican.net > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 23:27:59 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Some general comments In-Reply-To: from "Arlene Taylor" at Oct 15, 97 10:11:27 pm Content-Type: text Hello. As I train interns and staff in music cataloging (including book cataloging), one very odd situation is the rule of 2 as applied to physical description (as opposed to the magic 3 in other cases). It's fascinating to me that the rules (except by option) and tradition feel a need for fairly elaborate physical description of a single volume item (xxxi, 454, [203] p. : ill., ports. ; 34 cm.), but as soon as you hit two or more that need disappers ( v. : ill, ports. ; 34 cm.). For many a year, I have found this to be odd. It becomes odder when trying to instruct somebody: "this is what you do if you have one volume, but if you have two or more, it's much easier." But I have no good explanation for why this occurs. If the professors of cataloging listening could explain this phenomenon I would certainly appreciate hear the explanation. It may be an area that the conferees will want to address. We could do some really nifty simplification is every single vol. book was described as: 1 v. (That would be a corollary to describing every two vol. set as 2 v.) --ralph p. -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 23:13:15 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Pagination of multiple volumes Comments: To: papakhi@INDIANA.EDU In-Reply-To: <9710160428.AA22326@browndwarf.ucs.indiana.edu> > As I train interns and staff in music cataloging (including >book cataloging), one very odd situation is the rule of 2 as applied >to physical description (as opposed to the magic 3 in other cases). >It's fascinating to me that the rules (except by option) and tradition >feel a need for fairly elaborate physical description of a single >volume item (xxxi, 454, [203] p. : ill., ports. ; 34 cm.), but as >soon as you hit two or more that need disappears Not quite. One is instructed to add the pagination if the volumes are continuously paged (AACR2 2.5B20), and one may do so even if not (2.5B21). We add the pagination if reported by the client, which most do. The fact that most libraries do not practice this excellent option is yet another example of the slavish adherence to LCRIs even when the result does not serve patron needs. The rules don't need changing. Just the LCRI or our uncritical acceptance of it. Gorman's suggestion concerning LCRIs is very relevant here. Both the British Library and the National Library of Canada observe the rule selectively. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 08:47:18 +0600 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Celine Noel Subject: Re: Multiple versions In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think this is an OCLC decision and is perhaps based on libraries' practical need for records that require minimal local editing rather than being based on the rules. I recently had the same question in regard to electronic texts using different markup schemes (e.g., SGML vs. HTML) and found in AACR2R's glossary a good definition of what constitutes an edition for computer files: "Edition: Computer files. All copies embodying essentially the same content and issued by the same entity." Celine Noel Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cnoel@unc.edu *************************************************************************** On Wed, 15 Oct 1997, Dan Kniesner wrote: > There is a post on Autocat today that illustrates the need for a resolution in > AACR2 of at least some multiple version problems. > > The problem referred to on Autocat is whether a computer program that comes on > 5.25-inch floppies needs a separate bib record from an existing record that > refers to the same program on 3.5-inch floppies. > > Less than ten years ago, it was common to be able to order a program from a > software company in either 5.25-inch or 3.5-inch (just specify when ordering). > Later it became common to specify between 3.5-inch double-density and 3.5-inch > high density. Today we can specify between 3.5-inch high density (many disks) > or one CD-ROM. > > Why do we need two records in an international database like OCLC for these? > > October 15, 1997 > Dan Kniesner > Oregon Health Sciences University Library > Portland, Oregon > Internet: kniesner@ohsu.edu > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 09:23:38 +0600 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Celine Noel Subject: Collective uniform titles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Since this discussion will soon be overtaken by the conference itself, I need to bring up for discussion one of my least favorite cataloging practices, yes, the use of uniform titles such as "Works. 1997." and the one currently on my desk: Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. [Novels. French. Selections] The problem is compounded in online systems where brief first displays from an author search usually list only the 240 uniform title without the 245 title page title beneath it as cards did, and without doubling back to list both the 240 and the 245 titles alphabetically in the title list, as one might expect from an online system. In the worst situation, that of using these collective uniform titles for ongoing sets, we have the heading: Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. Works. French. 1992 to serve the user looking for vol. 6 of his "Oeuvres" published by Gallimard in 1996. I realize that you can create some cross-referencing with the authority record but why are we doing this at all? Is there any field of knowledge or type of publication for which these collective uniform titles are important or even useful? Celine Noel Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cnoel@unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 14:20:24 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: M J Ridley Subject: Re: Hitlist without main entry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > From: Celine Noel [ stuff about OCLC Intercat database of Internet resources cut] > > For those interested in the BOPAC2 mentioned in Martha Yee's recent post, > the URL is in footnote 5 of Mick Ridley's paper > (http://www.comp.brad.ac.uk/research/database/bopac2.html). There is an > interesting description of the project but there don't seem to be any > actual records or displays available. This is indeed the case, the URL is for information on the project, and I apologise for the fact that its not up to date (after Toronto I hope !). We hadnt publised the URL or encouraged people to make links to it for a number of reasons including, the software is still under development its a research project not a service and we have to consider loading issues although in the longer run we are keen to make it more available some of the servers we have been using are not publicly available but we were allowed access for testing purposes As Fred Ayres has said we are happy to send the URL and evaluators notes to interested parties and would be very interested in any feedback. A version with an online questionaire is just being prepared. For those who are interested but cant run Java, we intend to produce a version of the project report that is available on the WWW and which will include screen shots etc so that you can see what it looks like. Mick Ridley > > Celine Noel > Univ. of North Carolina > at Chapel Hill > cnoel@unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 07:21:06 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: BOPAC2 URL Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I was able to get into the catalog itself, search it, and view the results at the following site: http://www.bopac2.comp.brad.ac.uk/~bopac2/htdocs/evaluate/shtml However, Mick, et al. (M.J.Ridley@comp.brad.ac.uk) may prefer that you ask them for permission before visiting the site so that they can be sure to administer their questionnaire? Martha Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) "I have always imagined Paradise to be a kind of library." --Jorge Luis Borges. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 11:01:45 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Pamela Simpson Subject: Series In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Arlene G. Taylor wrote: >We also discussed the fact that series titles are controlled in authority >files, but serial titles are controlled in bibliographic files. Does >this really make sense? I have been thinking about this for some time. When the LC proposal to stop doing series work was being discussed, several of us in NSDP discussed the idea of NSDP serial bib records for series serving as a kind of de facto authority record, at least for form of heading. As everyone who catalogs knows, having two files for series control often results in conflicting treatment. This seems to happen when one volume in a series makes it was to Serial Record at LC and gets treated as a serial, then another makes its way to a mono cataloging team and is treated a different way, presumably because either the serial cataloger or the mono cataloger forgot to search the other file or did not find the record when he searched. At Penn State we do not have an authority module in our online system. Series authority decisions are still in a card file. Our opac reflects a long standing policy of cataloging series EITHER as a serial OR as analytics, but not as both. A couple of years ago we investigated the possibility of creating serial bibliographic records in the bib file for all series, even the ones we analyze, and recording treatment decisions in a local note that could be suppressed from the public. Public service librarians expressed concern about the inclusion of records for series that were classed separately and the potential for confusion their presence might cause, but were generally pleased with the idea for classed together series. For various reasons we have not implemented this idea on a large scale, though we do it on a case by case basis to solve certain problems. But I really like the idea of having the series records in the same file and in the same format as serial bibliographic records. It seems to me that systems which check series headings against authority records and make corrections could be programmed to do this from serial bib records. I often encounter a lack of understanding among library staff and some mono cataloging librarians that monographic series are in fact serials. There seems to be a belief among them that the decision to analyze means that the series is not a serial. This lack of understanding results in mistakes and discrepancies in the catalog and the series authority file when mono catalogers set up series authority records or input analytic records but do not understand the seriality of the series. *********************************** Pamela Simpson Serials and Electronic Resources Cataloging Librarian E506 Pattee Library The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-1805 (814) 865-1755 Fax: (814) 863-7293 p2s@psulias.psu.edu *********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 11:28:05 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Convienence of the Public ... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thursday, October 16, 1997 It seems to me that the reason for giving descriptive data in the original script wherever practicable (rule 1.0E1)--so catalog users will recognize the desired item when they see it--is equally valid for access points. Catalogs of some Anglo-American libraries with collections in other scripts that do not rely on manual filers can present readers access points that they will recognize. The rules could permit both vernacular access points and romanized access points for those who prefer them. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 08:37:12 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Collective uniform titles Comments: To: cnoel@EMAIL.UNC.EDU In-Reply-To: > > Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. > Works. French. 1992 >I realize that you can create some cross-referencing >with the authority record but why are we doing this at all? Is there any >field of knowledge or type of publication for which these collective >uniform titles are important or even useful? In my 43 years of cataloguing, no. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 09:20:14 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: 0.29 Comments: To: "J. McRee Elrod" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi All, Two recent messages have mentioned how AACR can limit common sense (pagination for multi-vols, multiple authors). Yet I think we all agree that cataloger's judgment should be encouraged for what's needed for good access. I believe AACR does account for this. 0.29 reads: "Rule 1.0D contains a specification of three levels of description. Consider each of these levels as a minimum. When appropriate, add further information to the required set of data." I tend to interpret this very literally and add access and description when I feel it's necessary (including adding the 5th author's name and an access point, etc.). Perhaps this text should be made more prominent, to use an AACR term? Or am I applying it incorrectly? Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 12:13:34 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "John D. Byrum" Subject: Electronic Resources: Editions Comments: cc: Ann Fox MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The recently published ISBD(ER) gives this advice re subject above: "An edition occurs when there are significant differences in the intellectual or artistic content of the resources, including additions and deletions; a difference in the programming language; changes to upgrade or improve the efficiency of the resource; modifications in the programming language or operating sysem that allow the resource to be compatible with other machines and operating systems. Differences that do not consitute a new edition include: a difference in the type of physical carrier...and/or of the physical carrier...;differences in printer-related file formats...; differences in system-related formats...;differences relating to the character code or to blocking or recording densities; differences in the output medium or display format....Normally differences that do not constitute a new edition do not warrent the creation of a separate bibliographic record, although the bibliographic agency may choose to create multiple bibliographic records." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^ John D. Byrum, Jr. ^^ ^^ Chief, Regional & Cooperative Cataloging Division ^^ ^^ Library of Congress LM-535 ^^ ^^ Washington, D.C. 20540-4380 LL ^^ ^^ LL CCC ^^ ^^ (202) 707-6511 LL CC CC ^^ ^^ FAX (202) 707-2824 LLLLLLLL ^^ ^^ CC CC ^^ ^^ jbyr@loc.gov CCC ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 16:47:05 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: The "bib" word MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thursday, October 16, 1997 Last week while my PC had a lobotomy (replaced the hard disk actually) there were several messages on the topic: What is AACR's role in defining a bibliographic record? Having been advised that I used "sorting" where "filing" was preferable I'd like to say a few words for making a distinction between "bibliographic" and "cataloging" though it is not a problem in AACR. AACR's definition of a catalog says it is a reflection of a collection. AACR thus defines the catalog record. The bibliographic record is best left to bibliographers. A catalog record traditionally tells you where to find an item. A bibliographic record need not do so. The International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) has, I suspect contributed to the loose use of both words. The ISBDs had their origin in a study by Michael Gorman of various national bibliographies. These bibliographies do not have call numbers because they only tell you an item exists, not where you can find it. The possibility of including records for electronic resources not in a library's collection in its catalog may I fear further muddy this useful distinction. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 00:46:55 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:38 14/10/97 -0700, Daniel CannCasciato wrote: >I'd argue two points: Constructing additional author-title access points >(if needed) is more time consuming (and variable) than creating an >authority record and assigning a main entry. By all means, let us have an authority record (sorry if I wasn't clear about it, but I was not going to re-invent the entry for 'Hamlet' every time I added another edition or commentary or other related work). >NAR > Pancetta, Italo. Cucina italiana. English > Pancetta, Italo. Italian cooking > Pancetta, Italo. Italian kitchen > ... > >BIB > Pancetta, Italo. > Cucina italian. English > The Italian kitchen > ... Maybe this is a separate question, but : Isn't original language title as "main entry" over-kill for most of our patrons? The translation exists because the whole world doesn't read the original; I'm looking for it in English because I can't read Russian or Czeck or Khmer or Inuit, and I would not recognize the title if presented in any of those or hundreds of other languages. In an author-title display or listing, why not display/print first the title that's in the same language as the text? For a prolific author, leading with the original title would get messy, and put translated titles out of the alphabetical order that the user who wants the translations would expect. If we don't have main entries, but instead have translated titles and original language titles (tagged as such), our author-title displays/listings can go directly to the title in the same language as the text. (Someone in this group was saying that it was important to their patrons to be able to go from the author to the title they expected with nothing between?) The original-language title would be displayed as well, and the presence of an 'original-language title' entity could trigger display of a general note advising patrons that they could check under that original title to find whether the library had versions in any other langages. An alternate format could be available for the scholarly or the polyglot user who preferred to have the original language come up first in a display and have priority in sorting a list. >[I've got to start eating breakfast.] [I've got to stop staying up into the wee small hours to argue about main entries.] Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 00:46:53 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 23:15 13/10/97 -0400, J. McRee Elrod wrote: >The concept of authorship in our >society has been getting stronger at least since the Renaissance; we >would be mistaken to depart from it. Agreed! >No great time is required to >select the single author of a monograph as the primary access point for >that work. Agreed. No professional time at all; a clerk can do it. I'm just not sure what we have gained when we have done it. Access points become 'primary' when someone retrieves on them, or uses a format (on-screen or printed) beginning with that access point. >The time spent establishing the form of the name is the >same, whether it be as main entry or not. Agreed. Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 21:54:05 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Suggested recommendations for future development MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello All, as someone who has suggested that improvements to facilitate use of AACR should be made, I thought that I should at least follow through with some suggestions. I'll focus on AACR as a tool for use. My recommendations address the issues: ease of use, the cooperative cataloging environment, and current production technology. I am one who does not feel AACR should be changed to address current OPAC technology per se, but the work environment and the production technology utilized is something I feel we should take advantage of. EASE OF USE: 1) Move all instructions regarding cross references to Chapter 26, rather than having them placed throughout the code 2) Make a clear statement of how somewhat conflicting rules are to be applied. Example, headings for animals as authors (Sneaky Pie Brown, etc.) (21.4C1 versus 21.29C & 21.2D) 3) When proscribing a practice, always include an illustrative example COOPERATIVE CATALOGING: 4) Make Ch. 25 (Uniform titles) mandatory for full level description, rather than optional. This recognizes the shared environment and differing workflows that many libraries have depending on level of description of cataloging copy. A full level record w/out a uniform title is problematic to many of us. [I forsee a fair amount of loathing for this idea.] 5) Systematically review and incorporate appropriate RI's, (LC's and others) into AACR as an ongoing, pro-active measure. 6) Provide a statement of catalog objectives in 0.1. Indicate that any system failing to support these objectives (and utilize the work of thousands of catalogers) is failing to be a catalog. CURRENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY: 7) Re-evaluate AACR to utilize and acknowledge current technology Examples: -- Provide full reference structure in authority records, as a means of utilizing the computer as a patron (for automated auth. control, for example. Cf. CCC Task Groups recommendations). Allow for inclusion of old catalog entry forms, whether in LC or not, AACR compatible or not, etc. Allow direct entry reference for subordinate units, e.g.: Ad-Hoc Cataloging Committee (Central Washington University) see Central Washington University. Ad-Hoc Cataloging Committee Brief rationale: This is suggested as a way to acknowledge the computer as a user, so to speak, of our catalog, and to facilitate automated authority control. While there is some cost associated with the existence of these references in authority records, I believe it would be more than offset by the improved verification of headings in libraries. -- Require contents notes for full-level description of multivolume collections (Novels, Works, etc. Conference pubs too?) Current production technology makes this more easily doable than it was in the past, manual, environment. -- 21.6B & 21.6C2 Number of author tracings and description in statement of responsibility (remove current limitations, perhaps having none). Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 22:01:12 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Comments: To: Marianne Vespry In-Reply-To: <199710170446.AAA26901@mail0.tor.acc.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 17 Oct 1997, Marianne Vespry wrote: ... > In an > author-title display or listing, why not display/print first the title > that's in the same language as the text? The main reason is that the collocation function is then lost. For example, all the various published titles of Dante's Divine Comedy. This is really a display issue, I think, as you alluded to. Possibly with good software you should be able to have the published titles collocate by original title, then list and display alphabetically within language groups. So far we have software programmers who barely recognize the uniform title. The other issue is why we accept a two line display in the first place. Perhaps all catalog software should be like the old Apple Hypercards? Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 10:47:26 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Kevin M. Randall" Subject: Re: Suggested recommendations for future development Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think Daniel CannCasciato makes some *wonderful* recommendations for improving AACR, and I heartily endorse his posting, with exceptions or other comments noted below: >1) Move all instructions regarding cross references to Chapter 26, >rather than having them placed throughout the code I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this one. Another approach I would want to see considered is moving the parts of Chapter 26 that relate to other chapters, e.g. move the parts of 26.2 dealing with names of persons only to Chapter 22. >3) When proscribing a practice, always include an illustrative >example What exactly does this mean? Does it mean to give a "[correct example], not [incorrect example]" example? (Or is this supposed to be "prescribing" instead of "proscribing"?) At any rate, I'm always in favor of examples! >COOPERATIVE CATALOGING: > >4) Make Ch. 25 (Uniform titles) mandatory for full level description, >rather than optional. > > This recognizes the shared environment and differing workflows >that many libraries have depending on level of description of cataloging >copy. A full level record w/out a uniform title is problematic to many of >us. [I forsee a fair amount of loathing for this idea.] I too think this would generate lots of heat. (Gee, I wonder why??) But I would fully support it. Perhaps we need to revisit the levels. Maybe the First level could be redefined as a kind of "Minimal" level, the Second as "Core" level, and the third as a new kind of "Full" level that requires some of the things that are now optional. Records at Minimal and Core could each contain more than is strictly required, but just couldn't be named Core and Full, respectively. Would such redefinition like this require new USMARC codes to eliminate confusion with earlier standards? (Or maybe, instead, the next revision of AACR will itself require a new USMARC code.) >5) Systematically review and incorporate appropriate RI's, (LC's and >others) into AACR as an ongoing, pro-active measure. Or maybe even get rid of RIs, and have instead a quicker, more ongoing mechanism for AACR revision. Although I do see some value in having the RIs as a "testing ground" for rule revision. >6) Provide a statement of catalog objectives in 0.1. Indicate that any >system failing to support these objectives (and utilize the work of >thousands of catalogers) is failing to be a catalog. Wow, pretty strong. I'm undecided on this one. Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 10:47:24 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Kevin M. Randall" Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:46 AM 10/17/97 -0400, Marianne Vespry wrote: >By all means, let us have an authority record (sorry if I wasn't clear about >it, but I was not going to re-invent the entry for 'Hamlet' every time I >added another edition or commentary or other related work). Now I'm really confused. Do you mean that there should be an authority record for each possible variation that should be an access point in the bib record? Or one authority record to contain all of those possible access points? If you are creating an added entry for a related work that has two authors, would there be one or two authority records for that related work? >If we don't have main entries, but instead have translated titles >and original language titles (tagged as such), our author-title >displays/listings can go directly to the title in the same language >as the text. (Someone in this group was saying that it was important >to their patrons to be able to go from the author to the title they >expected with nothing between?) The original-language title would >be displayed as well, and the presence of an 'original-language title' >entity could trigger display of a general note advising patrons that >they could check under that original title to find whether the library >had versions in any other langages. An alternate format could be >available for the scholarly or the polyglot user who preferred to have >the original language come up first in a display and have priority in >sorting a list. Perhaps this would be fine if we were talking only about author/title catalogs. (But even then I have very, very serious doubts.) Where the problem becomes obvious is in subject access. Works *about* a given work are not going to be gathered together. The user will have to search each and every possible translated version of the original work's title in order to be sure all of the works about the work have been found. Much, much simpler to have a uniform access point to gather them together in one step. Unless, of course, the argument is made to have subject access points for *both* the translated title and the original language title (as the argument seems to be in regard to author/title access points). To that I would respond: Then why stop there? Why not just do away with authority records and put all possible versions of the authors and titles into every bib record, so that--since they're all "equal access points"--we won't be discriminating against any of them. (And then, heaven help the person who has to use that catalog...) >>[I've got to start eating breakfast.] > >[I've got to stop staying up into the wee small hours to argue about main >entries.] No comment. ;) Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 10:53:21 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Greg Wool Subject: Toward a metadata standard Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Can AACR be reconceptualized as a metadata standard? Serious consideration of this question is what I would love to see coming = out of the Toronto conference. I*m afraid I*ve been, so far, too busy to = read the papers (aside from a draft of the Graham/Hirons paper that I was = privileged to review), but I*ve seen nothing on this list or elsewhere to = indicate that it*s on--or even near--the table. There have been postings, = though, from folks such as Frieda Rosenberg and Daniel CannCasciato = suggesting that the question may have crossed their minds as well. Let me try to make clear, as briefly as I can, what it is I*m getting at: Digitalization has turned the catalog record into a set of data elements = which can be truncated, rearranged, and marked up in many different ways = for display purposes. The current cataloging code makes neither explicit = nor implicit acknowledgement of this fact. Instead, it presents itself as = a set of instructions for creating first, a structured bibliographic = description (Area 1, Area 2, etc.) and second, the standardized index = entries essential for access in card files. In the online environment, = catalogers use this code--with considerable effectiveness, it must be = admitted--to create the discrete data elements that comprise their online = records.=20 So if it ain*t broke, why fix it? Well, if you look closely, you may see = a number of weak spots and stress fractures. For instance, AACR2 = presupposes the separation of description and access. On cards the = descriptive data and the access points (with a couple of exceptions) are = physically as well as functionally separate; in online displays they are = often blended together so that all are description, while many descriptive = elements (e.g. publisher name) are being indexed by catalog software. In = some quarters the fact that many data elements are recorded twice (in = transcribed and normalized forms) is now seen as a problem; as a result, = online catalogs often display the normalized form and hide the transcribed = form. If it won*t be displayed, what reason is left for recording it? =20 Labels are a problem. They are neither mentioned nor alluded to (let = alone prescribed or regulated=21) in the code, but they are inescapable--an= d very prominent--in the bib records people see online. Actually, they = function as patron-friendly surrogates for the MARC tags that are the = names catalogers know their data by these days. Unfortunately there is no = standardization of either the labels themselves or how they are applied, = forcing people to relearn how to read a catalog record each time they use = a new library (as Mac Elrod has repeatedly pointed out). =20 The labels represent data categories, categories created ad hoc by each = library from those implicit in MARC tagging, which in turn either identify = or consolidate categories set up by the code. Some of these categories, = however, are not user-friendly. What is a *name access point,* for = instance? Catalogers know the concept and its function, and can recognize = the data it covers on a card or elsewhere. But since the concept is = meaningless to library users, it is represented online by the label = *Author,* which denotes a different, if overlapping, concept. Bibliographi= c data are frequently misrepresented as a result (e.g., festscrift = dedicatees and defendants in court cases credited as authors). It is no mere coincidence that a record in an online catalog appears as a = list of attributes (the labels) and values (the data). Today*s catalog = record is modular, a set of elements selected and repackaged in a = multitude of combinations for display. And those combinations are not all = the work of the libraries owning the records. Z39.50-based remote = searching offers a common interface to many catalogs, an interface defined = by the software the searcher is using rather than that of the remote = library. Your library has even less control over how its catalog data are = selected, categorized, arranged and labeled than you may realize=21 As the experience of typing a heading, structured description and = apparatus (the *tracings*) on a 3x5 card grows increasingly foreign to the = cataloging community, AACR2 with its implicit assumptions about structure, = data sequence, and the functional separation of descriptive data and = access points will become increasingly quaint and difficult for catalogers = (especially new catalogers) to understand (even though the rules themselves= --with a few minor exceptions--remain fundamentally sound and useful=21). = This has implications for training and use which more than make up for any = likely costs of well-thought-out change. I used to think AACR and MARC should be merged; now I believe their = functions are too distinct for that to be a good idea. What I would like = to see is AACR as a metadata standard--a set of definitions for the = bibliographic data elements libraries need to collect and share. It would = include functional links to other standards--e.g. MARC, LCSH, DDC, ISBD, = TEI, Dublin Core--for it would be a node in a larger standards network = that could dramatically improve access to recorded knowledge materials of = all kinds everywhere.=20 These data elements could be associated with works, editions, and/or = manifestations. *Main entry* could conceivably be a data category. = Everything that is possible under the present regime (whether or not we = have it yet) would be possible under a code for modular records, and a lot = of things on people*s wish lists would probably be easier to realize and = maintain. More to the point, though, a code for modular records (a *data = dictionary* code, if you will) offers the best hope of cataloging = simplification *with* data integrity, rather than *without* (which is the = prospect we face now). I know this must sound awfully blue-skyish for a lot of you, but concepts = are like that. A good starting point for trying to realize this one might = be the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records report. With best regards, Gregory Wool Monographs Cataloger Iowa State University Ames, Iowa USA gwool=40iastate.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 11:16:51 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Life of this list In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Is there any official life-span for this discussion list? Will discussion after the conference continue here, for awhile, or move to other lists (autocat, etc.)? This has been an enjoyable and educational process. My thanks to the JSC for making it possible. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 23:35:42 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Uniform title Comments: To: vespry@ICAN.NET In-Reply-To: <199710170446.AAA26901@mail0.tor.acc.ca> >Isn't original language title as "main entry" over-kill for most of >our patrons? The translation exists because the whole world doesn't >read the original Absolutely! The original language title as added entry is what my 50 customers want, without exception. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 23:33:26 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Use of main entry Comments: To: vespry@ican.net In-Reply-To: <199710170446.AAA26894@mail0.tor.acc.ca> >Agreed. No professional time at all; a clerk can do it. I'm just not >sure what we have gained when we have done it. Access points become >'primary' when someone retrieves on them, or uses a format (on-screen >or printed) beginning with that access point. We have established a unique way to refer to the work in added entries and single entry lists, without having to reinvent that wheel each time the need arises. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 15:13:19 +0600 Reply-To: hsi-chu bolick Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: hsi-chu bolick Subject: digest form MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear ListOwner, Please advise me if we can receive postings of this list in digest. Thanks. Hsi-chu Bolick UNC Chapel Hill ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 15:29:57 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "David P. Miller" Subject: Re: Life of this list I do hope that this list will continue for awhile after the conference -- certainly for discussion and debate of what comes from the conference itself. Are there really any other lists that are dedicated primarily to the cataloging code itself? I don't know of any. So I'd suggest keeping it alive for awhile. I also have found it very interesting -- I've hardly deleted a thing. (Also, I have a couple more things to say myself, but haven't had time to post them! ;-) David Miller Levin Library, Curry College Milton, MA dmiller@curry.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 20:48:18 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stephen Hearn Subject: Re: Toward a metadata standard Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Responding to Greg Wool: I've always thought AACR was a metadata standard, just a much more complex and highly evolved one than most. The distinction it makes between description and access serves separate needs (to clearly identify the item, and to provide diverse access to the item). These needs continue, regardless of the new capability to turn every bit of the record into searchable data, or to jumble the contents of the record to our hearts' content in our OPAC displays. The former doesn't amount to the kind of standardized access that AACR specifies in chapters 21-26, and the latter doesn't amount to the kind of standardized description that AACR chapters 0-12 provide. The data elements defined in AACR gain from being interrelated in a larger data structure, which is the AACR record. The thought that we would do better trying to construct a new record based on displays and searching capabilities in current OPACs seems farfetched to me, like trying to reconstruct the human figure based on a series of cubist portraits. More specifically, it's when AACR fails to distinguish description from access that we get into real trouble. The use of the title proper as both controlled and uncontrolled data (in the former case, when the title proper matches a controlled uniform title and substitutes for it) makes for serious indexing problems, since the filing hierarchy which results is missing a step (i.e., the item-identifying title proper after a work-identifying uniform title). Series statements which double as headings make descriptive data vulnerable to global updating capabilities. And the longing to turn such descriptive elements as place and publisher into more reliably searchable data elements, though understandable, would be better handled with the addition of a controlled, accessible field for them (authority work, anyone?) than by sacrificing their role in describing and identifying the item. The AACR record is a data structure does its job well, whether the format is cards or MARC, and even in most OPACs; but labelled OPAC displays are only shadows of the true form. We can make it better; but if anyone thinks we will get more uniformity in searching and display by dismantling the structure and retailing the data elements simply as do-it-yourself kits, well... Stephen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 00:23:36 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Challenge :reply to Papakhian Comments: To: Daniel CannCasciato Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 22:01 16/10/97 -0700, Daniel CannCasciato wrote: >On Fri, 17 Oct 1997, Marianne Vespry wrote: > >... >> In an >> author-title display or listing, why not display/print first the title >> that's in the same language as the text? > >The main reason is that the collocation function is then lost. My concern is that the collocation function may be preempting the location function. Supposing I run a public library in a Spanish- speaking country. Among my patrons are enthusiastic readers of Isaac Asimov's works, as translated into Spanish. Will it help them to display the titles in English rather than Spanish alphabetical order? Will it help the person who wants the motorcycle maintenance manual to display the original language (e.g. Japanese) title first? As said, the citation should indeed include the original title. The searcher who then wishes to co-locate all versions could search on that title and retrieve them. But isn't the location search the general case, and the co-location search the exception? > For >example, all the various published titles of Dante's Divine Comedy. Again, this is scholarly fare -- how many of us have read more than one version? More than two? The literature major, the literature professor may want to see all versions. But outside the arts faculties -- in the social sciences, sciences, technology faculties -- is the co-location need primary? Is it primary in public libraries, special libraries? > This >is really a display issue, I think, as you alluded to. Yes. My original point was that we can display authors and titles, or authors and original-language titles, or any other combination of access points, without pre-awarding "main-entry" status to any particular access point. Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 22:20:33 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Uniform titles Comments: To: vespry@ICAN.NET In-Reply-To: <199710200423.AAA01946@mail0.tor.acc.ca> Concerning uniform titles in original languages, it was said that the reason for not omitting them is that ... >>The main reason is that the collocation function is then lost. > >My concern is that the collocation function may be preempting the >location function. Excellent point. My prime uses of a catalogue, and the prime uses of the catalogue by those for whom I create catalogues, is to locate a known item, to locate the writings of a particular author available in a known language, or to locate matrials on a given topic in a known language. None of these functions benefit from collocation. We find that the original title as 730 (added title entry) serves our users' needs better than as 130 or 240 (uniform title). Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 09:50:52 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Collocation vs. Location MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Sun, 19 Oct 1997 Mac wrote, in reply to postings of Dan CannCasciato and Marianne Vespry: > Concerning uniform titles in original languages, it was said that the > reason for not omitting them is that ... > > >>The main reason is that the collocation function is then lost. > > > >My concern is that the collocation function may be preempting the > >location function. > > We find that the original title as 730 (added title entry) serves our > users' needs better than as 130 or 240 (uniform title). > What OPAC software does with 130 and 240 as opposed to 730 is a matter of the OPAC software, not of the code. One might well specify to treat 130 and 240 in the same way as 730, if nothing else can be done. So then why not get rid of 130 and 240 altogether? For one, savings in terms of labor are as good as zero, because the labor is in establishing the contents, the uniform title, not in attributing it to this tag or that. But since we are, in principle, not talking about MARC tags in this list, the only question is, should the code make uniform titles in languages other than English mandatory or not? Or even: Should uniform titles as such be made optional and treated no different from added titles? It may well be the case that current OPAC software cannot properly handle location vs. collocation. It may also be true that many or most OPAC users never benefit from uniform title collocation. A decision for optional or even non-distinctive treatment of uniform titles as added entries would provincialize rather than internationalize the code. It would also mean to give up, for all future, the possibility of certain subarrangements under prolific authors. Since the functions of location and collocation serve very different needs (specific item search vs. non-specific search), it is only to be expected that the one sometimes stands in the way of the other. "Collocation" is nowhere mentioned in AACR, and neither are the objectives of the code on the whole. Will the conference feel the time ripe for decisions, and then make them? Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 03:16:44 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Uniform titles Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: from "J. McRee Elrod" at Oct 19, 97 10:20:33 pm Content-Type: text FWIW, i don't regard this as an excellent point. if mac means that "prime" equals "most" then we do not need any AACR or nor any cataloging RULES at all. all you need are three or four lines and that wouldn't really require code. i do not believe that catalog codes are written to accmodate the most basic and most frequent needs. but if i'm wrong, then it might be prudent to just call off the conference. --ralph p. J. McRee Elrod said > > Concerning uniform titles in original languages, it was said that the > reason for not omitting them is that ... > > >>The main reason is that the collocation function is then lost. > > > >My concern is that the collocation function may be preempting the > >location function. > > Excellent point. My prime uses of a catalogue, and the prime uses of > the catalogue by those for whom I create catalogues, is to locate a > known item, to locate the writings of a particular author available in a > known language, or to locate matrials on a given topic in a known > language. None of these functions benefit from collocation. > > We find that the original title as 730 (added title entry) serves our > users' needs better than as 130 or 240 (uniform title). > > Mac > > __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) > {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ > ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 11:27:52 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: UNICODE or bust! (fwd) Comments: cc: USMARC list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Monday, October 20, 1997 Of possible interest. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 15:39:34 -0700 (PDT) From: rpaynter@oregon.uoregon.edu Reply-To: acrl-aames@lyra.rlg.org To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: UNICODE or bust! Hi all, I was wondering if at the midwinter meeting AAMES could discuss a proposal I would like to bring forward; to wit, AAMES draft a letter to OCLC urging its support of UNICODE (making representation of non-roman characters in the bibliographic database possible). By way of background, as a member of CORMOSEA (Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia, Association for Asian Studies) and interested in Thai characters I have been conversing with OCLC Asia/Pacific Division about supporting Thai fonts. Recently they informed me that they could not undertake the project in the near term because of staff limitations and other pressing projects. Thus, PLAN B occured to me and I hope it will be more successful. PLAN B is to begin a campaign addressing OCLC Central and requesting that they adopt UNICODE, which encompasses all of the languages of the world. The strategy here is to persuade them that a piecemeal approach of adopting one non-roman code after another is not as attractive as doing all of them in one fell swoop! As many of the countries that we as AAMES committee members represent have non-roman script languages, I thought that I would ask and see if there is any interest in pursuing this shared goal. Sincerely, Robin Paynter University of Oregon Library ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 11:06:42 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Collocation vs. Location Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: from "Bernhard Eversberg" at Oct 20, 97 09:50:52 am Content-Type: text AACR may not use the word "collocation," but what could the following mean? 25.1A. A uniform title provides the means for bringing together all catalogue entires for a work when various manifestations (e.g. editions, translations) of it have appearred under various titles. .... "Bringing together" sounds an awful lot like "collocation." --ralph p. Bernhard Eversberg said ......... > > "Collocation" is nowhere mentioned in AACR, and neither are the > objectives of the code on the whole. Will the conference feel the time > ripe for decisions, and then make them? > > > Bernhard Eversberg > Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, > D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany > Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 > e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 08:40:28 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Gorman/Oddy Paper (fwd) Comments: To: JRIEMER@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU In-Reply-To: <971009.110447.EDT.JRIEMER@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU> >If it represents progress to see "an 'author' not necessarily >being coextensive with a person," how about considering corporate >bodies as authors again, basing the concept of authorship on taking >responsibility for a work? For those of you too young to remember the reduction in instances of corporate main entry, please allow me to remind you that one of the most time consuming parts of main entry choice was the deciding between corporate and personal main entry, and that one of the most frequent causes of duplicate bibliographic records was two catalogues making opposite decisions. I find the most frequent mistake now made in choice of main entry in deriving records is the entry of law reform commission "reports" under commission when they are really background papers with a personal author, and explicitly say the views expressed are not necessarily those of the commission. "Responsibility" in terms of corporate body does not seem to be an easy concept even now, and I want no more of it. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 08:51:39 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Toward a metadata standard Comments: To: GWOOL@GWGATE.LIB.IASTATE.EDU In-Reply-To: >Labels are a problem. Yes they are. The deconstruction of the ISBD in OPAC displays are the real cause of the "cracks" Greg observes in AACR. To say it yet again: displaying the ISBD/AACR/MARC record in the order prescribed by ISBD field/AACR practice/MARC tag number (except the foolish misnumbering in 5XX) without labels, would create intelligible displays. Every time I see a composer, an editor, a compiler, a translator, a Festschrift honoree, or a criminal case defendant displayed under the label "author", with no indication of the person's actual relationship to the work, it's all I can do to keep from picking up the monitor and throwing it on the floor!! Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:26:02 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: Life of this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I also hope this list will continue. Apart from its role in making the pre-conference discussion possible (thanks JSC) I hope there will be a good deal of follow-up, perhaps position papers and proposals to consider and refine. Cataloguing hasn't been so interesting for years. Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ---------- > From: Daniel CannCasciato > To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA > Subject: Life of this list > Date: 17 October 1997 19:16 > > Is there any official life-span for this discussion list? > > Will discussion after the conference continue here, for awhile, or move to > other lists (autocat, etc.)? > > This has been an enjoyable and educational process. My thanks to the JSC > for making it possible. > > Daniel > ------------------------------------------- > Daniel CannCasciato > Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans > Central Washington University Library > 400 East 8th Ave > Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 > 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) > dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:24:06 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: Toward a metadata standard MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- From: L-Soft list server at NLC-BNC (1.8c) To: Hal.Cain@ORMOND.UNIMELB.EDU.AU Subject: Rejected posting to AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Date: 20 October 1997 18:00 Greg Wool wrote: > > Can AACR be reconceptualized as a metadata standard? > Digitalization has turned the catalog record into a set of data elements which can be truncated, rearranged, and marked up in many different ways for display purposes. The current cataloging code makes neither explicit nor implicit acknowledgement of this fact. Instead, it presents itself as a set of instructions for creating first, a structured bibliographic description (Area 1, Area 2, etc.) and second, the standardized index entries essential for access in card files. > I think this is a dangerous approach to the bibliographic record. The bib record stands as a *whole*. The whole point of AACR2 is that it specifies the content of a *whole* record. The fact that the current generation of systems (both in use and under development) extracts various components, and may store them as tokens referring to other files for actual data, is merely one way of handling the data (and makes it meaningless unless reassembled). The AACR2 record is not a set of data elements, but a description of a bibliographic entity, with access points (headings) included. IMO that's one essential reason why there are unresolved problems about the description and handling of entities which are themselves either the components of othyer entities or themselves have components (another being the failure of USMARC, the commonest tool for coding AACR2 records, to come to grips with the problems likewise). > In the online environment, catalogers use this code--with considerable effectiveness, it must be admitted--to create the discrete data elements that comprise their online records. > As already suggested, I think this is standing the cataloguing process on its head. > So if it ain*t broke, why fix it? Well, if you look closely, you may see a number of weak spots and stress fractures. For instance, AACR2 presupposes the separation of description and access. On cards the descriptive data and the access points (with a couple of exceptions) are physically as well as functionally separate; in online displays they are often blended together so that all are description, while many descriptive elements (e.g. publisher name) are being indexed by catalog software. In some quarters the fact that many data elements are recorded twice (in transcribed and normalized forms) is now seen as a problem; as a result, online catalogs often display the normalized form and hide the transcribed form. If it won*t be displayed, what reason is left for recording it? > Because the sequence in which they are recorded is part of the means by which the meaning is made accessible. It also reflects a worthwhile move towards international standardization -- one which we, as a profession, have seriously compromised by not insisting on ISBD as the initial standard for OPAC displays (not necessarily for every sort of display, but at least the normal full-record display) -- we gave away ground here that had been largely won in card format. As for redundancy, that's mainly a matter of imperfect implementation of AACR2 by MARC and automated systems; it needs attention but isn't a primary issue. And intelligent input systems would help to deal with it at input anyway (like Mac's macro to copy title data into a 246 tag). Further, additional index access points (in fact elements such as place, publisher and date are most usually taken as limiting criteria in searching, rather than as searches in their own right; in the cases where the publisher also has some responsibility for the content or form, it seems to have become normal to recognize this with an added entry. > Labels are a problem. They are neither mentioned nor alluded to (let alone prescribed or regulated!) in the code, but they are inescapable--and very prominent--in the bib records people see online. Actually, they function as patron-friendly surrogates for the MARC tags that are the names catalogers know their data by these days. Unfortunately there is no standardization of either the labels themselves or how they are applied, forcing people to relearn how to read a catalog record each time they use a new library (as Mac Elrod has repeatedly pointed out). > Basically I'm with Mac about labels. At least the labels should be an option for selection, not an invariable feature of the display. If we must have labels, why not make them correspond with the ISBD areas? In the bells-and-whistles GUI environment we could make the various areas different colours, too. > The labels represent data categories, categories created ad hoc by each library from those implicit in MARC tagging, which in turn either identify or consolidate categories set up by the code. Some of these categories, however, are not user-friendly. What is a *name access point,* for instance? Catalogers know the concept and its function, and can recognize the data it covers on a card or elsewhere. But since the concept is meaningless to library users, it is represented online by the label *Author,* which denotes a different, if overlapping, concept. Bibliographic data are frequently misrepresented as a result (e.g., festscrift dedicatees and defendants in court cases credited as authors). > How true. We have succumbed to jargon, and upon realizing that fact we have retreated into bland generalization (an approach encouraged by naively reducing things to hierarchical categories). What we need are useful ways of distinguishing different roles. AACR2 makes no effective provision for this sort of distinction (other than segregating the main entry heading, if it is not the title proper) -- not every automated system makes use of that distinction -- and the commonest coding system, USMARC, has an imperfect set of codes for relators which not a few systems ignore anyway. > > It is no mere coincidence that a record in an online catalog appears as a list of attributes (the labels) and values (the data). Today*s catalog record is modular, a set of elements selected and repackaged in a multitude of combinations for display. And those combinations are not all the work of the libraries owning the records. Z39.50-based remote searching offers a common interface to many catalogs, an interface defined by the software the searcher is using rather than that of the remote library. Your library has even less control over how its catalog data are selected, categorized, arranged and labeled than you may realize! > Most of us are at the mercy of systems which, if they offer a choice, impose a cost in charges, staff time, or both, and cataloguers are not always the ones who have the say here anyway! > > As the experience of typing a heading, structured description and apparatus (the *tracings*) on a 3x5 card grows increasingly foreign to the cataloging community, AACR2 with its implicit assumptions about structure, data sequence, and the functional separation of descriptive data and access points will become increasingly quaint and difficult for catalogers (especially new catalogers) to understand (even though the rules themselves--with a few minor exceptions--remain fundamentally sound and useful!). This has implications for training and use which more than make up for any likely costs of well-thought-out change. > The sequence and separation are part of the standard presentation which gives users the means to recognize the meaning of what they are seeing. They are not purely arbitrary (at least to the extent that ISBD tries to apply the same conventions consistently across all media). > > I used to think AACR and MARC should be merged; now I believe their functions are too distinct for that to be a good idea. What I would like to see is AACR as a metadata standard--a set of definitions for the bibliographic data elements libraries need to collect and share. It would include functional links to other standards--e.g. MARC, LCSH, DDC, ISBD, TEI, Dublin Core--for it would be a node in a larger standards network that could dramatically improve access to recorded knowledge materials of all kinds everywhere. > That's a good practical step to making cataloguing work easier, but not an essential part of the AACR2 revision process. The more codes are brought into it, the longer it will all take. I want some results before I retire. > > I know this must sound awfully blue-skyish for a lot of you, but concepts are like that. A good starting point for trying to realize this one might be the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records report. > Isn't the FRBR a preliminary document itself? Let's use it as it is, if it helps, but not rely too heavily on it as yet. Overall, I am very concerned about two aspects of this suggestion. (1) I don't think that basic elements of metadata required for bibliographic entities are yet fully enough articulated, or stable enough, for a mature code to be successfully re-expressed in those terms (but I'm far from expert in this area, so I could be wrong). (2) The effort to do so would inevitably cut across the questions of revision of AACR2 in substance and/or in detail, and it would take years to sort out. If revision is a question in another 10 years, that may be soon enough to consider it then (if anyone is still talking about "metadata" then). Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:27:53 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: Suggested recommendations for future development MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It may be nice to have the provisions for cross-references throughout the ccode, where they apply, as well as in one coherent presentation. It would also be nice to have the present chapters (general and form/medium-specific) both separately and as an integrated document. In printed form it would probably be rather expensive. In electronic form it would be another matter. That would make it possible to see the definitions with the appropriate text, too. Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ---------- > From: Kevin M. Randall > To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA > Subject: Re: Suggested recommendations for future development > Date: 17 October 1997 16:47 > > I think Daniel CannCasciato makes some *wonderful* recommendations for > improving AACR, and I heartily endorse his posting, with exceptions or other > comments noted below: > > >1) Move all instructions regarding cross references to Chapter 26, > >rather than having them placed throughout the code > > I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this one. Another approach I would > want to see considered is moving the parts of Chapter 26 that relate to > other chapters, e.g. move the parts of 26.2 dealing with names of persons > only to Chapter 22. > > >3) When proscribing a practice, always include an illustrative > >example > > What exactly does this mean? Does it mean to give a "[correct example], not > [incorrect example]" example? (Or is this supposed to be "prescribing" > instead of "proscribing"?) At any rate, I'm always in favor of examples! > > >COOPERATIVE CATALOGING: > > > >4) Make Ch. 25 (Uniform titles) mandatory for full level description, > >rather than optional. > > > > This recognizes the shared environment and differing workflows > >that many libraries have depending on level of description of cataloging > >copy. A full level record w/out a uniform title is problematic to many of > >us. [I forsee a fair amount of loathing for this idea.] > > I too think this would generate lots of heat. (Gee, I wonder why??) But I > would fully support it. Perhaps we need to revisit the levels. Maybe the > First level could be redefined as a kind of "Minimal" level, the Second as > "Core" level, and the third as a new kind of "Full" level that requires some > of the things that are now optional. Records at Minimal and Core could each > contain more than is strictly required, but just couldn't be named Core and > Full, respectively. Would such redefinition like this require new USMARC > codes to eliminate confusion with earlier standards? (Or maybe, instead, > the next revision of AACR will itself require a new USMARC code.) > > >5) Systematically review and incorporate appropriate RI's, (LC's and > >others) into AACR as an ongoing, pro-active measure. > > Or maybe even get rid of RIs, and have instead a quicker, more ongoing > mechanism for AACR revision. Although I do see some value in having the RIs > as a "testing ground" for rule revision. > > >6) Provide a statement of catalog objectives in 0.1. Indicate that any > >system failing to support these objectives (and utilize the work of > >thousands of catalogers) is failing to be a catalog. > > Wow, pretty strong. I'm undecided on this one. > > > Kevin M. Randall > Head, Serials Cataloging Section > Northwestern University Library > Evanston, IL 60208-2300 > > email: kmr@nwu.edu > phone: (847) 491-2939 > fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:30:01 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: Suggested recommendations for future development MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Daniel CannCasciato wrote: > EASE OF USE: > > 1) Move all instructions regarding cross references to Chapter 26, > rather than having them placed throughout the code In a printed document it would be pretty expensive to do both consistently, so it would have to be one or the other (footnotes would help though). In html form, we could have both. > > 2) Make a clear statement of how somewhat conflicting rules are to be > applied. Example, headings for animals as authors (Sneaky Pie Brown, etc.) > (21.4C1 versus 21.29C & 21.2D) Examples, yes! Again, in the electronic form, lots of them. > > 3) When proscribing a practice, always include an illustrative > example > > > COOPERATIVE CATALOGING: > > 4) Make Ch. 25 (Uniform titles) mandatory for full level description, > rather than optional. > > This recognizes the shared environment and differing workflows > that many libraries have depending on level of description of cataloging > copy. A full level record w/out a uniform title is problematic to many of > us. [I forsee a fair amount of loathing for this idea.] > I agree with this too. > 5) Systematically review and incorporate appropriate RI's, (LC's and > others) into AACR as an ongoing, pro-active measure. > The difficulty here is that LCRIs aren't JSC's responsibility. A mechanism to keep such material within the framework of AACR itself would require resources. Are they available? All sorts of coordinating bodies have beeen cutting back their meeting schedules, reducing publication programmes, reducing staff; and both libraries and library organizations have been asking "who pays?". > 6) Provide a statement of catalog objectives in 0.1. Indicate that any > system failing to support these objectives (and utilize the work of > thousands of catalogers) is failing to be a catalog. Fair enough, we need it. > > > CURRENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY: > > 7) Re-evaluate AACR to utilize and acknowledge current technology Some reservations about this. I would prefer AACR to be written in terms of outcomes rather than detailed rules in this area. > > Examples: > > -- Provide full reference structure in authority records, as a means of > utilizing the computer as a patron (for automated auth. control, for > example. Cf. CCC Task Groups recommendations). Allow for inclusion of > old catalog entry forms, whether in LC or not, AACR compatible or not, > etc. Allow direct entry reference for subordinate units, e.g.: > Ad-Hoc Cataloging Committee (Central Washington University) > see > Central Washington University. Ad-Hoc Cataloging Committee > > Brief rationale: This is suggested as a way to acknowledge the computer > as a user, so to speak, of our catalog, and to facilitate automated > authority control. While there is some cost associated with the existence > of these references in authority records, I believe it would be more than > offset by the improved verification of headings in libraries. The authority records would have to include identification of the nature of non-preferred forms (pre-AACR2, pre-AACR, statement of responsibility, form as known, etc.). This would be useful but I doubt many records would be completed to this extent. A good intelligent editor could probably pull alternative forms straight from 245 $c with only a keystroke or two, though. > > -- Require contents notes for full-level description of > multivolume collections (Novels, Works, etc. Conference pubs too?) Yes (subject to the note below on record levels) > > Current production technology makes this more easily doable than > it was in the past, manual, environment. > > -- 21.6B & 21.6C2 Number of author tracings and description in > statement of responsibility (remove current limitations, perhaps having > none). > I *like* this at least as a permitted enhancement. Re record levels: Looking at existing practice and the literature of the last decade, I don't think that AACR2's 3 levels provide what we need. Level 1 finds little favour; level 2 is too detailed for many institutions; level 3 too elaborate for most; yet there is no provision for enhancements like Daniel's suggested additional author tracings and so on. I suggested a while ago that we now need specifications for a range which includes something like: (a) minimal; (b) core; (c) full; (d) enhanced. I also suggested that from a higher-level record it should be possible to construct a lower level, and I meant without human intervention. The means to be adopted to achieve this would have to depend on the data coding in use -- for USMARC the record levels would have to be fully recorded, and maybe a single character isn't sufficient for this purpose. The level should not be raised until *all* the requirements of the higher level had been met, but enhancements short of the higher level could be made (e.g. core record plus contents note). Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 10:54:50 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Collocation and Location/International standards, local needs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In response to Mac Elrod and Marianne Vespry regarding collocation and location, to me, these are complimentary functions: collocation supports the location function. The Dante example is illustrative of this point. If your patron is NOT interested in a particular edition, then having the various translations collocated allows for effective browsing to find a translation, regardless of variant published title, that is still in the library and not checked-out. Collocation isn't just supportive of scholars. It's to allow those of us who aren't scholars to find something we'd like to by the author we want. Also, for translations with widely differing translated titles, this can be a big help. Example: VISION, OR, HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE is a far cry (alphabetically) from Divine Comedy. By having them collocated, location is facilitated. For selections of poetry, this is also true. Possibly more functional, in fact, as many times it's not evident from the title whether you've got collections or selections or an individual volume completely translated. Thus, a patron looking for the poetry of Szymborska is aided by collocation. We might not have the title "View with a grain of sand", but we do have "Sounds, feelings, thoughts" and they display close to each other. Hard to miss. Now, on the local level, what you display to your patrons and in what order should be based on what serves them best. On the other hand, would location be limited, in practice, by a patron getting a display of Asimov's titles followed by the language identifier of Spanish? Is this truly a hinderance? Or just apparent overkill. One of the difficulties with the code is that it exists to help us all produce something that's functional in each others catalogs. So, we catalog in an environment of many millions of records, yet our local catalog is that of perhaps a million or two or less than that. When Mac writes: "We find that the original title as 730 (added title entry) serves our users' needs better than as 130 or 240 (uniform title)." I would in no way argue the point, just add that the international standard does not inhibit this procedure. Local software might require the tagging change, but it could (should) manipulate the display to your liking. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 14:08:49 +0600 Reply-To: Celine Noel Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Celine Noel Subject: Re: Toward a metadata standard In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Regarding labels, the Dublin Core metadata elements list (http://purl.org/metadata/dublin_core_elements) includes two elements pretty much corresponding to "main author" and "other" and is using these terms: ****************************** 2.Author or Creator Label: creator The person or organization primarily responsible for creating the intellectual content of the resource. For example, authors in the case of written documents, artists, photographers, or illustrators in the case of visual resources. 6.Other Contributor Label: contributor A person or organization not specified in a creator element who has made significant intellectual contributions to the resource but whose contribution is secondary to any person or organization specified in a creator element (for example, editor, transcriber, and illustrator). ********************** I like the "contributor" label. Do you think it helps? Also interesting is the fact that metadata lists seem to be preserving some distinction between major and other minor "authors". Celine Noel Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cnoel@unc.edu On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, J. McRee Elrod wrote: > >Labels are a problem. > > Yes they are. The deconstruction of the ISBD in OPAC displays are > the real cause of the "cracks" Greg observes in AACR. To say it yet > again: displaying the ISBD/AACR/MARC record in the order prescribed by > ISBD field/AACR practice/MARC tag number (except the foolish > misnumbering in 5XX) without labels, would create intelligible displays. > > Every time I see a composer, an editor, a compiler, a translator, a > Festschrift honoree, or a criminal case defendant displayed under the > label "author", with no indication of the person's actual relationship > to the work, it's all I can do to keep from picking up the monitor and > throwing it on the floor!! > > Mac > > __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) > {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ > ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:45:36 +0600 Reply-To: Frieda Rosenberg Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Frieda Rosenberg Subject: Re: Toward a metadata standard Comments: To: Hal Cain In-Reply-To: <199710201733.DAA28540@gateway.ormond.unimelb.edu.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > Digitalization has turned the catalog record into a set of data elements > which can be truncated, rearranged, and marked up in many different ways > for display purposes. <.....> > I think this is a dangerous approach to the bibliographic record. The bib > record stands as a *whole*. The whole point of AACR2 is that it specifies > the content of a *whole* record. The fact that the current generation of > systems (both in use and under development) extracts various components, > and may store them as tokens referring to other files for actual data, is > merely one way of handling the data (and makes it meaningless unless > reassembled). [Hal Cain] Insistence on seeing the data as useful in only one structure is, in my view, the dangerous, and limiting, path. Cataloging data should be capable of being imported into other data, e.g., folded into bibliographies, which themselves are formatted many different ways. Cataloging records should be capable of being sorted, e.g., by publisher/issuing body to reveal what proportion of a publisher's works are in the library (how successful would THAT be in a database where we often truncate the publisher?) Cataloging records should be capable of being displayed on future systems at the user's option, seeing the part or parts ("data elements") of the record that the user wants to see. Cataloging records should be capable of being manipulated and reformatted when we decide, in a future AACR Conference, that we want to change the way we describe works or their manifestations. In general, it's essential to assess the needs of future users or (as we have said so many times in the past) they will leave us behind for other options that are more flexible. The AACR2 record is not a set of data elements, but a > description of a bibliographic entity, with access points (headings) > included. The record we create is a great deal more than a description with access points. It forms part of a catalogue, and that forms part of, in effect, a world catalogue whose data elements, when sorted and manipulated, can tell us--at least if they contain enough distinctive content they can tell us--about our bibliographic universe. I'm sure this is not just "blue sky." It's part of our mission as recorders. Frieda Rosenberg Serials Cataloging University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 15:23:30 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Labels (was: Toward a metadata standard) Comments: To: cnoel@email.unc.edu In-Reply-To: >I like the "contributor" label. Do you think it helps? I'm not quite sure I see a criminal case defendant or a Festschrift honoree as a "contributor". I don't think there is a label which can truthfully be applied to every person in a 700. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 08:16:46 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Colloc. vs. Loc., Papakhian MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT In replying to my statement about AACR not mentioning "collocation", Ralph Papakhian wrote: > 25.1A. A uniform title provides the means for bringing together > all catalogue entires for a work when various manifestations (e.g. > editions, translations) of it have appearred under various titles. > .... > "Bringing together" sounds an awful lot like "collocation." It sure does, but rule 25.1A then goes on to make it a matter of policy of the "agency" whether or not to apply chapter 25 or parts of it. And uniform titles are not the only collocation tool a catalog can use or not use. What's needed, and what I was getting at, is a clear statement of objectives of a catalog, and prominently positioned. Not in an optional chapter where people (or just me?) tend to overlook it. LC's Thomas Mann recently wrote an article on subject cataloging ("Cataloging must change!" in: "Cataloging and Classification Quarterly" 23(1997)3/4, p.3-45) In his conclusions (p. 40-43) he asks, and this applies not just to subject cataloging, "..., if providing only 'some' access is acceptable, [...] then why can't we also eliminate geographic area codes? and country of publication codes? [...] Indeed, why not eliminate vocabulary control and authority work entirely?" And: "... if there is no understanding of the bedrock purpose of cataloging, then there is also no conceptual impediment to any number of future cuts in quality that still allow 'some' access while greatly speeding up 'production'." Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 01:21:19 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Collective uniform titles In-Reply-To: from "Celine Noel" at Oct 16, 97 09:23:38 am Content-Type: text The main purpose of uniform titles is to file, to "bring together" or to "collocate." Historically (as described in LC filing rules) the u.t.'s were marked in pencil by a cataloger or chief filer in the upper right hand corner of the card. The hand written filing instruction moved to a bracketed position under the main entry heading. This is not cold fusion. All we're trying to do is figure out where to put an entry in relation to other entries in a file. (Obviously, in systems that do not have the concept of "file" there are serious difficulties.) Collective u.t.'s (e.g. [Novels. French. Selections] [Sonatas, piano. Selections]) are used in order to file records for similar collections TOGETHER in a file. The purpose in this case is not in order to enable someone to find a known item. If you are surveying a collection for various works for piano by Grieg, you have some chance of finding miscellaneous collections filed together under [Piano music ....] [Sonatas, piano....] etc. These collective uniform title "bring together" similar publications in the file--the titles of the compilations are irrelevant in this case. The purpose is not for enabling known item searches. It's no big deal. Haven't you ever seen someone browsing in catalog? Looking for something they are not sure what? Collective uniform titles were meant to help that process a little, tiny bit. --ralph p. Celine Noel said > > > In the worst situation, that of using these collective uniform titles for > ongoing sets, we have the heading: > > Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. > Works. French. 1992 > > to serve the user looking for vol. 6 of his "Oeuvres" published by > Gallimard in 1996. I realize that you can create some cross-referencing > with the authority record but why are we doing this at all? Is there any > field of knowledge or type of publication for which these collective > uniform titles are important or even useful? > > Celine Noel > Univ. of North Carolina > at Chapel Hill > cnoel@unc.edu > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 01:24:00 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Pagination of multiple volumes Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: from "J. McRee Elrod" at Oct 15, 97 11:13:15 pm Content-Type: text Just curious. Do you add the pagination if there are 13 volumes? Any cutoff at all? --ralph p. J. McRee Elrod said > Not quite. One is instructed to add the pagination if the volumes are > continuously paged (AACR2 2.5B20), and one may do so even if not > (2.5B21). We add the pagination if reported by the client, which most > do. > > The fact that most libraries do not practice this excellent option is > yet another example of the slavish adherence to LCRIs even when the > result does not serve patron needs. > > The rules don't need changing. Just the LCRI or our uncritical > acceptance of it. Gorman's suggestion concerning LCRIs is very relevant > here. Both the British Library and the National Library of Canada > observe the rule selectively. > > Mac > > __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) > {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ > ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 09:36:11 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Pagination of multiple volumes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ralph Papakhian asked: > Just curious. Do you add the pagination if there are 13 volumes? Yes we do, even if there are 25 volumes or more. Every volume gets a linked subrecord, be it titled or not. In shared cataloging, every library then can add their location codes to every volume they own. (And this in turn makes interlibrary loan more precise.) For brevity, I refer back to my "Linking. Part 3" posting of last month. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 10:50:08 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: Toward a metadata standard Comments: cc: Frieda Rosenberg MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Frieda Rosenberg wrote (replying to my response to Greg Wool): > > > Digitalization has turned the catalog record into a set of data elements > > which can be truncated, rearranged, and marked up in many different ways > > for display purposes. <.....> [Greg Wool] > > > I think this is a dangerous approach to the bibliographic record. The bib > > record stands as a *whole*. The whole point of AACR2 is that it specifies > > the content of a *whole* record. The fact that the current generation of > > systems (both in use and under development) extracts various components, > > and may store them as tokens referring to other files for actual data, is > > merely one way of handling the data (and makes it meaningless unless > > reassembled). [Hal Cain] > > Insistence on seeing the data as useful in only one structure is, in my > view, the dangerous, and limiting, path. I am far from asserting that bibliographic data is useful only in one structure. But the context of our discussion is the revision of AACR2 which is the *primary* determining influence on the form and content of the catalogue record. To dismantle the record into its constituent parts without keeping that context in mind is what I would characterize as "dangerous" because it takes our attention away from the whole to the part, so that we are liable to forget that the *whole* record is what most users (both readers and library staff included) want -- I admit, not all of them. > > Cataloging data should be capable of being imported into other data, e.g., > folded into bibliographies, which themselves are formatted many different > ways. Of course. One of my concerns in this area is the gap between common citation practice (listing items under editor for which AACR2 prescribes title main entry) and cataloguing rules. Another use for cataloguing data is to investigate the different forms of name, or different names, used by an author. That sort of use is not the primary use of the data, and questions of collocation and location are not the primary aspects of catalogue records. The whole record is where we start from. > > Cataloging records should be capable of being sorted, e.g., by > publisher/issuing body to reveal what proportion of a publisher's works > are in the library (how successful would THAT be in a database where we > often truncate the publisher?) That is one reason why 260 $b The Committee is so bad. > > Cataloging records should be capable of being displayed on future systems > at the user's option, seeing the part or parts ("data elements") of the > record that the user wants to see. When I say the "whole record" I am not claiming that the parts of the record cannot be considered, and used, separately, but that if we do not start (as cataloguers) from the whole record, and keep it in our minds (a problem I am aware of because I have succumbed to it in the past), we are liable to go astray (as when global changes to series headings cause changes in data that should only be transcribed from the item). > > Cataloging records should be capable of being manipulated and reformatted > when we decide, in a future AACR Conference, that we want to change the > way we describe works or their manifestations. I'm aware of the implications of possible change in the future but wary of trying to predict too much. As one heavily involved in a retrospective cataloguing operation I see all too often records which were judged reasonable by AACR1 or earlier standards but need more than cosmetic revision to be brought up to AACR2. I also see records which are ostensibly to earlier standards but were actually inadequate even then and need substantial revision now. IMO the best insurance for the future is to see that the records we create (or revise) now are fully up to scratch by current standards and practice -- if we are held to core standard by current limitations, we should ensure that what data is recorded, even if restricted, is correct and in accordance with AACR2 as far as it goes, and will not need restating if enhanced to a more complete level in future. > In general, it's essential to assess the needs of future users or (as we > have said so many times in the past) they will leave us behind for other > options that are more flexible. > > The AACR2 record is not a set of data elements, but a > > description of a bibliographic entity, with access points (headings) > > included. > > The record we create is a great deal more than a description with access > points. It forms part of a catalogue, and that forms part of, in effect, > a world catalogue whose data elements, when sorted and manipulated, can > tell us--at least if they contain enough distinctive content they can tell > us--about our bibliographic universe. I'm sure this is not just "blue > sky." It's part of our mission as recorders. I agree. That is why I spend a lot of time, in my particular context, making sure that as many as possible of the headings of records we use from our utility, Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) are correct on the shared database as well in our local system, and duplicates removed. My fundamental point is that we must consider both the whole record and its constituent parts, and if we attend to the parts out of context we in danger of making the whole record less informative and less useful. Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 09:42:50 +0600 Reply-To: Celine Noel Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Celine Noel Subject: Re: Collective uniform titles In-Reply-To: <9710210621.AA49966@browndwarf.ucs.indiana.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The problem is that the uniform title (collocating title) is *REPLACING* the title page title (known item title) in the title list retrieved from an author search in many online catalog systems. Stephen Hearn's reply to the collective uniform title issue indicated that NOTIS displayed both title fields in lists, coming closer to LC's original intent when pencilling in a filing title while still leaving the title page title there to help identify miscellaneous collections. I know that uniform titles play an especially large role in music cataloging but I wasn't sure that this was true of the "miscellaneous" uniform titles like "Selections" as well as the ones for individual works. Apparently it is, which answers my original question. Celine Noel ************************************************************ On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Ralph Papakhian wrote: > The main purpose of uniform titles is to file, to "bring together" > or to "collocate." Historically (as described in LC filing rules) > the u.t.'s were marked in pencil by a cataloger or chief filer > in the upper right hand corner of the card. The hand written > filing instruction moved to a bracketed position under the > main entry heading. This is not cold fusion. All we're trying > to do is figure out where to put an entry in relation to other > entries in a file. (Obviously, in systems that do not have > the concept of "file" there are serious difficulties.) > Collective u.t.'s (e.g. [Novels. French. Selections] [Sonatas, piano. > Selections]) are used in order to file records for similar > collections TOGETHER in a file. The purpose in this case is not > in order to enable someone to find a known item. If you are > surveying a collection for various works for piano by Grieg, > you have some chance of finding miscellaneous collections > filed together under [Piano music ....] [Sonatas, piano....] etc. > These collective uniform title "bring together" similar > publications in the file--the titles of the compilations > are irrelevant in this case. The purpose is not for > enabling known item searches. It's no big deal. Haven't > you ever seen someone browsing in catalog? Looking for something > they are not sure what? Collective uniform titles were meant > to help that process a little, tiny bit. > --ralph p. > > > Celine Noel said > > > > > > In the worst situation, that of using these collective uniform titles for > > ongoing sets, we have the heading: > > > > Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. > > Works. French. 1992 > > > > to serve the user looking for vol. 6 of his "Oeuvres" published by > > Gallimard in 1996. I realize that you can create some cross-referencing > > with the authority record but why are we doing this at all? Is there any > > field of knowledge or type of publication for which these collective > > uniform titles are important or even useful? > > > > Celine Noel > > Univ. of North Carolina > > at Chapel Hill > > cnoel@unc.edu > > > > > -- > A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library > Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu > co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:06:43 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU Subject: Re: Collective uniform titles I would really like to see collective uniform titles as added entries rather than part of the main entry. Then we can collocate collections that have unique titles (Black bird, and other stories) as well as those that have titles like Selected short stories. And we can avoid interfering with the person looking under the author for the particular title. Cynthia Watters Middlebury College watters@myriad.middlebury.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 09:17:48 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: The whole record Comments: To: hecain@ORMOND.UNIMELB.EDU.AU In-Reply-To: <199710210957.TAA02257@gateway.ormond.unimelb.edu.au> Hal wrote: >To dismantle the record into its constituent parts without keeping >that context in mind is what I would characterize as "dangerous" >because it takes our attention away from the whole to the part ... >I'm aware of the implications of possible change in the future but wary of >trying to predict too much. As one heavily involved in a retrospective >cataloguing operation I see all too often records which were judged >reasonable by AACR1 or earlier standards but need more than cosmetic >revision to be brought up to AACR2. Simple "I agree" postings have always seemed a bit pointless to me. But Hal's comments above so clearly express my views, and our experience, that I can not resist. One of my concerns is that at least some of those making the decisions are no longer involved in the day to day use of the bibliographic records now in our utilities. Our experience of those records supports Hal's so well stated position. ISBD/AACR/MARC are standards for records, not independent data elements. __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 13:25:54 -0400 Reply-To: X4KT0EJ3BY1C092yn@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Subject: Re: Pagination of multiple volumes Comments: To: papakhi@indiana.edu <9710210624.AA49996@browndwarf.ucs.indiana.edu> Lines: 16 >Just curious. Do you add the pagination if there are 13 volumes? >Any cutoff at all? We have no stated cutoff, since we will record them whenever reported. But for more than three volumes, we would tend to record the number of pages after the title in 505 rather than in 300 after "v.". Customers report pages as "1-395", "396-543" for continuously paged sets. We record this as "(543 p.)" according to the AACR rule, but feel that we are failing to record full information. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 01:08:45 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Collective uniform titles Comments: To: cnoel@email.unc.edu In-Reply-To: from "Celine Noel" at Oct 21, 97 09:42:50 am Content-Type: text Celine's note is very interesting. In fact, the collocating title is not replacing the title page title. There should be a reference from the title page title to the collocating title. (Assuming online catalog systems now understood what happened in card catalogs 40 years ago). One set of filing rules I was looking at recently (I think the 1952 LC rules), even made a big deal about making sure that the title page title had a reference. The instruction was to the filers, and then to refer the discrepancy to appropriate supervisors so that the reference would be made. It was very significant. So the problem Celine identifies is also not a problem with AACR, but, once again, a problem with online systems that have NEVER been able to even emulate something so complicated as a card file. Thank you relational databases. --ralph p. Celine Noel said > > The problem is that the uniform title (collocating title) is *REPLACING* > the title page title (known item title) in the title list retrieved from > an author search in many online catalog systems. > > Stephen Hearn's reply to the collective uniform title issue indicated that > NOTIS displayed both title fields in lists, coming closer to LC's original > intent when pencilling in a filing title while still leaving the title > page title there to help identify miscellaneous collections. > > I know that uniform titles play an especially large role in music > cataloging but I wasn't sure that this was true of the "miscellaneous" > uniform titles like "Selections" as well as the ones for individual works. > Apparently it is, which answers my original question. > > Celine Noel > > ************************************************************ > On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Ralph Papakhian wrote: > > > The main purpose of uniform titles is to file, to "bring together" > > or to "collocate." Historically (as described in LC filing rules) > > the u.t.'s were marked in pencil by a cataloger or chief filer > > in the upper right hand corner of the card. The hand written > > filing instruction moved to a bracketed position under the > > main entry heading. This is not cold fusion. All we're trying > > to do is figure out where to put an entry in relation to other > > entries in a file. (Obviously, in systems that do not have > > the concept of "file" there are serious difficulties.) > > Collective u.t.'s (e.g. [Novels. French. Selections] [Sonatas, piano. > > Selections]) are used in order to file records for similar > > collections TOGETHER in a file. The purpose in this case is not > > in order to enable someone to find a known item. If you are > > surveying a collection for various works for piano by Grieg, > > you have some chance of finding miscellaneous collections > > filed together under [Piano music ....] [Sonatas, piano....] etc. > > These collective uniform title "bring together" similar > > publications in the file--the titles of the compilations > > are irrelevant in this case. The purpose is not for > > enabling known item searches. It's no big deal. Haven't > > you ever seen someone browsing in catalog? Looking for something > > they are not sure what? Collective uniform titles were meant > > to help that process a little, tiny bit. > > --ralph p. > > > > > > Celine Noel said > > > > > > > > > In the worst situation, that of using these collective uniform titles for > > > ongoing sets, we have the heading: > > > > > > Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. > > > Works. French. 1992 > > > > > > to serve the user looking for vol. 6 of his "Oeuvres" published by > > > Gallimard in 1996. I realize that you can create some cross-referencing > > > with the authority record but why are we doing this at all? Is there any > > > field of knowledge or type of publication for which these collective > > > uniform titles are important or even useful? > > > > > > Celine Noel > > > Univ. of North Carolina > > > at Chapel Hill > > > cnoel@unc.edu > > > > > > > > > -- > > A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library > > Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu > > co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu > > > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 11:25:13 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Uniform title for Bible stories book Comments: To: gkin@loc.gov Comments: cc: autocat@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu In-Reply-To: <199710231105.EAA29789@bmd2.baremetal.com> [Cross posted to autocat and aacrconf] >On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Dana Johnson wrote: > >> We just received The book of God for children by Walter Wangerin. (ISBN >> 03102414181). >> The record also has a 240 10 Bible. Gene Kinnaly responded: >The LC record (LCCN 96-37087, ISBN 0310214181) has 240 Bible, but I >*thought* that was explained in the 500: "Originally published: The >Bible. Chicago : Rand McNally, c1981." We would make the 240 a 730 for these reasons: No library for which we catalogue would collect two versions of the same work. The author Wangerin is not voluminous enough to require uniform titles, even if someone did contribute the second version. Library users would find that particular uniform title as misleading and confusing as did Dana. What worries me is, would the proposed work authority record shift this uniform title from optional to required? If so, let's man/woman the barricades against any such change! Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 22:07:01 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: Uniform title for Bible stories book Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have to admit, as one who automatically accepted that uniform titles should be included as a matter of course, that this is a difficult case. But Gorman & Oddy have pointed out the dangers (and some of the problems in AACR2) of rulings for special cases. It seems then that what we need (apart from the ability of local system managers to decise whether or not they will have uniform titles) is a good investigation of what uniform titles are used for, and whether they do fulfil the aims of collocation and differentiation that we have claimed for them. Has such research been done? If so, can someone point us to the results? Mac suggests an alternative which he uses. Are there others? Are they effective? In what situations are they used? Is this a case where one rule is not good for all? Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ---------- > From: J. McRee Elrod > To:> Subject: Re: Uniform title for Bible stories book > Date: 23 October 1997 16:25 > > [Cross posted to autocat and aacrconf] > > >On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Dana Johnson wrote: > > > >> We just received The book of God for children by Walter Wangerin. (ISBN > >> 03102414181). > > >> The record also has a 240 10 Bible. > > Gene Kinnaly responded: > > >The LC record (LCCN 96-37087, ISBN 0310214181) has 240 Bible, but I > >*thought* that was explained in the 500: "Originally published: The > >Bible. Chicago : Rand McNally, c1981." > > We would make the 240 a 730 for these reasons: > > No library for which we catalogue would collect two versions of the same > work. > > The author Wangerin is not voluminous enough to require uniform titles, > even if someone did contribute the second version. > > Library users would find that particular uniform title as misleading and > confusing as did Dana. > > What worries me is, would the proposed work authority record shift this > uniform title from optional to required? If so, let's man/woman the > barricades against any such change! > > Mac > > __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) > {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ > ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 11:30:51 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU Subject: Re: Uniform title for Bible stories book Hal Cain asks if uniform titles perform their function--which is, presumably to collocate editions in the catalog, regardless of what title it was published under. In our system (DRA), use of a uniform title guarantees that the editions will *not* collocate, because 100/245 combinations sort into one alphabet under author and 100/240 or 700/$t combinations sort into a second alphabet. Now I know this is system specific, but no system I've seen has found a good way to do it. Others produce one alphabet by messing up or omitting the author-title see reference structure. DRA says this is a problem with MARC format. I know, this list isn't about MARC format. But one has to consider how the rules will be implemented, I think. The solution is to revise the authority format so authority records are hierarchical. That is, the author/title authority record is not independent of the author authority record but rather "hangs off it" somehow. Certainly, I think something needs to be done or I'd be more tempted by Mac's solution of just making it another entry. Then I get back into my oft repeated wail about what do you do when you have a book about this guy's bible story book. Do you make a 600 with $t for his name plus $t Bible? or plus $t whatever the second edition was called? or both of the above? How do you know all the titles it has come out under? And, ultimately, if you add uniform titles but just as another entry, how do you convey to the patron that here is where they will find *all* of the editions though they may find some of the editions under each of however many variant titles? Sorry to sing the same refrain so often... Cheers, Cynthia Watters watters@myriad.middlebury.edu p.s. for Autocat readers, I add that I can't do a signature line in my mailer so I tend to do a brief signature. But I can have my systems person create one at the system level, and I do mean to do so... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 16:23:42 -0400 Reply-To: hostage@law.harvard.edu Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: John Hostage Organization: Harvard Law School Library Subject: Re: Uniform title for Bible stories book Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Our system, HOLLIS (based on NOTIS) has handled these things correctly since 1985, including the references from the authority record. So it can be done. I only hope that our next generation system will be as good. And yes, when you have a book about the Bible stories book, you make a 600 for the author with the uniform title of the work. That's part of what the authority record is for. There's that main entry again--hard to get along without it. WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU wrote: > In our system (DRA), use of a uniform title guarantees that the > editions will *not* collocate, because 100/245 combinations sort > into one alphabet under author and 100/240 or 700/$t combinations sort > into a second alphabet. > > Now I know this is system specific, but no system I've seen has found > a good way to do it. Others produce one alphabet by messing up or > omitting the author-title see reference structure. > Then I get back into my oft repeated wail about what do you do when you > have a book about this guy's bible story book. Do you make a 600 with > $t for his name plus $t Bible? or plus $t whatever the second edition > was called? or both of the above? How do you know all the titles > it has come out under? And, ultimately, if you add uniform titles but > just as another entry, how do you convey to the patron that here is > where they will find *all* of the editions though they may find some > of the editions under each of however many variant titles? -- ___________________________________________________________ John Hostage Authorities Librarian Langdell Hall hostage@law.harvard.edu Harvard Law School Library (617) 495-3974 (voice) Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 496-4409 (fax) ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 00:46:13 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Uniform title for Bible stories book In-Reply-To: <971024113051.40711@myriad.middlebury.edu> from "WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU" at Oct 24, 97 11:30:51 am Content-Type: text Hi. These problems are system specific. You might take a look at MUMS, which works sort of OK, and which is why we have some of the RI's and practicies that we do. So there is one system that (sort of) works. --ralph p. WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU said > > Hal Cain asks if uniform titles perform their function--which is, > presumably to collocate editions in the catalog, regardless of what > title it was published under. > > In our system (DRA), use of a uniform title guarantees that the > editions will *not* collocate, because 100/245 combinations sort > into one alphabet under author and 100/240 or 700/$t combinations sort > into a second alphabet. > > Now I know this is system specific, but no system I've seen has found > a good way to do it. Others produce one alphabet by messing up or > omitting the author-title see reference structure. > > DRA says this is a problem with MARC format. I know, this list isn't > about MARC format. But one has to consider how the rules will be > implemented, I think. The solution is to revise the authority format > so authority records are hierarchical. That is, the author/title > authority record is not independent of the author authority record > but rather "hangs off it" somehow. > > Certainly, I think something needs to be done or I'd be more tempted > by Mac's solution of just making it another entry. > > Then I get back into my oft repeated wail about what do you do when you > have a book about this guy's bible story book. Do you make a 600 with > $t for his name plus $t Bible? or plus $t whatever the second edition > was called? or both of the above? How do you know all the titles > it has come out under? And, ultimately, if you add uniform titles but > just as another entry, how do you convey to the patron that here is > where they will find *all* of the editions though they may find some > of the editions under each of however many variant titles? > > Sorry to sing the same refrain so often... > > Cheers, > Cynthia Watters > watters@myriad.middlebury.edu > > p.s. for Autocat readers, I add that I can't do a signature line in my > mailer so I tend to do a brief signature. But I can have my systems > person create one at the system level, and I do mean to do so... > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 13:51:57 EST Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Neil R. Hughes" Organization: University of Georgia Libraries Subject: Bibliographic Relationships by S.L. Vellucci From: Members of the Catalogers Group, Cataloging Department, University of Georgia Libraries Re: Bibliographic Relationships, by Sherry L. Vellucci 1. We feel that the "objectives of the catalog as stated in the `Paris Principles' are still valid for future library catalogs within the broader context of a global environment" (p. 3) but that modification of current practice will be necessary to accommodate new, three-dimensional relationships among items, especially in our use of authority records and their function. 2. P. 5-6: Tillett's study is useful as a stepping-off point to begin looking at the issue of relationships, but as has so often been the case in the past, the seven categories become ambiguous when applied to non-print materials. Which of the 7 relationships would Tillett say applied to a sound recording issued with an accompanying score? To our music cataloger, the relationship is primarily one of equivalence, then accompaniment, and finally sharing characteristics, but this reflects hierarchical thinking that makes him approach the two first as works, then as manifestations of works, and only finally as items (see 9, following). Smiraglia's expansions of the list (p. 7) to include "amplifications, performances ... and predecessor derivations," together with his term "progenitor work," are very helpful, but it seems that lengthy and elaborate lists of examples with accompanying explanations would be necessary to make any of these (Tillett or Smiraglia) clear to the larger library community if catalogers started making the links less ambiguous through the code and subsequent changes to catalog architecture. Smiraglia's observation regarding the complexity of bibliographic relationships deriving from the oldest "progenitor works" (p. 9) suggests to us that there is a demonstrable need, however impractical, for a revival of the subject expert within the cataloging profession, and that such revival would benefit everything from description and access to subject analysis. We agreed, albeit with trepidation, that his conclusions also support the need to a) define the work and b) create a uniform title for each work manifested in every item we catalog, _at least_ at the first occurrence of any subsequent bibliographic relationship (beyond the first one, i.e. work/first manifestation) in the file searched, best defined as our bibliographic utility or "our corner of the bibliographic universe." 3. P. 11 & 12: For all its inconsistent application, we agree with the IFLA study's basic description of both generalized and lower-level relationships among bibliographic entities and find it a useful matrix for discussion. The old model of the item constituting a physical manifestation of the work (p. 10, par. 2) is clearly less-than-functional even in the print world, and becomes insupportable in the world of the Internet. The item may be stated without confusion to be a physical manifestation of the work when one has an artist's book in hand, but when one has an annotated copy of Dickens' _Oliver Twist_ in French translation, it seems better to express the relationship as a "manifestation of an expression." 4. P. 14, par. 3: We concur that "any discussion of linkages used to express bibliographic relationships must consider both the role of the cataloging code and the structural environment of the catalog." This central premise should be emphasized more strongly in subsequent discussions of Vellucci's paper and its implications. 5. We believe that pursuing a combination of bibliographic and authority records to clarify all bibliographic relationships at all levels seems a pragmatic approach given the sheer mass of existing records at the national and international level that already achieve this, albeit in an ambiguous and incomplete manner. Authority records allow us to categorize things according to "what category or genre is this?", and also allow us to describe persons, corporate bodies, and works in ways that the cataloging rules do not. Conversely, so much data essential to bibliographic relationships but not for validation is in the bibliographic records but not in the authority records. If authority records were to become too voluminous (usurping the data-rich role of the bib. records), library administrations might withdraw their current support for authority files, which is based on the perceived need for their validation function. Pragmatism dictates preserving both types of records for the bib-relationship clarifying function. We further believe that requiring the user to draw inferences from implicitly expressed bibliographic relationships is not necessarily undesirable, as long as it may be demonstrated that most users are drawing similar inferences from the relationships we have set up in the catalog and the users' conclusions are leading them to works/items that properly fulfil their information needs. 6. P. 16: "Linkage Types and Associated Relationships," par. 1. The first two sentences in this paragraph are not entirely accurate. Another reason for preserving the role of bibliographic records is that many added entries (unlike references in the authority record) also preserve work-to-work relationships, in particular, the related-work added entry (AACR2R 21.30G1). An example of this is an added entry for Shakespeare's play _Othello_ made on the record for a manifestation of Verdi's opera _Otello_. This is also operating at the "higher entity level," connecting the work _Otello_ to the work _Othello_. Such an added entry is not made with the intent of linking the item in hand to a higher entity level, because the note justifying the entry implicitly links work-to-work: 500 The libretto based on Shakespeare's play, Othello. ... far more than it does item-to-work, the latter which occurs only coincidentally. 7. P. 18. Many bibliographic relationships would be further clarified if the uniform title were expressly designated in the code to be a collocating device _primarily_ and a distinguishing device secondarily, for all materials other than serials (which might present too many problems, though a clear consensus in our group was absent on this point). We concur that each uniform title established in the bib. file should have its concomitant authority record with all necessary references to clarify most works-level relationships. 8. P. 18-19: Par. 1. Authority control on contents notes is unrealistic. Not only would it be impossible to achieve with current staffing levels (or even those such as North American libraries enjoyed in the heady days of the early 1960s), but it would present a cataloging dilemma as well, removing one more important area of literal transcription from the item. If one is going to go so far as to perform authority control on contents, why not go all the way and provide analytic added entries? With modern cut-&-paste methods available to most of us at our workstations, the additional subfielding and tagging would add little more time to an already labor-intensive process. Par. 2: Vellucci's points here about minimal-level and core records are well-taken. 9. User Studies: (P. 20ff.) We would like to see a catalog (and the code that supports it) designed to help the user conduct his/her own initial reference interview with him/herself. S/he may come in thinking s/he wants Item A, but we should structure the catalog so that it "floats" the eye up to the work level, encouraging serendipity and making the user think, "What else here might [better] serve my need than Item A?" To determine users' approaches to the catalog, an in-depth reference interview is still necessary--the idea that a transaction log can really tell us whether the user is doing a known-item search or not is one of the great myths of the last twenty years of librarianship. We would do better to follow the "anecdotal evidence [suggesting] that people are more interested in getting at any form of a work as long as it is in their language, has not been superseded by a more recent edition, and does not require a microfilm reader" (Leazer, 1994). 10. P. 21, par. 1: Not only do users not know the difference between an uncontrolled title and a uniform title, many librarians do not, which exacerbates the problem. The notion of the uniform title as something passing arcane and cabalistic pervades public service librarianship, which is a great failing not only of library schools but of the communication and cross-training efforts of all of us currently in the profession. Improving catalog displays and making the collocating function of the uniform title primary (see point 7, above) would assist us in overcoming these barriers, though. A list display ordered as follows aids enormously in making the function of the uniform title clear: I. Author, Joe, 1867-1949. 1. [Uniform title] a. Title-proper a. b. Title-proper b. c. Title-proper c. 2. [Uniform title. $p Part] d. Title-proper d. e. Title-proper e. 11. P. 23, par. 2: While we agree with the statement ". . . uniform titles must be constructed and applied consistently for all works," the concept of "works" doesn't apply quite as well in theory to serials, e.g. successive entry--does one really have three separate works following two title changes? (Should a manifestation-level characteristic like continuous/restarting serial numbering define work-level boundaries?) Perhaps this statement should be confined, at least for the interim, to non-serial titles. Par. 3: Smiraglia's study provides support for the idea that cooperative programs are the model to help build the necessary reference and linkage structures to achieve Vellucci's ends. (We may be preaching to the choir in this forum; nevertheless, it bears noting.) 12. P. 24, par. 3. Tillett's access control records (an idea which was also posited in a slightly different form by Seibert & Herrold, 1986) seem to us to provide much greater clarification of bibliographic relationships than the current authority control records do, but the work required to change existing bibliographic files would have to be done in a series of batch jobs, carefully defined. One couldn't just write a batch to "flip all non-English language uniform titles to the first English 4xx found in any record containing an English-language reference," for example, especially because one might not choose to use an English language title in all cases even in Anglo-American libraries ... Debussy's _Clair de lune_ springs to mind immediately, to say nothing of _Femme Nikita_! Use of the access control model might also obviate the need (or the perceived need) for the differences among choice of uniform title between music and other materials cited on p. 24-25. 13. P. 30, par. 2: The problem encountered by the University of Bradford researchers supports the continued need for main entry. Their model has the potential to mislead the user; other models, based on the relationships between authority and bibliographic records, have the potential for greater accuracy (see 5, above). To conclude, we applaud Vellucci for having written an exemplary review article that synthesizes a great deal of valuable research. Submitted by N. Hughes for the members of the group. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Neil R. Hughes Music Cataloger University of Georgia Libraries Internet: nhughes@libris.libs.uga.edu Telephone: (706) 542-1554 Fax: (706) 542-4144 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:42:27 -0000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: AACR, ISBD, MARC Comments: cc: h.m.buhler@ukc.ac.uk, mac@slc.bc.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit (Forwarded with permission) > But you are absolutely right. > I worked for four years on a huge union catalogue (LASER), and we have > records in our catalogue from various sources (including our own > MINICAT, which was designed to put the whole bookstock on the OPAC > fast, and clean up later, and a flirtation with Chadwyck-Healey's > infamous REMARC). Not to mention some of what gets on to the CURL > database... The quality and fullness vary enormously, as does the > form of heading. And having only had dumb terminals in the past and > still being without authority control. We NEED standards, and OPACs > designed to work with these standards. And getting such matters > across to vendors is a long slow job - as we know from working with > one on Galaxy 2000. > > What you have said needed saying, and thank you for saying it. > > Helen > Helen Buhler, > The Templeman Library, > The University, > Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NU. Fax: +44 (0)1227 827107 or 823984 > Hal wrote: > > >To dismantle the record into its constituent parts without keeping > >that context in mind is what I would characterize as "dangerous" > >because it takes our attention away from the whole to the part ... > > >I'm aware of the implications of possible change in the future but wary of > >trying to predict too much. As one heavily involved in a retrospective > >cataloguing operation I see all too often records which were judged > >reasonable by AACR1 or earlier standards but need more than cosmetic > >revision to be brought up to AACR2. > And Mac commented: > Simple "I agree" postings have always seemed a bit pointless to me. But > Hal's comments above so clearly express my views, and our experience, > that I can not resist. One of my concerns is that at least some of > those making the decisions are no longer involved in the day to day use > of the bibliographic records now in our utilities. Our experience of > those records supports Hal's so well stated position. > > ISBD/AACR/MARC are standards for records, not independent data elements. > > __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) > {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ > ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:10:00 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stewart Marg Subject: AACR International Conference The International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR was held October 23-25, 1997 in Toronto, Canada. A number of actions and recommendations resulted from the Conference and the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR is now charged with the establishment of an action plan to be implemented in conjunction with the Committee of Principals for AACR. Immediately following the Conference, therefore, at its annual meeting, the Joint Steering Committee discussed the results of the Conference. The action items listed below have been identified for immediate implementation and a more complete summary of the Conference results will follow. In addition, the Conference Proceedings will be published jointly by the American Library Association, the Canadian Library Association and the Library Association under the editorship of Jean Weihs. The following action items have been developed by JSC from the priorities identified during the International Conference. Items for Immediate Action by JSC: * Pursue the recommendation that a data modeling technique be used to provide a logical analysis of the principles and structures that underlie AACR. * Create a list of the principles of AACR2. * Formalize the recommendations on seriality endorsed during the Conference and introduce them into the rule revision process. * Solicit a proposal to revise rule 0.24 to advance the discussion on the primacy of intellectual content over physical format. * Maintain an AACR Web site. * Publicize and reaffirm, on the AACR Web site, JSC policies, procedures and activities as well as the current processes for submitting rule revision proposals emanating from within or outside AACR author countries. * Develop a mission statement for JSC. * Determine if there are any existing surveys on the extent of use of AACR2 outside the Anglo-American community and if no such survey exists, conduct such a survey. This list will be available at the following URL: http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/index.htm Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:20:00 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stewart Marg Subject: Discussion List Input from correspondents on this Discussion List has been extremely useful and was widely used throughout the Conference by both the Speakers and Participants. We sincerely thank all those who contributed. The objective of this list has now been served and it will cease, effective October 31. JSC has decided that the Conference Web site (URL: http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/index.htm) will remain active temporarily until a more complete report resulting from the International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR can be posted there. Subsequently the site will be transformed into a general AACR site which will include a description of the mechanisms for contributing to the rule revision process. Once again, thanks to all who have contributed to making this list a dynamic precursor to the Conference. Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 22:26:54 -0000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Subject: Re: AACR International Conference AND Re: Discussion list Comments: cc: " MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit These two messages to me constitute good news and bad news. The items for immediate action are welcome. The transformation of the Conference Web page into a general AACR site will also be welcome. I look forward to the interim report, and to publication of the eventual complete report, with great interest. The points for immediate action do not appear to address some of the significant matters raised in the papers and the discussion list. There will be more to be done in future! The closure of this discussion list is less welcome news. We will have to continue on other lists -- for me, chiefly on Autocat, where many of the names that have figured here are also seen. This whole process, of which for me at least this list has been the most significant part (even more than the papers themselves), has been very important in reawakening my interest in the shape, content and purposes of AACR and made me far more aware of the problems and questions facing cataloguers and catalogue users. I wish to offer my thanks to JSC for initiating it all, and providing (with the help of the National Library of Canada) this forum, and most of all to the participants who (whether or not I agreed with them) provided a wealth of opinion, speculation, information, knowledge, and even some wisdom to enrich us all. It would hardly have been likely, I suppose, that even had this list continued, the discussion would have continued at the level and depth it reached during these few months. I for one shall miss it. So, thank you all. Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia Stewart Marg wrote (inter alia): > > The action items listed below have been identified for > immediate implementation and a more complete summary of the Conference > results will follow. In addition, the Conference Proceedings will be > published jointly by the American Library Association, the Canadian Library > Association and the Library Association under the editorship of Jean Weihs. > > The following action items have been developed by JSC from the priorities > identified during the International Conference. > > Items for Immediate Action by JSC: > > * Pursue the recommendation that a data modeling technique be used to > provide a logical analysis of the principles and structures that underlie > AACR. > > * Create a list of the principles of AACR2. > > * Formalize the recommendations on seriality endorsed during the Conference > and introduce them into the rule revision process. > > * Solicit a proposal to revise rule 0.24 to advance the discussion on the > primacy of intellectual content over physical format. > > * Maintain an AACR Web site. > > * Publicize and reaffirm, on the AACR Web site, JSC policies, procedures and > activities as well as the current processes for submitting rule revision > proposals emanating from within or outside AACR author countries. > > * Develop a mission statement for JSC. > > * Determine if there are any existing surveys on the extent of use of > AACR2 outside the Anglo-American community and if no such survey exists, > conduct such a survey. > > This list will be available at the following URL: > http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/index.htm And in a subsequent message (over the name of the JSC): > Input from correspondents on this Discussion List has been extremely useful > and was widely used throughout the Conference by both the Speakers and > Participants. We sincerely thank all those who contributed. The objective > of this list has now been served and it will cease, effective October 31. > JSC has decided that the Conference Web site (URL: http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/index.htm) will remain active temporarily until a > more complete report resulting from the International Conference on the > Principles and Future Development of AACR can be posted there. Subsequently > the site will be transformed into a general AACR site which will include a > description of the mechanisms for contributing to the rule revision process. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 11:38:16 +0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Frieda Rosenberg Subject: Re: AACR, ISBD, MARC (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Farewell to the list, which has been a thought-provoking series. I must say my one last say. Let us not use this occasion to shut our minds, at least until we have explored possibilities. I was disappointed when, on the list, the rhetoric reverted to the doctrinaire, and we insisted that our ways are sacrosanct, talking of "danger" (or of "cataloging nonsense" as in one of the papers). To illustrate one perception: ISBD/AACR/MARC are standards for records. Records contain data elements IF one perceives them that way (and there was some acknowledgment of this earlier). The data elements will be more useful in and out of records if their content is specific, complete, and identifying in and of itself (not dependent on some other data element for meaning, e.g. 260 $b "The Committee," as well as capable of belonging to an integral structure--whose articulation is equally important. As librarians, we are perfectly capable of turning our attention to multiple aspects of all sorts of things. Also, both works and manifestations are perfectly capable of being cataloged. Perhaps not by the same categories of data elements. Regards, Frieda Frieda Rosenberg Serials Cataloging UNC-Chapel Hill (USA) > > >To dismantle the record into its constituent parts without keeping > > >that context in mind is what I would characterize as "dangerous" > > >because it takes our attention away from the whole to the part ... > > ISBD/AACR/MARC are standards for records, not independent data elements. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 12:32:48 -0800 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: AACRCONF Coordinator Organization: NLC-BNC Subject: (no subject) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Although the discussion list will cease today, the archives have been moved to the existing Conference site and are available at: http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/index.htm Thanks for your interest in the AACR Conference discussion list. Farewell.