Martha Yee wrote:
It would be nice if RDA could find a better word than 'author' to encompass actors, entertainers, musicians, sculptors, composers, photographers, painters, etc., but perhaps there is no such word.
The imprecise term "creator" is used in some contexts. But I find it hard to extend it to editors, compilers, translators -- all of whom may be genuinely involved in creation of intellectual/artistic content, of course -- let alone "relationship" types such as festschrift honoree. I wish we could find some acceptable collective term for the FRBR Group Two entities Person, Corporate Body, and (to be added, as adumbrated in the FRAR draft and elsewhere) Family. I've used "agent" on occasion, meaning an entity that "does something" to create a work or expression or to prepare/issue a manifestation or to modify an item; but in a broader context (such as intellectual rights, interaction with which is supposed to be facilitated by RDA) that too could be misleading.
What a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive (or at least fictionalize)! I agree with Hal Cain that Part II is going to be interesting...
I suspect we'll have a great deal to discuss! I'm not altogether sure that the urge to abandon technical vocabulary of cataloguing, built up over more than a century, is altogether a good thing. Other disciplines maintain their technical vocabulary, and (if they're smart) take care to show that it has technical meaning. To my mind, fuzzy use of vocabulary leads to fuzzy thinking. Hal Cain Joint Theological Library Parkville, Victoria, Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED]
