Diane, you aren't writing these scenarios for the RDA draft itself, are you? Instructions like these are actually what I had hoped to find in the RDA instructions themselves, not so much as scenarios, but as instructions. "If a person entity does exist, then link to it as per these instructions [section]. If no person entity exists, then create one as per these instructions [section]".
To me, that's exactly the way to make sense of existing practices for a new environment. I've suggested before (to some controversy on this list) that when you take a heading from an authority heading and put it in a bibliographic record, this should be understood as creating a link to a [an authority record serving as] a person entity record. [In RDA, there may be other better ways to link to a person entity record using another sort of more modern identifier; my suggestion is that the authorized heading in fact has traditionally served, albeit imperfectly, as an identifier, precisely because it serves to create such a link]. When you create a new person name heading where none existed before and store it in a new authority record, you are in fact creating a person entity record [albeit a fairly impoverished one that has little in it, but that's what we've had up to now]. To me, explaining existing practices like this serves to explain the continuity between traditional practices and what we may be moving toward. And RDA instructions written like this would be a helpful framework allowing a conceptual entry point explaining both what has come and what may be coming using the same consistent and understandable concepts. RDA written like this would also, I think, be a path to the principle- based rules RDA aspires to (rather than simply a collection of instructions which to the newcomer can seem haphazard and of unclear purpose). Jonathan On Mar 6, 2008, at 7:50 PM, Robert Maxwell wrote:
Diane, Your scenario document is very interesting and helpful. I'd actually like to see it go farther, and not just have the cataloger making work, expression, and manifestation records, but also entity records for the persons involved-e.g.: 1. Jane finds a work record for Bluebeard linked (by an creator relationship link) to an already existing person entity record for Vonnegut and expression records for one or more expression entities; 2. Since none already exists, she creates a new expression entity record for this particular Latvian translation and links it to the work record; 3. Since no person entity record has been created yet for Grigulis, she creates one for her (him?), which she then links to her new expression record with a translator relationship link. I realize you talk about Jane creating an authority record, but I think the future of entity-relationship is not to have authority records (which basically just validate a form to use in some other sort of record, e.g. in a work or expression record) but to have person (etc.) entity records linked to other entity records (of all kinds, including work entities, expression entities, perhaps other person or corporate body entities, subject entities, what have you) by specific relationship-type links. I'd also be interested in seeing what sort of scenario you think our users would face using a database such as the one you're describing. Would they approach searching hierarchically, i.e., start with the work as Jane Cataloger did and work their way down (e.g., perhaps the system says it's found "Bluebeard" and then asks if the user would like it in English or in a different language, then giving users a choice of languages) or would they drill straight to the Latvian translation? Or perhaps both would be possible? Thanks for putting up these scenarios-they're helpful. Bob Robert L. Maxwell Head, Special Collections and Metadata Catalog Dept. 6728 Harold B. Lee Library Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 (801)422-5568 -----Original Message----- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Diane I. Hillmann Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 3:19 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: [RDA-L] Cataloger Scenarios added to wiki Folks: As part of the thinking we've been doing about the DCMI-RDA Task Group work, I've developed a couple of cataloger scenarios and added them to the DC-RDA TG wiki: http://www.dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/ Scenarios Please feel free to comment and make suggestions for improvement, and also send along some additional scenarios if you feel so moved. I can add them to the wiki, or, if you've put them someplace else, we can link to them. Unfortunately I can't really open the wiki up to more more editors (and truly, it's an old version of MoinMoin and has it's own issues, so you might not want to mess with it). Diane
