Part of the reason for the messiness of ch. 6 is that the real ch. 6 (at least the music portions) can be found in the document 5JSC/LC/12/LC follow-up (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/docs/5lc12-lcfolup.pdf). From the cover letter to the full draft:
Proposed revision of RDA chapter 6, Additional instructions for musical works and expressions In February 2008 the Library of Congress proposed a number of changes to the instructions on constructing preferred titles for musical works and expressions (5JSC/LC/12). The ALA and CCC responses to that document included alternative proposals. The JSC noted at the April 2008 meeting that it was preferable for the alternatives to be harmonised so the proposed changes could be assessed as a whole. Due to the specialist nature of the proposals, a group of experts from some of the constituencies were invited to further develop the proposals for JSC's consideration. The instructions at 6.15-6.19 and 6.28 in the full draft carry forward the instructions at 6.17-6.22 in the December 2007 draft of Sections 2-4, and 9. The document 5JSC/LC/12/follow-up presents the latest suggestions for these instructions. As already mentioned, any comments on instructions at 6.15-6.19 and 6.28 in the full draft should be made in the constituency response to 5JSC/LC/12/LC follow-up. The separation between the tasks of recording and constructing can be confusing, but has been done for deliberate reasons. In FRBR we have works, expressions, manifestations and items. In a relational database environment, the ideal would be to have work records, expression records, manifestation, and item records. In this environment, the recording task for musical works in RDA would take place in the work record, roughly analogous to todays authority records, but would be much more robust. The construction task, the creation of an access point, would link the work record to the manifestation record. The access point string itself can't contain all the information that would be recorded in the work record, which is why construction has to be a different task. For further reference on the idea of what work records for music might encompass, see http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/BCC/BCC-Historical/BCC2008/BCC2008WGWRM 1.pdf. To be honest, access point construction goes against the whole point of RDA. As a content standard, it really should only be concerned that certain information is recorded, not in how it is constructed or manipulated. Damian Iseminger Technical Services Librarian New England Conservatory ________________________________ From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gene Fieg Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 10:56 AM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: [RDA-L] RDA comments I may not get through this voluminous work to give complete comments. But I do want to say this. I have almost finished chapter 6 on titles. IT IS A MESS!!! All the references to other parts of RDA have to be checked. How can there be a 6.30-6-.28? Our computers will probably go up in smoke trying to find that reference. Actually the references in the music title section to 6.30 is reference to religious works! There are some references that are not hot. And I don't understand the separation between "recording" and "constructing" titles. Why can't those instructions be combined? Not just in chapter 6, but in other chapters as well. And while we are on music titles, I don't understand why some "forms" are in parentheses and others are separated by either a full stop, or comma. Anyway, while the "plans" may be to have this out in a final form this year, I sincerely doubt that it will be ready, and some cases even useful. I am definitely going to hold on to may AACR2 and MARC 21. The last final review draft reminds of what I did in college: I combine by notes from the textbook with my notes from the class in English history. Well I nailed the essay question, but didn't have enough time for the short-answer questions. RDA has to be made more compact to be useful, in my opinion Gene Fieg Cataloger Claremont School of Theology [EMAIL PROTECTED]