My intention here was not to get into a flame war. I spend a good portion of my day constructing music uniform titles according to AACR2. I participate in the NACO Music Project and am a believer in cooperative cataloging. You will find no bigger advocate for well constructed access points formulated to defined standards. So yes, we need explicit instructions for constructing access points. But do they necessarily have to be those instructions in RDA? That was my only point.
What I am trying to get at is that it seems the access point construction instructions (especially for music access points) probably don't need to be as specific as they are. RDA doesn't mandate how bibliographic data should be constructed or displayed. It only mandates that certain elements be recorded. I was applying this same thinking to access points. RDA should quite properly mandate that certain elements appear in the access point. But maybe it doesn't need to be specific as to how those elements are constructed. Mandate that the medium should appear in the access point. But do you need to tell me how the component parts of the medium statement need to be ordered? Or formatted? Maybe not. Damian Iseminger ________________________________ From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kevin M. Randall Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 4:16 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] RDA comments I guess I still fail to see why RDA should not be concerned with access point construction. RDA is all about--repeat, ALL ABOUT--creating bibliographic metadata that can be used as widely as possible, with the primary environment being the library world. How that goal can possibly be met without explicit instructions on creation of access points is just beyond me. If I'm missing something crucial, please enlighten me. Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Bibliographic Services Dept. Northwestern University Library 1970 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-4345 From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Damian Iseminger Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:06 PM To: RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] RDA comments My point, which I inelegantly phrased in the quoted sentence below, is that perhaps RDA should not be concerned with how the access point is constructed, but rather that an access point exists. In a shared environment, I agree that we do need standards for construction. I just think that maybe those standards could be issued by affected groups instead of being mandated in RDA. For example, OCLC could say that access points should be constructed by a certain set of standards in order to contribute or the PCC would mandate that access points be constructed in a certain way in order to be a member. I realize that maybe RDA has a role to play by recommending best practices for access point construction, but I don't think it should be the final word. There are other possibilities out there. Damian Iseminger
