Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> 5.1.3
> The term preferred title refers to the title or form of title chosen as
> the basis for the preferred access point representing a work. ...
>
> 5.1.4
> The term preferred access point refers to the standardized access point
> representing an entity. The preferred access point representing a work
> or expression is constructed using the preferred title for the work. ...
..
While this is interesting, it has all been dealt with before, and I wish that
new thinking were taking hold. This again, is transferring the practices of the
card catalog ("preferred access point") when this is no longer holds. Since any
part of any record is now an "access point" and we no longer have to search for
Goethe under "G" but in all kinds of ways, the purpose of the traditional
access point is now to serve as a grouping for items that are similar in
various ways as determined by the cataloger. The label of that grouping (the
old preferred form) can--and should--vary based on the needs of catalogs and/or
individual researchers, and this points to some interesting new directions.
It seems that RDA is simply rehashing the old card cataloging rules. If this is
what it's all about, I see little reason to change from AACR2. With the
introduction of URIs for these labels however, new and interesting
possibilities for search and display of these "preferred forms" can arise. All
of the forms of titles could display in a format similar to the former
lcsh.info and people could choose the one that is familiar to them. I have in
mind something similar to:
http://www.aimatshape.net/resources/aas-ontologies/plonejavaapplet.2006-11-14.8975779371.
I think these are the directions we need to go, and to get away from the card
conventions. We would need some new rules and practices, but what would they
need to be to help make the sort of tool above the most useful for researchers?
Jim Weinheimer
