Karen Coyle wrote:
A controlled concept of place can be useful beyond the FRBR subject entity, such as place of publication, and the place of birth for persons.
Indeed it can be, but it's also important to allow for uncontrolled/transcribed entry of place names, when it's deemed cheaper/more efficient for entry, and the additional cost of controlling is not deemed worth the expense, but the transcribed place is still deemed worth the expense. . Which is the case with place of publication in AACR2 -- not controlled, not deemed worth the expense to control, but still important as transcribed (at least for some materials).
In my ideal world, a place name might _start out_ transcribed/uncontrolled, and later be "upgraded" by a cataloger (or even wiki-like by a random person) to a controlled "entity", and everyone with the record would magically get the 'upgrade'.
But it's a complicated metadata world we libraries live in. Jonathan
