Quoting Mike Tribby <[email protected]>:
How does open-ended instruction on just how to note birth and death
dates achieve the interchangeability and all-important granularity
that RDA is purported to advance?
Cataloging rules do not achieve interchangeability, no matter how
precise and no matter how much they are followed, without a data
format. RDA does not define a data format. So we have, at best, only
one half of what we need to create data. To anyone doing data
processing, it is obvious that "-1873" is a display form of something
that needs to be encoded for machine processing in a data element for
a death date with a specific format, e.g. yyyy.
It is unfortunate that RDA mixes decision-making (how you decide which
data to record) with display instructions. It is even more unfortunate
that no effort has been undertaken to create at least one data format
for RDA. (And, no, re-using MARC for RDA is not a solution.) RDA
purports to be "format neutral" but in fact it is "format hostile"
because it forces certain displays (the famed "p." v. "pages") that
not only do not acknowledge that the data should be meaningfully
encoded for machine processing, but the use of language terms
irrevocably negates RDA as suitable for international use.
kc
If I record Lee Perry as "Perry, Lee, 1936-" and another cataloging
agency records him as "Perry, Lee, b. 1936" how does that achieve
anything other than confusion?
If confusion is our goal, I'm all for it at this point. But somehow
I doubt that's what we're pursuing here.
Mike Tribby
Senior Cataloger
Quality Books Inc.
The Best of America's Independent Presses
mailto:[email protected]
-----Original Message-----
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robert
Maxwell
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 10:35 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [RDA-L] RDA Questions
RDA only says to record the birth or death date. It does not specify
how you mark the data as referring to birth or death. If you will
look at 9.3.2 (date of birth) you will see that RDA simply says to
record the date, e.g. "1974". It is the same for other dates
associated with a person. RDA doesn't say how you should tell the
user of the data that the date is, for example, a birth date. That
is left to the cataloging agency to decide.
In MARC, since we don't have a separate field or subfield for "birth
date" and "death date" the data needs to be marked in some other
way. Possibilities include using the word "born" or "b." before the
birth date and "died" or "d." before the death date. Another
possible way to mark the data is to append a dash to the end of the
year if the number represents a death date and append a dash to the
beginning of the year if the number represents a death date.
LC has chosen, for the test, to use dashes to designate the number
as a birth date or a death date. If the dash comes after the number,
it is a birth date. If it comes before the number, it is a death
date. It is the same whether we have only the birth date, only the
death date, or both. This is LC's local cataloging agency decision,
but I think it would be good idea for others to follow it. The
decision seems quite sensible to me and will be much better for
indexing than interposition of a word in front of the number, and
less capricious than the former NACO practice of establishing a name
with a dash after the date if we thought the person was still alive
at the time, and instead using "b." if we thought the person was
dead-with the arbitrary result that a person was established with a
"b." or a dash solely depending on when his/her name was
established. I realize a dash before a death date without a birth
date looks strange, but I suspect we'll get used to it.
Bob
Robert L. Maxwell
Head, Special Collections and Formats Catalog Dept.
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thompson,
Rebecca L
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 9:54 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [RDA-L] RDA Questions
My colleague and I have a couple of questions:
First, we are confused by the print versions pertaining to RDA on
the ALA website. The RDA: Resource Description and Access and RDA:
Element Set View have the exact same description, except the latter
has the statement "RDA: Element Set View is an innovative way of
sorting the RDA instructions by element, such as Title, Place of
Publication etc." We were under the impression this is what RDA was
to begin with. Is this a printed out version of what is under the
tools tab in the RDA Toolkit? Could anyone explain the differences
between the two?
Our second question relates to the use of the terms "born" and
"died" (b. or d. in AACR2) in name headings. In 9.19.1.3, the
examples (copied below) show the use of these terms. However, at the
ALA RDA101 pre-conference in June and the ALCTS Introduction to RDA
webinar last Wednesday, the examples always showed use of a dash
(examples below) and we were told to not use the terms born and
died. Since both of these trainings were officially sanctioned, I am
wondering what is correct. Has there been a change and the toolkit
has been updated yet? Or was there a change and it just hasn't
filtered down the trainers yet?
Thank you for your time and help.
Examples from 9.19.1.3
Smith, John, 1978-
Smith, John, 1718-1791
Smith, John, born 1787
Smith, John, died 1773
Examples from pre-conference and webinar Smith, John, 1978- Smith,
John, 1718-1791 Smith, John, 1787- Smith, John, -1773
________________________________________________
Becky Thompson
Assistant Professor of Library Science
Missouri State University
901 South National
Meyer Library 108F
Springfield, MO 65897
417.836-5745
417.836.4764 (fax)
[email protected]
I looked at all the caged animals in the shelter.. the cast-offs to
human society.
I saw in their eyes love and hope, fear and dread, sadness and
betrayal; and I was angry.
God, I said, this is terrible! Why don't you do something???
There was silence for a moment and then the voice whispered softly,
I have done something; I created You!?
~Author Unknown
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