Which is why in an ideal world, if we care about whether the illustrations are colored or not (and I suspect the time is LONG gone when our patrons or we actually DO), there would be a data element in the record which marked, in a machine interpretable way, whether there are illustrations (checkmark HERE), and whether they are colored/coloured (checkmark THERE). Which could then be translated to the appropriate spelling or even language for the given audience.
But this is really just an example of the principle of the thing, not a very good example in particular. Because like I said, I suspect that whether illustrations are present in color or not is not of much concern to 99% of patrons 99% of the time. In fact, if you think about it too hard it's a bit frustrating that expensive cataloger time is being spent marking down whether illustrations are colored or not (let alone correcting or changing someone elses spelling of colored!), when our actual real world records generally can't manage to specify things the user DOES care about a lot -- like if there is full text version of the item on the web and what it's URL is. (Anyone that has tried to figure this out from our actual real world shared records knows what I'm talking about; it's pretty much a roll of the dice whether an 856 represents full text or something else, it can't be determined reliably from indicators or subfields.) ________________________________________ From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Bothmann, Robert L [robert.bothm...@mnsu.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 7:47 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Subjective Judgements in RDA 300s???? First, if an English speaker uses English as the language of cataloging rather than the American dialect as the language of cataloging, then Americans should leave that be and not change the spelling to the American dialect--that is not a correction and I don't agree with your choice to "correct" spelling that is not incorrect. I laughed out loud when I saw this--it's a great example of something, I'm just not sure what. I suppose that if you consider the principle of representation--that the description should represent the resource the way the resource represents itself--then this could be construed as an acceptable representation; particularly if the resource explicitly says "beautiful all colour illustrations". ******************************************* Robert Bothmann Electronic Access/Catalog Librarian Associate Professor, Library Services -----Original Message----- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Deborah Tomares Sent: Tuesday, 01 March, 2011 3:05 PM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: [RDA-L] Subjective Judgements in RDA 300s???? I just cataloged the book corresponding to OCLC #702491897. When I looked at the record, the 300 read: 319 pages : |b illustrations (some coloured, all beautiful), maps ; |c 25 cm. I've corrected the spelling of "coloured" to American usage--is there an RDA provision I'm missing about this, or was it a typo? But the part I can't understand is the inclusion of "all beautiful". Are we allowed, under RDA provisions, to include value judgements about the illustrations? Are value judgements allowed elsewhere in cataloging under RDA? Under AACR2, we are supposed to be as objective as possible when creating records, and not allow personal biases in subjects, etc. But this is ridiculous. Aren't we supposed to just be transcribing in the 300 field? Is this a rogue cataloger, or is there a provision I should be cringing about now? Thanks in advance for all information (and potential public drubbing of CGU?). Deborah Tomaras, NACO Coordinator Librarian II Western European Languages Team New York Public Library Library Services Center 31-11 Thomson Ave. Long Island City, N.Y. 11101 (917) 229-9561 dtoma...@nypl.org Disclaimer: Alas, my ideas are merely my own, and not indicative of New York Public Library policy.
