Quoting "Danskin, Alan" <alan.dans...@bl.uk>:
It is not clear what
benefit you perceive is derived from the addition of information about
the larger jurisdiction.
The benefit is to inform the catalogue user where the document was issued.
There are many, many places which may appear in this element of a
resource description, but which share a name with other places far
distant. One of the FRBR things that seldom reaches our consciousness
is "context" -- the set of conditions in which a work or an expression
was created, or a manifestation published.
Context also applies when a user searches the catalogue. In my own
environment (Australia), "Melbourne" as unqualified place is
inevitably taken to denote the capital of the state of Victoria. In a
document description, it might well be the homonymous place in
Florida, or in England in Humberside or in Derbyshire -- no doubt
there are others as well.
Elaine Svenonius, in expounding the principle of representation ("to
reflect the way bibliographic entities represent themselves")* states
the need for truth in transcription to support accuracy; she also
says, "A description is inaccurate if it in any way misrepresents an
entity, making it seem what it is not."
No description can be called accurate if the omission of information
misleads a proportion of the users of the catalogue where it appears.
A great many users outside Ontario who read "London" will inevitably
suppose it to denote the capital of England -- the bibliographical
universe is indeed universal.
No single principle can be carried to the utmost in implementation
without producing an absurd result: there always have to be checks and
balances. One strand of check and balance is the normal expectations
of the user of the catalogue -- a factor modified by environment, but
one of which we can make an easy guess in the case of "London".
London, England, is not the same place as London, Ontario (nor London,
Kentucky; London, Kiribati; nor a number of other places).
Accurate knowledge of the place of publication is often one of the
criteria for selecting the resource which best meets the user's
requirements; the more so as selection is generally made initially
from a brief record display, not the full set of data.
To deprive the user of the necessary identifying information presented
in conjunction with the primary place name is doing the user a
disservice -- and the highest principle, as Svenonius (p. 68-70,
following Ranganathan and others) reminds us, is the principle of user
convenience: "Decisions taken in the making of descriptions should be
made with the user in mind." (p. 68)
How does refusal to specify the jurisdiction which contains the place
named as the place of publication, and necessary to enable the user to
identify it properly, do anything but offer an obstacle to the
catalogue user? Is the principle of representation really so
absolutely inviolable that interpolation (clearly marked as such by
square brackets) of necessary information into a descriptive element
that is not complete, and which is a minor element in forming a
citatioin for a document, really transgresses it?
I rate the principle of user convenience higher, and judge that
bracketed information, if useful, should be supplied.
*_The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization_. Cambridge,
Mass. : MIT Press, 2000. (p. 71)
Hal Cain
Melbourne, Australia
hec...@dml.vic.edu.au
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