On 4/27/2011 11:40 AM, Laurence Creider wrote:
The point of my comment yesterday was that there was no proof that Dr.
Snoopy was in fact a different "person" from Snoopy. The existence of a
title means nothing. Sometimes I use my Dr. or Professor, sometimes I do
not.
Let me start with a disclaimer. I am not speaking authoritatively about
the intentions of the authors of RDA. I think that this thread raises
some issues that are not completely clear in RDA and which require
discussion about how to apply the instructions.
As the JSC was reviewing the drafts of the section of RDA that dealt
with multiple identities or personae, it struck me that a literal
reading of RDA would suggest that the simple use of different names (but
not different forms of the same name or changes of name) was sufficient
evidence of the intent to establish a separate bibliographic identity.
If that is true, then Larry's point above is not relevant: you don't
need proof that "Dr. Snoopy" is a different person, you only need
evidence of the use of a distinct name -- and a decision that this is a
different name rather than a different form of the same name (which I
suppose one could argue).
The implications of this frighten me somewhat, particularly when I think
of the conventions of pseudonymous publication (under initials or
phrases) common before the nineteenth century. For such persons, at
least the cataloger can take account of current scholarship in
attributing works to an author under his/her "real" name -- and of all
the "modern" publications issued under that real name. This is much
more difficult for what we used to call "contemporary authors". In
practice, we may still need to make such distinctions.
It also occurs to me that this example illustrates the different
purposes of access points. The access point for "Dr. Snoopy" is based
on the association of this particular name with the particular work in
question; in this case, it allows access to this particular identity,
distinct from other identities such as "Captain Snoopy" or "Joe Cool" or
"Flashbeagle"; a reference structure of "related persons" should allow
navigation among these different access points. The "real" creator of
these works is Charles Schulz and an access point should be provided
under his name which will collocate all the works he created. And there
is another common element, the *character* Snoopy, for whom a
descriptive or subject access point might also be provided, which would
bring together all the works in which Snoopy appeared. All of these
possible access points do not perform the same function. It seems to me
that access by the specific name used for each work (e.g., "Dr. Snoopy")
does serve a useful function, but that this access point need not serve
all of the collocation functions that I described above for other access
points. The right tool for the job . . .
Again, these are tentative thoughts, not authoritative pronouncements.
This is definitely (in my opinion) a gray area in RDA, and one worth
further discussion.
John Attig
Authority Control Librarian
Penn State University
jx...@psu.edu
