I'm struggling with the theoretical foundations myself, so take it with a grain of salt as I try to walk my way through it. With regard to electronic readers, library cataloging focuses on the content as modeled by the FRBR WEMI. You catalog the e-book, not the Kindle reader. You catalog the sound recording, not the iPod. The user's primary need is for a specific work/expression (or form/genre, or series, or topic), not 'whatever' the library has loaded on the Kindle this month. (Secondary needs are taken care of with the SMD, notes, or faceting.) You can certainly uses an ILS system to inventory the carrier equipment, but to present this to the public view I would argue is misleading; the library catalog represents an intellectual collection; it's not the Best Buy catalog. A carrier could still be categorized under the WEMI model if the collection is treating it as an artifact rather than a carrier, for example a special collection of reading tools, but for the purposes you describe, the Kindle or Playaway is a carrier for the intellectual content.
Steven Arakawa Catalog Librarian for Training & Documentation Catalog & Metadata Services, SML, Yale University P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 (203)432-8286 steven.arak...@yale.edu -----Original Message----- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of J. McRee Elrod Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 8:18 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: [RDA-L] Why RDA deals so poorly with equipment? http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/past/ala/annual/04/Tillett.pdf In the fourth slide of this FRBR presentation, materials listed to be catalogued include: What Are We Cataloging? Library collections - Books - Serials - Maps, globes, etc - Manuscripts. - Musical scores - A-V sound recordings motion pictures photographs, slides - Multimedia - "Remote" digital materials Missing is equipment, e.g. electronic readers and players now being acquired and circulated by libraries, whether with prerecorded material, or as carriers for electronic resources available from the library. Perhaps "A-V" could be interpreted to include A-V equipment? Is a Kindle or Kobo "A-V"? Also missing is realia. I'll admit it is difficult to see items of equipment and much realia (apart from works of art) as intellectual or artistic works. But we do need to catalogue them. Is this early (2004) omission related to RDA's failure to address this growing body of library material? Is it too late to include such material in the redrafted RDA? "Computer" would need to change from being a media type (replaced by ISBD's "electronic"?), becoming instead a carrier term under a new media term "equipment", along with readers, players, etc. Many present content terms would apply, but perhaps "computer program" shoud be added. __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
