> -----Original Message----- > From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access > [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Kathleen Lamantia > Sent: October 23, 2012 2:36 PM > To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA > Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Additional work required by RDA > > Agreed, and thank you for the suggestion. > > But, back to the original question - why do the extra work? > > Our current gmds are very clear and succinct: dvd, compact disc, comic > book; book on cd, etc. Why make people try to figure out a combination of 3 > terms when one simple clear statement is already in place and tells them > what they need? "People" in this case being staff who are trying to get > items to patrons.
Those aren't GMDs as listed in AACR2, but they also shouldn't be stopped in local systems. It's a matter of what field you use. Those terms are actually nearly identical to our item-level collection codes and they have nothing to do with bibliographic fields in our case. The three terms (336-337-338) can be collapsed to 2 terms, and, for display, substitutions can be made (that was the intent of the Joint Steering Committee: http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/5m100-128.pdf - point 103.8.7). The 337 Media Type value is embedded within the 338 Carrier Type (a "videodisc" is a "video" media type), and so it can be dropped from display. Perhaps part of the confusion may have come from the easy mapping of some common GMD values to the 337 Media Type. These are the easy mappings that can be made: 'videorecording' maps to 'video' 'sound recording' maps to 'audio' 'microform' maps to 'microform' whereas combining Content Type and Carrier Type can produce some good results: "spoken word" on "audio disc" which can be converted for display to "Book on CD". Keeping the 337 around might make sense if finding the most common mappings of 336-337-338 to the GMD is important, but the other two elements in 336 and 338 might be more useful for display in the long run. In other situations more precise codes may need to be called upon. Our format icons are generated from MARC fixed fields, and values deep inside 006, 007 and 008 are called up to devise very specific icons and display terms. That specificity in format details is essentially not possible with the "general" terms in 336-337-338 so there still needs to be some contemplation of how the whole set of RDA elements can be used to create flexible displays. There are many other RDA elements that get into detailed format characteristics. The assumption for many of these, I think, is that they will ultimately depend on controlled vocabulary, data normalization, or something equivalent to MARC fixed fields to create the kind of the "on-the-fly" and standardized displays that are in much need now because of the increasing diversity of format types. The key though is to separate in our minds the data elements, and how the examples for values for each element are portrayed in RDA, and what is technically feasible in mapping those element values into different displays. It's clear from RDA that the listed values for many kinds of elements are not intended for ultimate display. For example the qualifiers "(work)" and "(expression)" in some relationship designators are not intended for display, but are necessary to create underlying unique values that are semantically consistent with the entities involved. Likewise for the Content-Media-Carrier Type values-- these are based upon the matrix of underlying elements used in the RDA-ONIX Framework and cannot be adjusted at that lower level. They can however be displayed differently. Thomas Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library
