Greetings-
While slogging through documentation of RDA Authority guidelines in a blitz of self-education, I wonder whether some examples might reveal some overinclusion in the kind of information to be found in such records for personal names. For family or corporate headings, I understand that the inclusion of detail is necessary to trace histories and evolutions, especially in cases of variant headings over time. For personal names, I have no qualms about associated places of birth/death, and residence (310), profession (374), affiliated institutions (373), and gender (375, but as an aside it will be an interesting development to see how transgendered people will be represented in this field), as arguably they help pinpoint identities, especially in the case of more-common names. However, looking at the case of Alice Munro in the list of examples found in: http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/6JSC_RDA_Complete_Examples_%28Authority%29.p df (Personal Name 1), in addition to the above, plus the professional positions she held (all appropriate so far), we scroll down to read that her marriage to James Armstrong Munro breaks up in 1973, and she remarries Gerald Fremlin in 1976. I perfectly understand that the marriage to J. A. Munro is pertinent, as this info explains her last name (with the 400 entry from her unmarried name Laidlaw, Alice Ann), but why is it important for name-authority purposes that we know that she divorced him and has remarried? After all, her professional name remains Munro, not Fremlin. To me this seems unnessary to include such information which seems irrelevant to her professional accomplishments (which is why she appears in the NAF in the first place). Will there be a line drawn as to how much info will be included in RDA name records? Or will future 670s in entries like Cruise, Tom, |d 1962- or Stewart, Kristen, |d 1990- read like recent issues of People magazine? Best regards, Rick McRae Catalog / Reference Librarian Sibley Music Library Eastman School of Music (585) 274-1370
