Thanks, John, for this reply, and your point that users can certainly benefit from inclusive, more detailed information found in authority records via keywords in notes is well taken. For the record, though, the phrase “marriage breaks up, 1973, marries Gerald Fremlin, 1976” is cited in the 3rd 670 (referencing Carol Ann Howell’s book on Munro), not in a 678. The 678 does mention the divorce (though in a different year), without mention of remarriage.
I guess the question remains, what defines proper restraint, and what defines going overboard? A gray area, to be sure. Cordially, Rick From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of JOHN C ATTIG Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:19 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] TMI in RDA NAF? Most of what you note appears in the Biographical Information element (MARC 678). Frankly, I think that users will find such information very helpful in understanding the identity of the person concerned. And the keywords in the note provide useful gateways for discovery. I agree that there needs to be more discussion -- and application of judgment -- in deciding what fields of activity or what affiliations (for example) are worth recording. I noted this in our RDA in NACO training (which seemed to take a rather inclusive approach). As long as we are recording and maintaining this information manually, I would like to see some restraint exercised. However, I do see this expansion of the content and functions of authority records as only the first step. One of the nice things about linked data is that it is so easy to co-opt other people's work into your data. If not People magazine, there are other institutions out there, like the New York Times, who regularly record such information about persons and who have a business case for keeping it current. We need to be able to link out to that sort of data and use it to construct informative gateway displays for our users. John Attig Authority Control Librarian Penn State University jx...@psu.edu ________________________________ From: "Rick McRae" <rmc...@esm.rochester.edu> To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 10:55:01 AM Subject: [RDA-L] TMI in RDA NAF? 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.pdf (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
