Benjamin, I absolutely agree.
More's the pity that RDA's standard rule for the "extent" element (3.4.1.3) requires us to give "the number of units and an appropriate term for the type of carrier as listed under 3.3.1.3". Fortunately, there is also rule 3.4.1.5 c) which allows us to use "a term in common usage (...) as an alternative to a term listed under 3.3.1.3, if preferred by the agency preparing the description". (By the way: I wonder why this rule isn't presented as an option under 3.4.1.3?)
Surprisingly, the LC-PCC PS for 3.4.1.5 only refers to a) ("if the carrier is in a newly developed format that is not yet covered in the list under 3.3.1.3") and doesn't give any guidance as to c).
So I wonder: What will the general practice be in MARC 300 $a? Am I right in assuming that almost nobody will use things like "videodisc" here and instead use more specific terms like DVD and Blue-ray disc?
Heidrun On 01.02.2013 18:45, Benjamin A Abrahamse wrote:
Heidrun, It seems to me that the "carrier type" vocabulary is the least useful of the three controlled vocabularies that RDA introduces for describing the relationship between content and format. On the one hand, it's too general to provide information users need to know in order to use a "mediated" resource. For example, DVD and Blu-Ray are both "videodiscs" but if you don't have a Blu-Ray player available to you, it's not much help to know it's a videodisc. On the other hand, as you point out, some of the distinctions seem a bit arbitrary (I tend to agree that a "flipchart" is essentially a volume, just spiral bound at the top rather than stitched on the side). I suppose it provides a general categorization of "carriers", and maybe that will prove useful in some systems. But it clearly doesn't take the place of specific descriptions that we put in the 300 $a and in the notes. Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137
-- --------------------- Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A. Stuttgart Media University Faculty of Information and Communication Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
