If we were expected to transcribe the statement of responsibility, not just 
record it, the use of the mark of omission would make perfect sense.  Yet, the 
two Optional Omission instructions under 2.4.1.4 seem to suggest that mark of 
omission in S-o-Rs has been denigrated under RDA.

Specifically:

"Abridge a statement of responsibility only if it can be abridged without loss 
of essential information. Do not use a mark of omission (…) to indicate such an 
omission."

and the example:

Roger Colbourne [and six others]

not:

Roger Colbourne ... [and six others]

The first, seems to me, is just codifying (as an option) the AACR2 practice of 
not transcribing or marking the omission of words associated with names, so 
perhaps it's not relevant. But the second does represent a departure from AACR2 
practice (under AACR2 this would be Roger Colbourne ... [et al].)

But taking a step back, and trying to think about it from the user's 
perspective: does it matter to your typical user that they know where the 
omission occurs, or just that there has been an omission (in which case, if 
they need to see the whole s-o-r for some reason they will need to obtain the 
piece)? Honestly I don't know. :)

b

Benjamin Abrahamse
Cataloging Coordinator
Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems
MIT Libraries
617-253-7137

-----Original Message-----
From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access 
[mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2013 11:19 AM
To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca
Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Statement of responsibility naming more than three persons 
etc.

Ben Abrahamse wrote:

> * Though now, looking at RDA 2.4. again, I'm not 100% sure it's saying 
> to record.  The heading for instruction 2.4.1.4 is "Recording 
> statements of responsibility" but the first sentence in the 
> instruction is, "Transcribe a statement of responsibility".

In RDA, all of the data is "recorded".  It's just that for some of the 
elements, the method of recording is specifically transcription.

I wonder if it would be too weird to use the mark of omission, and have 
something like:

        Madeleine Albright, Franz-Lothar Altmann, ... Carl Bildt [and 52 others]

or:

        Madeleine Albright, Franz-Lothar Altmann, ... Carl Bildt [and 55 others]

I'm not really sure about this!  The first one totally ignores the number of 
names represented by the mark of omission.  The second one adds up all the 
names omitted before and after Carl Bildt.  Either way, I'm not sure I like the 
look of it.

Kevin M. Randall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Northwestern University Library
k...@northwestern.edu
(847) 491-2939

Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!

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