Cathy,
I had assumed this to be the case, else you would have surely mentioned
it before.
Admittedly, as Ben pointed out, there can be cases where it's obvious
from other visual clues that what comes first is not supposed to be the
title proper. I agree that in such cases, transcription should follow
those other clues. I don't think you come upon these cases very often,
though, at least with print materials (perhaps it's more common in the
non-book area). Does anybody have a good example?
Thinking about it got me wondering, though. Perhaps there is a more
general difference here between German and Anglo-American cataloging
which I hadn't realized before. German catalogers may indeed be less apt
to use layout criteria in order to determine questions of transcription.
Remember my problem of how to handle dates and years in the title area
in RDA, which we discussed in December?
Here's the RAK rule:
"Jahres- und Datumsangaben (z. B. 1882 - 1982; vom 29.5. - 1.6.1981) am
Anfang oder Schluss (...) gelten jedoch nicht als Sachtitel bzw. als
dessen Bestandteile, es sei denn, sie sind ein wesentlicher Teil der
Sachaussage."
Translation:
"Statements of years and dates (e.g. 1882-1982, from 29.5. - 1.6.1981)
at the beginning or end (...) are not considered to be the title proper
or a part of it, unless they are an essential part of the proposition."
So in RAK, there is a general rule to transcribe such statements of
years or dates not as the title proper, but as other title information.
The exception is triggered not by a consideration of layout, but by the
meaning of the phrase. In deciding whether to include dates/years in the
title proper, German catalogers are not looking at font sizes or some
such, but at the sense of the words.
When we discussed the question on this list, it became clear to me that
such a rule is completely alien to the thinking of AACR catalogers. But
I wasn't able to make out "the rule" according to AACR - there just
didn't seem to be one. I remember that John Hostage argued for always
transcribing dates/years as part of the title proper, but he also said
Anglo-American cataloging was inconsistent in this point. So it all
boils down to "cataloger's judgment". But which criteria are the basis
for it - could it be the way the years/dates are presented on the t.p.?
Perhaps, if they are in a smaller font than the rest, catalogers tend to
transcribe them as other title information, and if they are the same
size, they tend to transcribe them as part of the title proper...??
Well, probably it's much more complicated than that.
Sorry for bringing this up again. Perhaps the line of separation between
title proper and other title information is really not all that
important. As others have rightly mentioned, access problems can be
solved by added entries, and browse lists can be made to include other
title information as well. Still, for our community there is a real
problem here when we move to RDA: As we used to have explicit rules for
these cases, catalogers will expect to still get some guidance in these
matters. Therefore, we cannot simply say "This is all up to cataloger's
judgment" and leave it at this, but will have to include some
explanations and examples in the German policy statements. I only wish I
knew what these should look like ;-)
Heidrun
On 19.03.2013 19:05, Crum, Cathy (KDLA) wrote:
Hi all again,
Oops, I forgot to mention in my initial email that both segments of
the title have the same font size and are both boldface.
Thanks to all for discussion on this topic!
Cathy
/Cathy Crum///
/Cataloging Supervisor///
/State Library Services///
/Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives///
/(502) 564-8300, ext. 227///
/cathy.c...@ky.gov <mailto:cathy.c...@ky.gov>///
*From:*Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] *On Behalf Of *Benjamin A
Abrahamse
*Sent:* Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:47 PM
*To:* RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
*Subject:* [RDA-L] Im Zweifelsfall
Heidrum, I agree and disagree in equal parts.
There are a lot of means, besides the order of phrases on the t.p., by
which publishers can indicate the "titleness" of one particular phrase
on the t.p. Perhaps "Evaluation of pilot project" is in 9-point type
but "emergency traffic control for responders" is in boldface 15-point
type.
Without seeing the t.p. it's impossible to say whether the publisher
intended "Evaluation of pilot project" to be /avant titre/ and not
"/titre même/", so to speak. So while I agree that, in case of doubt,
a cataloger should transcribe title information sequentially as it
appears, if the publisher's intentions can be visually derived from
typography and layout, the cataloger should follow that. That is the
essence of respecting catalogers' judgment--it's not just that
catalogers are expected to have more experience looking at title
pages, but they are also the ones with the actual source of
information in front of them.
(If the cataloger does find themselves "im Zweifelsfall", of course,
it would also be a good idea to provide added-title access to both
parts of the title with a 246:30.)
Benjamin Abrahamse
Cataloging Coordinator
Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems
MIT Libraries
617-253-7137
*From:*Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] *On Behalf Of *Heidrun
Wiesenmüller
*Sent:* Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:29 PM
*To:* RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca <mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca>
*Subject:* Re: [RDA-L] RDA and the Title Proper
In the light of ongoing discussions in Germany, this is a very
interesting question for me.
According to the German RAK rules, there is a clear solution for this
case (which I believe I have mentioned before on this list, but my
former example was perhaps a less obvious one):
First, here's the original text of the rules (from RAK § 128, 6), for
those on the list who read German (quite a lot of people, as I've
found to my amazement):
"Angaben, zwischen denen ein Doppelpunkt oder Gedankenstrich steht,
gelten im allgemeinen als Sachtitel und Zusatz zum Sachtitel. Solche
Angaben gelten jedoch als ein Sachtitel, wenn die erste Angabe allein
keine ausreichende sachliche Benennung ergibt. Im Zweifelsfall gelten
sie als ein Sachtitel."
And here's my translation:
"Statements which are separated by a colon or a dash are normally
treated as title proper and other title information. But if the first
statement on its own is insufficient for naming the resource, both
statements together are treated as title proper. In case of doubt,
treat the statements as one title proper."
I especially like the "in case of doubt" provision (there are a lot of
those in RAK, by the way, and they will be sadly missed...).
So, in our example, the RAK solution would not be "title proper :
other title information", but instead, the whole would be treated as
title proper. The colon would consequently be kept as an ordinary
punctuation mark, and not as punctuation prescribed by ISBD. In MARC
it then looks like this:
245 _0 $a Evaluation of pilot project: emergency traffic control for
responders
I can't help feeling that this would also be a good solution in RDA.
Personally, I wouldn't be happy with transposing the statements and
using "emergency traffic control for responders" as title proper and
"evaluation of pilot project" as other title information, as was
suggested by Jenny and others. Although I see the point about the RDA
definition for title proper, I still feel that this would mean taking
too much liberties with what we find on the resource. The producers of
the book *could* have presented the statements like this:
Emergency traffic control for responders
Evaluation of pilot project
But they didn't choose to do it. I think catalogers should respect this.
There is a strong convention that the title proper comes before other
title information on a title page - so I don't think we can simply
"pick" what we want to have as the title proper. Only in rare cases I
think a transposition can be justified, when the placement of the
statements on the t.p. is really rather a question of (perhaps
unconventional) design. But in a case like the one we're talking
about, I think the presentation of the statements is rather some sort
of stylistic device, which should be faithfully transcribed.
But maybe I'm just being traditionalist here.
Heidrun
On 19.03.2013 13:59, Jenny Wright wrote:
Hi Cathy
I don't believe there's any conflict here, between what you want
to do (use "Emergency traffic control for responders" as the title
proper) and what RDA is telling you to do in 2.3.2 Title proper
and 2.3.4 Other title information.
The title proper is defined as "the chief name of a resource, i.e.
the title normally used when citing the resource"; and other title
information is defined as "the information which appears in
conjunction with, and is subordinate to, the title proper".
I do not believe that a phrase appearing above another phrase on a
title page necessarily makes it more important -- you can use your
judgement to determine which phrase is intended as the chief name,
and which phrase is subordinate.
Hope this helps
Regards
Jenny Wright
Development Manager
Bibliographic Data Services Ltd.
*From:*Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and
Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] *On Behalf Of *Crum,
Cathy (KDLA)
*Sent:* 19 March 2013 12:15
*To:* RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
<mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA>
*Subject:* [RDA-L] RDA and the Title Proper
Hi all,
We are beginning to transition into original cataloging with RDA,
but we have encountered a situation concerning the title proper
and other title information.
The title as presented on the title page is:
Evaluation of pilot project:
Emergency traffic control for responders
In the light of RDA's "transcribe it as you see it" theme, how
would you transcribe this title? Would you transcribe all of the
title as the title proper or is there a title proper and other
title information? I feel that "Emergency traffic control for
responders" is the title proper, but its placement on the title
page is problematic. If the 2 title segments had been flipped in
sequence, I think there would not have been much question about
it. If you were to transcribe all of the title as the title
proper, would you include the colon as well?
Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Cathy Crum
//
/Cathy Crum/
/Cataloging Supervisor/
/State Library Services/
/Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives/
/cathy.c...@ky.gov <mailto:cathy.c...@ky.gov>/
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--
---------------------
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi <http://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi>
--
---------------------
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
