Mac said:
It does not matter to me, or patrons I suspect, whether one uses
$c[19]61. $c[1961] or $c1961. It *is* important that the whole year
be there, since one should not have to wait for a note to know whether
it is 1761, 1861, or 1961. A little pragmatism is in order here! To
transcribe "'61" as opposed to recording the whole year serves no
purpose.
Quite. That's why I voted for recording all four digits, i.e. "1961".
Having looked at RDA again, I think the most relevant rule here is
1.8.2, where it says to "record numerals in the form preferred by the
agency". As per 1.8.1, this also applies to the date of production. The
preference of our agencies is to record a year as an arabic numeral with
four digits.
So, in my opinion, changing "61" to "1961" here is similar to changing a
date given in Roman numerals to the preferred form. We do not mark that
either. But it would, of course, be possible to add a note saying "Year
given as "61" on the resource", just as you could write a note "Year
given in Roman numerals", if you think users would be interested in this
information (personally, I don't think they would be).
A resource which only has a copyright year falls in a different
category, I believe. Because there, you do not have a year of
publication at all. True, there is year, but it's a year for something
else (the copyright), and from that you're deducing that the publication
year is identical. So bracketing is in order here (although, in German
cataloging, we do not use brackets in this case at all, and as far as I
know, no user has ever complained about it). But in the case of the
etching, I claim that the production year is actually there, only the
artist didn't use the preferred form with the four digits.
As I said, for me the case is not one of a supplied date. But I concede
that a second interpetation is possible: You might feel that it's not
obvious that "61" here is a shorthand form for "1961", and that you need
some sort of deduction from other clues to decide that this is a work
from the 20th century. Then you could argue that the year of production
is not given in the resource, and that therefore you have to supply it.
If this is way you want to go, I think it would be better to bracket the
whole year. But I really think it would be "cataloging overkill".
Well, as Mac already said, in the end it doesn't matter so much whether
the catalog record shows "1961", "[1961]" or "[19]61", as long as all
four digits are shown.
Heidrun
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Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
