Hi John, I have run into situations where I thought a corporate body or personal should be a field of activity. If someone has written multiple books about the U.S. Supreme Court or biographies of George Washington or critical studies of William Shakespeare, why wouldn't we use the corresponding name AAPs as one of the facets of their field of activity? I believe current NACO policy is that we *not* do this, but we do it for geographic entities and political jurisdictions -- how are they any different?
So long as this data element is defined as "field or fields of endeavour, area or areas of expertise, etc." where else would we record it? I think most people do need both a Field of activity and a Profession/Occupation 372 $a Copyright $a Intellectual property $2 lcsh 374 $a Lawyers $a Authors $2 lcsh 372 $a International law $a Terrorism--Prevention--Law and legislation $2 lcsh 374 $a Law teachers $a College teachers $a Authors $2 lcsh 372 $a Human rights $2 lcsh 374 $a Human rights workers $2 lcsh I agree that ideally the Field of activity shouldn't be specific to the one resource you're basing the AAP on, but should broadly cover all of the person's/body's output. I think the problem is that the data element is called "Field of activity." Robert On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 3:21 PM, John Hostage <host...@law.harvard.edu>wrote: > I think we’ve gone way overboard in the application of 372 and 374. In > most cases, a person doesn’t need both. Some people seem to have gotten > much too specific in these fields. An authority record does not have to be > the same as a Wikipedia article. What purpose does that serve? The > examples in RDA 9.15 are fairly general. > > > > I wouldn’t say Stalin was a politician. I would say he was a dictator and > a head of state. If you’re looking for another class-of-persons term, you > could use Communists, but communism isn’t a field of activity, in my > opinion. > > > > Similarly, I have seen authority records for corporate bodies where people > want to make very narrow attributes. To use a made-up example, if there > were a heading “National Association of Skydivers. Board of Directors”, > some would add a 372 for “National Association of > Skydivers—Administration.” I would question whether such a subordinate > body needs any such field, but if so, I think it should be “Skydiving”, > which would have been on the parent record. Does anyone think it makes > sense to use a corporate body name as a field of activity? > > > > ------------------------------------------ > > John Hostage > > Senior Continuing Resources Cataloger // > > Harvard Library--Information and Technical Services // > > Langdell Hall 194 // > > Cambridge, MA 02138 > > host...@law.harvard.edu > > +(1)(617) 495-3974 (voice) > > +(1)(617) 496-4409 (fax) > > > > *From:* Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access > [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] *On Behalf Of *Santos Muñoz, Ricardo > *Sent:* Thursday, November 14, 2013 05:07 > > *To:* RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA > *Subject:* [RDA-L] The meaning of 372 Field of Activity > > > > Hello again. > > > > I’m wrangling with some of the 3xx fields for authority records, in order > to produce some policy for using some of them in a coherent and fruitful > way. I’m facing some problems, and neither the MARC field itself, nor RDA > instructions, nor the use I’ve seen out there gives me a clear view. > > > > The main bump in the road is field 372. Let’s say I’m working on Joseph > Stalin. I’d like record and retrieve him as a politician (374), as a member > of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (373), but I’d like to relate him > with communism. So, recording “Communism” in 372 seems perfect for that > purpose. But I would also record Comunism in 372 for a scholar historian on > communism. > > > > Summing up, if I record *372 Punk-rock,* Am I expressing that the guy is > a musician (374), specialized in *doing* punk-rock music, or Am I > indicating that he/she is a music critic (374), expert *on* punk-rock > music? > > > > Thanks in advance for opinions and experiencies. > > > > *Ricardo Santos Muñoz* > > *Depto. de Proceso Técnico* > > *Biblioteca Nacional de España* > > *Tfno.: 915 807 735* > > >
