Robert
I once asked a colleague at LC, what they thought about a person's name being
recorded as the field of activity for a conference about the person; the reply
was "Like you, I think it looks a little odd and probably is best handled by
subject headings, but I don't see anything that would prevent its use".
We try to use topical terms when we can, but I've had no problem advising my
cataloguers that the name of a corporate body or person could be appropriate in
the situations you describe. The name heading for William Shakespeare appears
in 372 in several LC/NAF NARs.
Regards
Richard
_________________________
Richard Moore
Authority Control Team Manager
The British Library
Tel.: +44 (0)1937 546806
E-mail: richard.mo...@bl.uk
________________________________
De: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access
[mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] En nombre de Robert Bratton
Enviado el: jueves, 14 de noviembre de 2013 22:41
Para: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
Asunto: Re: [RDA-L] The meaning of 372 Field of Activity
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
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