[RDA-L] The purpose of standards

[James Weinheimer]

On 12/21/2012 09:52 PM, Deborah Fritz wrote:

At the risk of sounding even more obsessive-compulsive than Bob, I 
offer you this.



and

On 12/21/2012 05:29 PM, Heidrun Wiesenmüller wrote:Here's a postscript 
to the discussion (for those of you who still care):


Here's a postscript to the discussion (for those of you who still care): 



I want to make clear that I believe that all of these concerns are 
indeed very important if we want to create and maintain high-quality 
standards. The people who create the records (i.e. standardized products 
of any type) *must* care because if even they don't care, why should we 
expect anybody else to care? And why should the public provide money to 
create products that nobody cares about?


Bibliographic records that conform to high-quality standards are the 
only products we have. Anyone off of the street, or any computer can 
easily make garbage records, and make them easier, cheaper, faster, and 
if garbage records are considered to be the same as anything else, they 
will be "better" as well.


Specific matters of quality aside, what I challenge is the re-opening of 
questions that were solved long ago. If someone can demonstrate that the 
former methods don't work any longer or if they can demonstrate that 
there are better and more efficient ways to do the same job, then those 
would be good reasons to re-open such questions.


For instance, long experience has proven that transcribing the title of 
an item exactly is extremely important to the running of a library. 
Therefore, accuracy and even extended rules for titles became necessary. 
And yet transcribing the same rules for titles may have little purpose 
*in an internet world* where the title of a resource can change in an 
instant and the earlier title no longer even exists. This is a 
fundamentally different situation from title changes for e.g. printed 
serials and series because the earlier issues held in the library will 
forever bear the former titles. So in this regard, re-opening the 
question of transcribing titles may make sense.


Another example of a fundamental difference from printed copies versus 
materials on the internet is that everyone is looking at *the same 
file*. In the physical world, each library that adds an item is 
examining an individual copy that might, or might not, differ in certain 
specific ways from other similar items. In the printed world, for the 
sake of coherence and efficiency, all of these individual items have 
been lumped together into what is called a "manifestation" in FRBR 
terms, or an "edition" in earlier terminology, based on certain 
definitions. The definitions for manifestation can and have changed, 
leading to the situation where something that on one day had been 
considered a different manifestation/edition, on another day becomes a 
new manifestation because of changes to the definition.


With online resources, everyone is looking at *exactly the same files* 
so the utility of even considering an online resource in terms of a 
manifestation may be far less useful. In terms of 
work/expression/manifestation/item, I ask what could constitute an 
"item" when considering webpages and websites?


With manifestations, it seems that the only way to consider the 
different manifestation aspects of a webpage would be to relate it to 
the Wayback Machine in the Internet Archive somehow. But I certainly 
wouldn't want to catalog each one of those "manifestations". The website 
of Microsoft.com currently has 3226 earlier versions (or 
manifestations/editions) in the Internet Archive! 
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.microsoft.com


Yet for physical materials, the idea of the manifestation/edition still 
makes as much sense as it ever did.


So, I am not against the need to re-open old questions, but I maintain 
that there need to be good reasons for re-opening those questions. In 
the current cases, I cannot find any reasons at all--in fact, I have 
tried to point out in some of my podcasts how there will be serious 
negative consequences for the public. These consequences should not be 
ignored. It seems to me that the motivation is some need to shoehorn 
everything into a highly dubious and unproven metaphysical construct 
such as FRBR. A construct that is unproven especially in relationship to 
online materials.


So, I applaud those who take these matters seriously. They are doing a 
very important task. What I question is the need to re-open questions if 
there is no practical utility in it.


--
James weinheimerweinheimer.ji...@gmail.com
First Thushttp://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Ruleshttp://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Cataloging Matters 
Podcastshttp://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html

Re: [RDA-L] "Page [4] of cover."

[Laurence S. Creider]

I agree completely.  Of course, "page 4 of cover" is no clearer.  Can we
argue about "back cover" vs. "back of cover?"  :-)

Larry
-- 
Laurence S. Creider
Interim Head
Archives and Special Collections Dept.
University Library
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM  88003
Work: 575-646-4756
Fax: 575-646-7477
lcrei...@lib.nmsu.edu

On Sat, December 22, 2012 10:02 am, Rich Aldred wrote:
> I've never understood how "Page [4] of cover." is clearer than Back cover.
>
> Rich Aldred
>
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 3:04 PM, Robert Maxwell
> wrote:
>
>>  RDA does not address this, but there is an LC-PCC Policy statement that
>> catalogers may follow if they like and should if they’re creating PCC
>> records:
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> LC-PCC PS for 1.7.1[image:
>> http://access.rdatoolkit.org/images/rdalink.png]
>> 
>>
>> GENERAL GUIDELINES ON TRANSCRIPTION
>>
>> …
>>
>>
>>
>>   500  ##
>>
>> $a"2090245PMA"–-Page 4 of cover.
>>
>> Not "... –Page [4] of cover."
>>
>> ** **
>>
>>
>>
> Rich Aldred
> Catalog Librarian
> Haverford College
> http://www.haverford.edu/library/
> Haverford, PA 19041
> Voice: 610-896-1273
> Email: rald...@haverford.edu
> Fax: 610-896-1102
>

[RDA-L] RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee response to PCC Relationship Designator Guidelines TG Report

[Ian Fairclough]

Mac Elrod said "Codes are a better solution when records need to be exported in 
more than one language."  Actually it should be just as easy to perform the 
necessary translation from one English term to the equivalent in another 
language as it is to take a code and change to a word in any language.   For 
example:

Computer reads: prf  Computer translates to: performer [for English-language 
context]
Computer reads: performer   Computer translates to: performer [for 
English-language context]
Computer reads: prf  Computer translates to: [translation of performer in other 
language]
Computer reads: performer  Computer translates to: [translation of performer in 
other language]

From a linguistic standpoint all verbal data is code.  A Google search for 
"code linguistic" retrieves a few related documents.  See for example the 
Wikipedia article code-switching 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
The task is translation in either case, and a machine can perform such tasks.
 
The only difference between using prf and using performer is that, in the 
second instance the "translation" is identical to the source data.  Many spoken 
languages share textual characters, even when pronounced differently.

Sincerely - Ian 
Ian Fairclough - George Mason University - ifairclough43...@yahoo.com

[RDA-L] "Page [4] of cover."

[Rich Aldred]

I've never understood how "Page [4] of cover." is clearer than Back cover.

Rich Aldred

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 3:04 PM, Robert Maxwell wrote:

>  RDA does not address this, but there is an LC-PCC Policy statement that
> catalogers may follow if they like and should if they’re creating PCC
> records:
>
> ** **
>
> LC-PCC PS for 1.7.1[image:
> http://access.rdatoolkit.org/images/rdalink.png]
> 
>
> GENERAL GUIDELINES ON TRANSCRIPTION
>
> …
>
>
>
>   500  ##
>
> $a"2090245PMA"–-Page 4 of cover.
>
> Not "... –Page [4] of cover."
>
> ** **
>
>
>
Rich Aldred
Catalog Librarian
Haverford College
http://www.haverford.edu/library/
Haverford, PA 19041
Voice: 610-896-1273
Email: rald...@haverford.edu
Fax: 610-896-1102
<>