========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 20:44:32 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Gorman and Oddy: rules for description MIME-Version: 1.0 In their generally excellent paper Gorman and Oddy suggest that AACR2 incorporates all of the ISBDs. This is not the case. As I have mentioned elsewhere, nine years after the publication of the "Guidelines for the application of the ISBDs to the description of component parts" (London : IFLA UBCIM Programme, 1988) this standard - effectively an ISBD(CP) - has yet to be incorporated into AACR. The 1988 guidelines are not perfect but would be an excellent starting point for the revision of the very unsatisfactory chapter 13, from which they differ significantly. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 20:45:36 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Gorman and Oddy: rec2, pruning of descriptive rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Gorman and Oddy's second recommendation is that the rules for description should be pruned of detail, which should be provided by separate specialist manuals. This is odd. If we want a streamlined set of rules for description, shorn of detail, surely we already have these in the ISBDs? Isn't the job of AACR to put flesh on the ISBDs? And does anyone *like* having to refer to AACR *plus* separate rule interpretations? Rather than pruning, could I suggest that the rules for description are filled out, to include some at least of the detail at present provided by eg the LCRIs? It would be an easy matter to indicate what was a rule and what was a recommendation. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 20:48:06 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Gorman and Oddy: rec 3, unpublished items MIME-Version: 1.0 I strongly support recommendation 3, that we resolve the issue of unpublished items. In particular, what is required is a definition of "unpublished": the clear distinction between published and unpublished assumed by AACR2 no longer exists. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 21:33:02 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Gorman and Oddy: rec 7, the microform issue MIME-Version: 1.0 I am concerned that Gorman and Oddy take it for granted that the "microform issue" should be resolved by politely asking LC to change its habits. As I understand it, LC stubbornly insists on cataloguing microform copies of published works in terms of the latter (with local details of the microform), rather than as microforms per se, with a note about the original. Given our desire for greater universality, compatibility etc isn't it more appropriate to catalogue an *unpublished* copy (eg a microform) of a *published* printed work in terms of a full description of the item as published, modified by a local note detailing the library's holdings? There seem to be three good reasons: 1. The resulting record is more useful for other libraries and to users approaching other libraries. 2. This approach is consistent with an enhanced role for the catalogue as bibliographic resource rather than mere inventory. 3. It is consistent with the rules for incomplete holdings, which require a description of the item or set as published, modified by a local note detailing a library's own holdings. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 08:37:05 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Antony Robert David Franks Subject: What's a Catalog For? Comments: To: ThomasB@CLASSIC.MSN.COM I've been following the various strands of discussion for the past several days, and I think that two fundamental issues continue to be overlooked by the assumptions underlying our contributions. The first point is, that we have avoided in silence the issue of what people want from the catalog we produce--or, from another angle, are we giving our clients what they want? The second point is, whether or not that catalog is suitable, we are producing a specific type of catalog, and that AACR is geared to the production of *that* type of catalog. In other words, bluntly, if we're not happy with the catalog we have now, we're not going to be happy with AACR, and will be endlessly tinkering with it, to make it produce what we want. I think that the discussions here adequately represent the transition that has taken place in our needs for a catalog. Over the weekend, this crystallised in my mind into three areas. The first, as Gorman and Oddy make clear in their paper and in responses to this list, is the historic role of a catalog: the inventory of one's holdings. This is made clear in the posting about the ridiculousness of a "master record" for all manifestations of an item. I think that all of us were trained in a discipline whose bedrock assumption was, that each item in one's collection shall have its own record in the catalog. And so, we dutifully (at least, I know that I have done so) cataloged each edition of a work, the microcard of one edition, the microfiche of each edition, the microfilm of each edition, the compact disc of the most recent edition, and, when it went online, the database version. Each was a separate physical entity, and therefore each required under AACR its own record. Automation has not changed this assumption. It only seemed, at its start, to make it easier to produce a union catalog of our holdings. It occurred to me that the change which automation has now produced in our profession is in searching. Not only to our users search on the controlled access points which we provide, both descriptive and subject, but they want from the *catalog* the provision and arrangement of information that we are trained to think of as the provenance of the *reference* librarian and the *bibliographer*. The very wish for a "master record" to avoid "cluttering up" the database with multiple records for the "same work" illustrates this: we have gone from inventory of holdings to provision of bibliography. Any number of us have spent any amount of time with professional academics or public users trying to explain why they cannot get from the online catalog all possible appearances and spellings of a certain word or family name on each title page in existence. We have begun trying to provide such information, with tables of contents, summaries, additional added entries not required by the physical description, etc., but demand has gone beyond this. There seems from Autocat postings, and this list's discussions, to be more and more a demand for the information itself, beyond the representative record which we create. This includes both online text, and URLs, with links to relevant web sites. We can digress at this point to any number of issues related to this: expense; copyright; access to, and through, a library's public terminals; the lack of permanent URLs; the awesome demands of upkeep for such a melange of reference points, bibliographic data, and actual data. We are probably at the dawn of just such a concoction, but I must admit, surveying this future from an initial training as a medieval manuscript and incunable cataloger, the polite word "melange" rapidly dissolves in my mind to "hash". Here we come, again, to one of my own early remarks to this list: I am not sure that a conference for AACR2 is quite the right place to be addressing such fundamental questions as those with which I have here tried this list's patience. It has been repeatedly stressed that AACR was writ independent of computers. It continues to serve the un-automated as well as the automated. In that sense, we face a continued bi-furcated cataloging future in providing access to information--and possibly the information itself--online, utilising a code that is text based. For the time being--as long as the publishing industry continues to be hard-copy-based, this situation is serviceable, but I hope we will not be left playing catch-up with the technological changes already transforming that industry. I do have, alas, for this list, a final thought, and it is a repetition of one of my more morose ones: training catalogers. We are not being prepared for this. In a climate of budget cuts, staff downsizing, and "efficient" cataloging, the demands for more access, more data, and more intellectual thought in the cataloging process are not being met at this time. The fault is two-fold: One, our job descriptions are the same, but the expectations from our work are different. That is the fault of management, in not clearly articulating what it wants. Two, our training and preparation are rapidly becoming inadequate. That is our fault. Just as we are finally codifying automation into our cataloging and workflow, we are now facing up to a long past demand for something else--and more. It seems that we must second-guess the many demands of a catalog, and provide that. We must know mark-up language, hot spots, links, and a host of things that only come from an interest in continuing education that comes only from one's self, and not from without. I do not think that this situation is one of "flexibilty", "flattened hierarchies" and all the other buzzwords of contemporary reorganisation. I think that it is a damning failure on our own part: in direction from above, and in participation from below. The situation is not going to be met from within, by a reorganization of AACR. It will be met from without, in the expectations of what we want from AACR, in the production of a catalog. Until those assumptions are clearly addressed, and vocalised, we will continue to be disatisfied with whatever we do. These are *definitely* my own lengthy thoughts on these issues, and in no way present the position of my employer, the Library of Congress. ********************************************************* * Anthony R.D. Franks * * Library of Congress * * afra@loc.gov * * * * Not the official position of the Library of Congress* *********************************************************## ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 10:22:30 EDT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Carroll Nelson Davis Subject: [Carroll Nelson Davis : Re: Seriality and Main Entry (fwd)] Date: Tue, 2 Sep 97 10:17:53 EDT From: Carroll Nelson Davis To: mac@slc.bc.ca Subject: Re: Seriality and Main Entry (fwd) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 29 Aug 1997 23:33:34 -0400 Message-ID: Aaron Kuperman may indeed have identified an area (legal literature) where personal editors, etc. are significant access points and deserve inclusion more often than is the common practice of many serials catalogers. Unfortunately, his description of the cataloging rules and of the basis for limited tracing of entries for editors in serial bibliographic records is inaccurate, which undermines confidence in his remarks as a whole. Mr. Kuperman et al. should read AACR2 21.30D: Make an added entry under the heading for a prominently named editor or compiler of a monographic work. Make an added entry under the heading for an editor of a serial only in the rare instance when a serial is likely to be known by the editor's name. That is not a local interpretation or attitude. It is a rule of AACR. It reflects long experience with the particular problems and requirements of serials control, with which monograph catalogers often, understandably, have less familiarity. It is valuable that Mr. Kuperman is probably helping to identify one of those "rare instances" where access by personal editor entries is especially important. But, regrettably, lots of serials catalogers may dismiss these remarks as those of a monograph cataloger who disregarded the rules pertaining to serials and just extended the rules and practices he learned cataloging books. I hope that serials catalogers can look past the mistakes our colleagues sometimes make from unawareness to the insights they might nonetheless be able to add our own limited experiences. I hope that non-serials catalogers will do the necessary homework before making generalizations about standards for cataloging serials. This is an instance where I believe the level of instruction in AACR is currently right. Specific guidelines for particular literatures seem the stuff of cataloging manuals -- which is consistent with Mr. Kuperman's call for cataloger education -- not necessarily something to be changed in the general cataloging code. Carroll Davis, Serials cataloger Columbia U. Libraries cnd2@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 08:40:32 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Author entry for serials Comments: To: cnd2@COLUMBIA.EDU In-Reply-To: > Make an added entry under the heading for a > prominently named editor or compiler of a > monographic work. Make an added entry under the > heading for an editor of a serial only in the rare > instance when a serial is likely to be known by > the editor's name. If successive editions of basic texts are to be defined as serial, this rule is obviously too restrictive. "Gray" is not the editor of "Gray'a anatomy", but clearly deserves an author entry. "Cheshire" and "Fifoot" are not the editors of "Cheshire and Fifoot's law of contract", but they deserve author entry. These are not "rare instances". They are common place. The chairpersons of an annual conference, particularly when the chairs are the same for several successive years, deserve entry. They are not "editors". Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 15:53:04 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Author entry for serials Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: from "J. McRee Elrod" at Sep 2, 97 08:40:32 am Content-Type: text What about 21.30H. Other relationships. 21.30H1. Make an added entry under the heading for any other name that would provide an important access point unless the relationship between the name and the work is purely that of a subject. etc, That would seem to allow for any of the cases mentioned below, monograph or serial. --ralph p. --- J. McRee Elrod said > > > Make an added entry under the heading for a > > prominently named editor or compiler of a > > monographic work. Make an added entry under the > > heading for an editor of a serial only in the rare > > instance when a serial is likely to be known by > > the editor's name. > > If successive editions of basic texts are to be defined as serial, this > rule is obviously too restrictive. "Gray" is not the editor of "Gray'a > anatomy", but clearly deserves an author entry. "Cheshire" and "Fifoot" > are not the editors of "Cheshire and Fifoot's law of contract", but they > deserve author entry. These are not "rare instances". They are common > place. The chairpersons of an annual conference, particularly when the > chairs are the same for several successive years, deserve entry. They > are not "editors". > > Mac > > __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) > {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ > ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 20:50:26 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Seriality, Main entry and law (fwd) Aaron responds. I am *trying* to get him to join this list, but it might have a negative impact on the flow of law cataloguing through LC :-{)} . My reaction to all this is that it should not be a law related special provision ("case law" as Gorman calls it). The original authors of basic texts which become serials are needed as access points in other subjects as well, medicine for example. It should be a general principle. Our hospital and public health library customers want this as much as our law firms. Mac -------- Forwarded message -------- Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 18:56:20 -0400 From: Aaron Kuperman To: AUTOCAT@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Seriality, Main entry and law Someone at CPSO (who used paper rather than a public posting, so I won't give the name) wrote me that AACR2 21.30D1 is the basis for not making added entries for the authors of works that have been defined as serials because they continue indefinitely. My response was that 21.30D1 applies only to "editors and compilers" and not to authors such as Arthur Corbin and Judah Benjamin, and even for some editors, if the work is such that the "serial is likely to be known by the editor's name" (or where citation to the editor is required by statute or regulation in official documents). The rule allowing the serial cataloger to skip access to the human is clearly not applicable to much legal literature. The problem is that at LC many serial catalogers spend very little time doing law since the descriptive cataloging of serials is done by persons who specialize in serials, but not just law serials. Even at present, when a treatise starts having a date as an edition, it is turned into a serial and access to the author is lost. AACR2 allows author access to serials where it is relevant, but it requires serial catalogers to be familiar with legal literature to know where it is relevant. This suggests that for some types of materials, LC descriptive cataloging of legal serials may be substantially inferior to what is done by law catalogers outside of LC (perhaps I should pre-date this to Friday so I don't get charged with blasphemy). Aaron Wolfe Kuperman (LC, Social Sciences Cataloging Division, Law Team) This is a private note and is not an official communication from the Library of Congress (obviously). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 09:46:32 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: What's a Catalog For? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Antony R.D. Franks wrote, on 2 Sep: > I've been following the various strands of discussion for the > past several days, and I think that two fundamental issues continue > to be overlooked by the assumptions underlying our contributions. > The first point is, that we have avoided in silence the issue > of what people want from the catalog we produce--or, from another > angle, are we giving our clients what they want? We are almost certainly not doing that, for almost all our clients. But it is impossible, for all their expectations are not the same but widely diverging, and many are unrealistic. AACR2 themselves are of no help when it comes to explaining the catalog to clients. (That's why the suggestion of the "Layperson's introduction" came up.) But rule makers can (and most probably will) lean back comfortably and say, "It is the genuine task of every library to instruct their clients as to what *their* catalog is and does [and what it is not and does not do and cannot do as well!]. The code cannot do this for them because it provides for so many different local policy options, and local policy makers all too often invent options of their own on top of that." > The second point is, > whether or not that catalog is suitable, we are producing a specific > type of catalog, and that AACR is geared to the production of *that* > type of catalog. > In other words, bluntly, if we're not happy with the catalog we > have now, we're not going to be happy with AACR, and will be > endlessly tinkering with it, to make it produce what we want. Well, I doubt if we will ever be completely happy with *any* catalog we may be able to produce, based on whatever code. Librarians, on the other hand, do get used to many things and after a while cease to complain and even to feal uneasy (not all, but many). Librarians, however, are practically the only group who use catalogs every day, and mostly for purposes very different from those of clients. All other catalog users are not a group the expectations or happyness of which could be determined. They are an ever- changing stream of individuals flowing through libraries. And every one of them can be happy on one occasion (after hitting on the perfect item) and very unhappy on another occasion (when the library doesn't have the book looked for, or it is out on loan). But enough of that. One must keep in mind that the catalog is never an end in itself for the library user, it is always a means to an end, and rather an uncomfortable one at that. They mostly enjoy browsing the shelves much more than using a catalog, and gladly forget the latter as soon as they find what they want, by whatever means. B.E. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 23:15:21 UT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Thomas Brenndorfer Subject: Re: What's a Catalog For? -----Original Message----- From: International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR On Behalf Of Antony Robert David Franks Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 1997 8:37 AM To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: What's a Catalog For? I've been following the various strands of discussion for the past several days, and I think that two fundamental issues continue to be overlooked by the assumptions underlying our contributions. The first point is, that we have avoided in silence the issue of what people want from the catalog we produce--or, from another angle, are we giving our clients what they want? The second point is, whether or not that catalog is suitable, we are producing a specific type of catalog, and that AACR is geared to the production of *that* type of catalog. In other words, bluntly, if we're not happy with the catalog we have now, we're not going to be happy with AACR, and will be endlessly tinkering with it, to make it produce what we want. [] ****** I appreciate this thoughtful approach, and the excellent reminder that "big picture" views are an indispensable component of any purported review of the cataloging code. However, I am a little wary of the way AACR is categorized as a "type" of catalog. The underlying principles of separating description and access, and separating bibliographic item from work are extremely useful, even very advanced, concepts. The resulting "form" of the catalog can differ, and this is where I have seen the greatest need for attention. The cataloging code needs to take into account the various forms in which it can be manifested. In other words, the cataloging code should be a master record from which we could derive the forms suitable to our needs. We can start with a basic principle for each rule, and then say, for example, in a card catalog a particular form works best (e.g., shortened, truncated, geared for manual filing, etc.), and for an automated environment, we can use a richer set of guidelines. Moreover, we can easily delineate what we want to make out of a catalog, and leave it "extensible" such that other forms of bibliographic organization can fit in well. Good examples include catalog-Internet links, or periodical indexes being tightly linked to the cataloging records for the periodicals. We don't have to make up the rules -- just provide the links and >>assume<< that integration will be possible. (And I might add, >>know now<< that there is a demand for this type of integration). ****** I think that the discussions here adequately represent the transition that has taken place in our needs for a catalog. Over the weekend, this crystallised in my mind into three areas. The first, as Gorman and Oddy make clear in their paper and in responses to this list, is the historic role of a catalog: the inventory of one's holdings. [] ****** The primacy of records of physical description for inventory control is not really questioned, I think, in most of what I've read. In most of the discussions I've seen, I have not seen much reference to a "work record" as being a replacement of this type of inventory control. I don't understand the comment "We have gone from inventory of holdings to provision of bibliography." AACR is divided into two parts, where in Part 2, "works" are the basis for access. Yes, I would call this an advanced concept, as most other simple inventory lists would just attach titles and authors (often uncontrolled) to the record of the physical item. We already do provide bibliographic utility beyond a simple inventory listing. Perhaps there is a question as to the extent of that utility, but we can't simply downplay that as an unnecessary add-on. If it can be done, easily, and with discernable demand, why not do it, particulary if new automated procedures allow us to??? We can't have our cake and eat it too. We can't insist upon the primacy of control, when that control (over titles in particular) inevitably leads one to understand works as the basis of access. And if we have identified works already, we cannot help but to identify them through records, even if they overlap in most cases with records for bibliographic items. And having set up the existing AACR code (never mind some future incarnation) in this way, we can't just walk away and say to reference librarians, or patrons, that it is up to them to do the collocating and relating of works themselves. I don't explain to people why the catalog doesn't give them what they want -- I explain to them that the particular form we work with cannot accomplish even what the original cataloging code sets out to accomplish. While in a card catalog we can't have keyword access because of logistical reasons, in an automated environment we can't have efficient collocation because of the dissimilar treatment of identical concepts such as: Name. [Uniform title] Title proper Name. Title proper Name.$tUniform title Three different ways to identify the same concept. This is where the melange and hash job already exist. This is where a card-centric and not a user-centered approach can most clearly be seen. With this type of arrangement, I'm not surprised why catalog trainees, management, system designers, and the general layperson is bewildered by the existing code. Very few of my initial impressions of what AACR is all about have held up under a closer look at its underlying principles. I am impressed with the general direction of those principles, but I'm not impressed with the general highbrow jargon and insider knowledge that weighs down the code unnecessarily. I'm not impressed with the unspoken assumptions, the use of outdated terminology (e.g. "added entry"), the lack of a statement of principles, the incomplete sections (e.g. authority work), and the reliance on filing rules to ensure collocation as opposed to hard-linked connections such as a common form for each entity, especially the name of a work. As Gorman points out, the cataloging rules can grow to take into account new media, but I would be more impressed with cataloging rules that take into account the potential for simpler coexistence with other tools of arranging the bibliographic universe. I would be impressed with a rewritten AACR that reverts to first principles, and allows one to see how different forms can be drawn from those principles. What could be more simpler that that for training? What could be better than that for ensuring that cataloging is seen as the necessary and intellectual task it actually is? I would like to see this happen. But I don't expect much more than tinkering, not because we are saddled with an antiquated AACR, but rather because we don't step back and see where AACR shines and can fit into the grander scheme of things. Tom Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library thomasb@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 12:28:35 +0930 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mervyn Islip Subject: Pruning the rules of detail MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT >Gorman and Oddy's second recommendation is that the rules for > description should be pruned of detail, which should be provided by > separate specialist manuals. This is odd. If we want a streamlined > set > of rules for description, shorn of detail, surely we already have > these > in the ISBDs? Isn't the job of AACR to put flesh on the ISBDs? And > does anyone *like* having to refer to AACR *plus* separate rule > interpretations? > > Rather than pruning, could I suggest that the rules for description > are > filled out, to include some at least of the detail at present provided > by eg the LCRIs? It would be an easy matter to indicate what was a > rule > and what was a recommendation. > -- > Robert Cunnew > Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London > AACR2 could be pruned of detail such as, eg, prescriptive terminology for gmds and smds. The "detail" could then be issued as separate documentation (loose-leaf pages? on a web site?) which could be updated as necessary. Mervyn Islip Senior Cataloguing Librarian University of South Australia Email: mervyn.islip@unisa.edu.au Library Phone: +61 8 8302 6722 Holbrooks Road Fax: +61 8 8302 6756 Underdale, S. Aust. 5032 Australia ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 09:16:09 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "David P. Miller" Subject: Beyond MARC At least two posts have discussed the issues Mick Ridley raises in this paper, and given intelligent consideration to them. I read the paper over only yesterday, and have a somewhat different response. I found it somewhat difficult to get through, because it's written in such a conversational, almost free-associative manner. I'm writing to suggest, with great presumption, that Mr. Ridley may want to consider the paper as now posted to be a first draft. I know that if I were listening to the paper read in a conference, I would have a difficult time knowing how to respond to it. I have heard papers presented before, which finally amounted to lists of good ideas, one piled on top of the other -- but without some particular organizing principle, it's hard to know what to say in response besides, "Well, I like this idea better than that one..." Specifically, near the beginning of the paper, Mr. Ridley states some "principal questions": * Is MARC simply an embodiment of AACR ? * Do we need a transfer standard for catalogue records ? * What is a good structure/format for catalogue records ? * Is the same structure/format needed for transfer, database storage and presentation to users ? All of these questions are indeed addressed in the paper, but in scattershot fashion, interleaved with other, sometimes more specific issues. Some of these other issues seem to include the broad concept of "standards" as well as specific vagaries in the multiple MARC formats, potential sources for records, and a fair amount about UNICODE. I don't suggest that these subjects aren't relevant to the four questions he opens with, but the connections are erratically made. I request that, if the four questions Mr. Ridley opens his paper with are really his central concerns (as seems to be the case), that he go through the rest of the material and organize it more or less along those lines. Other principal questions may emerge in this process. As it stands, section headings such as "Character Sets and Unicode" are mixed with headings like "Standards are a good thing but" -- which, to me at least, makes it difficult to follow the discussion. My apologies if I've presumed too much in offering this critical comment. David Miller Levin Library, Curry College Milton, MA dmiller@curry.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 08:07:10 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Where is the discussion? Comments: To: dmiller@CURRY.EDU In-Reply-To: <199709041316.JAA25853@hermes.curry.edu> David Miller said: >I know that if I were listening to the paper read in a conference, I >would have a difficult time knowing how to respond to it. This raises a question about which I have wondered. Are delegates, after the papers have been available for reading in advance, really going to sit there and listen to them being read? This seems like such a total waste of time when there are so many issues to be addressed. Also, are the authors' of papers as a matter of policy not responding to comments made on their papers here? What about responding to each others' papers? Gorman's comments should have sparked a response from other authors I should think. Or is this list just a "speakers' corner" designed for letting of steam, but having no relevance to what is to befall all of us? The silence on this list of the principals is as total as that of the Royals' on the death of Princess Diana until the Queen's scheduled speech tomorrow. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 14:05:00 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stewart Marg Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT To respond to the concerns raised by Mac Elrod- Speakers at the conference are not expected to read the papers. Since the papers will have been studied by participants prior to the conference, speakers will give shorter presentations covering the main issues/ideas to spark discussion. Contributions in the form of postings to this list are intended to solicit a broad perspective on the issues raised in the papers and to influence the discussion at the conference. Speakers and other conference participants should feel free to contribute their comments in response to postings on this list. It is hoped that an active dialogue prior to the conference will contribute to a more productive outcome. Margaret Stewart Secretary, JSC ---------- From: owner-aacrconf To: AACRCONF Subject: Where is the discussion? Date: Thursday, September 04, 1997 8:07AM David Miller said: >I know that if I were listening to the paper read in a conference, I >would have a difficult time knowing how to respond to it. This raises a question about which I have wondered. Are delegates, after the papers have been available for reading in advance, really going to sit there and listen to them being read? This seems like such a total waste of time when there are so many issues to be addressed. Also, are the authors' of papers as a matter of policy not responding to comments made on their papers here? What about responding to each others' papers? Gorman's comments should have sparked a response from other authors I should think. Or is this list just a "speakers' corner" designed for letting of steam, but having no relevance to what is to befall all of us? The silence on this list of the principals is as total as that of the Royals' on the death of Princess Diana until the Queen's scheduled speech tomorrow. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 01:03:34 PDT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "W. Cromwell-Kessler" Subject: Automatic Reply from EMS I will be away from my office between Sepember 22 and September 29 and will not be reading my email during that time. I will respond to your email upon my return. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 13:32:09 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Mac voiced some grave concern, saying: > The silence on this list of the principals is as total as that of the > Royals' on the death of Princess Diana until the Queen's scheduled > speech tomorrow. These phenomena should attract the interest of psychologists and social scientists. The former happens to bother me a bit more than the latter. But then Margaret Stewart (JSC) replied: > Speakers and other conference participants should feel free to contribute > their comments in response to postings on this list. It is hoped that an > active dialogue prior to the conference will contribute to a more > productive outcome. Precisely. But why is it that this statement rings in my ears like coming straight out of the House of Windsor? B.E. And BTW: H.R.H. The Princess of Wales' USMARC authority record has been updated on Sept. 4. The link, if ever there was one, to H.R.H. Charles has been removed. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 08:04:49 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Antony Robert David Franks Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? -Reply Comments: To: EV@BUCH.BIBLIO.ETC.TU-BS.DE To be rather brutal about it, if I were attending the conference, I wouldn't know how to respond to much of the discussion on this list. It's been rather like apples and oranges. So many of us have weighed in with our favorite individual issues, and the contributions are sometimes so detailed with implementation of these suggestions, that it's dificult to discern the broad, overriding principles that the cataloging code hopes to express. ********************************************************* * Anthony R.D. Franks * * Library of Congress * * afra@loc.gov * * * * Not the official position of the Library of Congress* *********************************************************## ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 08:49:40 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: sue.brown@REDBRIDGE.GOV.UK Subject: RE(2): Where is the discussion? In-Reply-To: <340EF863@its.nlc-bnc.ca> Well said Margaret! Regards, Sue Brown ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 09:43:15 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "David P. Miller" Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? -Reply Anthony R.D. Franks said: " To be rather brutal about it, if I were attending the conference, I wouldn't know how to respond to much of the discussion on this list. It's been rather like apples and oranges. So many of us have weighed in with our favorite individual issues, and the contributions are sometimes so detailed with implementation of these suggestions, that it's dificult to discern the broad, overriding principles that the cataloging code hopes to express." Very true, and I've certainly weighed in with items on my personal agenda. But as Mac points out, the "silence of the principals" is disconcerting. One feels as though one is being watched. A little more active participation on the part of those who wrote the papers, which most all of the postings are responses to (at least to some degree), would help provide a context that our fragmented contributions sometimes lack. David Miller Levin Library, Curry College dmiller@curry.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 07:57:21 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? -Reply Comments: To: afra@LOC.GOV In-Reply-To: Anthony said: > So many of us have weighed in with our favorite individual >issues, and the contributions are sometimes so detailed with >implementation of these suggestions, that it's difficult to discern >the broad, overriding principles that the cataloging code hopes to >express. The positive response to Gorman was fairly clear. The worry over the additional burden work authority records might create has been fairly clear. The objection to inconsistencies (performance of text vs. performance of music for example) has been eloquently stated. Someone with the synthesizing ability of Judith Hopkins could create a great paper based on aacrconf and aacr posts. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 09:41:31 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Dan Kniesner Subject: Ongoing publications concept Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Of all the papers I've read, Hirons' and Graham's Issues in seriality was the one paper that I felt was not somewhat "over my head" (or sometimes way over my head). If there is one substantial change in AACR2 that I would like to see, it is the expansion of the serial concept to include most or all ongoing publications. This would make worklife for me and most other catalogers much easier. Hirons and Graham lay out a detailed down-to-earth agenda for practical change in the rules and summarize their points in 10 recommendations. I would like to see their model C adopted (static vs. ongoing) because it is easier to understand and explain for catalogers, other librarians, and library users alike. It will make bibliographic control of ongoing publications easier, too, in our daily work. This is the kind of conceptual revision that makes me hopeful for a good outcome of the Toronto conference. Just because current serials practice doesn't add author or editor added entries doesn't mean Hiron's and Graham's proposal is flawed. Specific serials rules in AACR2 can be changed. The revision in our thinking offered in their paper is valuable as a straightforward outline and guide for a first draft of AACR2 revision. Dan Kniesner Oregon Health Sciences University Library Portland, Oregon Internet: kniesner@ohsu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 15:56:07 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mary Grenci Subject: Re: comma before and (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 13:27:42 -0700 From: Kyle Banerjee To: AUTOCAT@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: comma before and >> So, if I had "tools, techniques, and training", I would *definitely* >> use a comma before the "and", whether it appeared on the chief source >> or not -- or my reviewer would give it back to me to correct! > > A familiar story for most of us, probably with other forms of > punctuation as well which aren't related to identifying fields. It's a > shame we have to waste so much energy consulting complicated rules and > their weird permutations in AACR2, MARC and the LCRI's when it doesn't > improve access for patrons. This is definitely one of the types of problems we should be trying to get rid of. Whether it's a problem with AACR or the LCRIs is a technical point only. It is extremely time-consuming (read time-wasting) to have to agonize over these types of esoteric and irrelevent points. The existence (or lack thereof) of a comma in a title has absolutely no effect on access. Changing punctuation that appears on a piece makes sense only when there is a problem because of ISBD punctuation or indexing in an online system. In other cases it is just an unnecessary complication that we could gladly do away with. Mary ____________________________ Mary Grenci Serials Catalog Librarian Knight Library 1299 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1299 mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 10:33:38 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: comma before and Comments: To: autocat@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu In-Reply-To: <199709060725.AAA12463@bmd2.baremetal.com> >> A familiar story for most of us, probably with other forms of >> punctuation as well which aren't related to identifying fields. It's a >> shame we have to waste so much energy consulting complicated rules and >> their weird permutations in AACR2, MARC and the LCRI's when it doesn't >> improve access for patrons. Well, yes and no. The particular softwear we are using to control our inhouse file needs punctuation keyed as it is in the record (as opposed to as it is in the title) for a hit. The searcher must know that " - " in 245 is transcribed by LC as "--" to find the title. We will be discussing this with the vendor next week. It seems to us that there should be (as part of OPAC standards for search and display) an AACR standard which specifies that punctuation may be keyed or omitted in a search without affecting the search result. Since the original post appeared on on both aacrconf and autocat, but not Douglas' excellent answer that the function of rules is to produce consistency, I am posting this to both. Apologies to those who see it twice. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ > >This particular library patron finds access to be easier if the cataloging >is consistent. And he rather thought that was the reason for the rules >in the first place, weird permutations and all. > >Douglas > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 15:47:44 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: comma before and Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: from "J. McRee Elrod" at Sep 6, 97 10:33:38 am Content-Type: text "Complicated rules?" Well catalogs/cataloging are a communication system involving a lot of different people. When someone figures out exactly what is needed to make that communication clear, then we can devise a clear (simple?) system of rules. My little mind has decided that communication is not simple, but rather complicated. I may be wrong, of course. But if communication is complicated, then it's probably likely that communication systems are going to be complicated as well. I am always surprised when I see comments confidentally declaring what improves or impedes access. The variables are many indeed. --ralph p. > > >> A familiar story for most of us, probably with other forms of > >> punctuation as well which aren't related to identifying fields. It's a > >> shame we have to waste so much energy consulting complicated rules and > >> their weird permutations in AACR2, MARC and the LCRI's when it doesn't > >> improve access for patrons. > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 16:49:34 +0600 Reply-To: Frieda Rosenberg Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Frieda Rosenberg Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Why have so few "weighed in"? There are many reasons for silence; I might not speak out at this point myself but for the recently expressed presumption that all points of view have been heard and that we should proceed to synthesis. There is a wealth of material (including the long and detailed FRBR concept paper itself); there are many possible directions in which discussion could lead (and has led). Perhaps our lack of practice in abstract visualization hampers some of us. Despite my own difficulty, I admire very much the broad focus and strong vision apparent in the papers. In my mind, this vision is very much called for now. I admit to some frustration with Gorman and Oddy's paper, despite the eminent names at its head, one of which is also on the title page of AACR2. The condescending tone and derogatory terminology ("bibliographic fear" "extraordinarily misguided and misinformed" "retrogressive" etc.,etc.) is far too dismissive in the context of this broad-ranging conference on the future. The appeal to immutable principle and to an authoritative name like Lubetzky's is offered largely as a given, without support even by theoretical argument. Later on this list Mr Gorman asked us to restrict our discussion to theory, though many of the other papers raise practical issues. While we must remember our tradition, we must also be informed by empirical study of catalogues and their users. Would not Lubetzky have agreed? The perception of US libraries as humble petitioners to all-powerful LC is out of step with current trends binding us increasingly together with LC in cooperative cataloging programs. LC's reversion to the AACR1 technique for microforms is mischaracterized as arbitrary (a later writer even called it "stubborn," whereas it was both multilateral and principled (the principle being that of offering access to the work as it is known and sought). Many libraries here, as the later comment suggested, go further than LC, denying the reproduction a record of its own; so we should recognize a difficulty here, not gloss over this difficulty by fiat. In fact, the only area in which I strongly agree with this paper is the need to be aware of the global impact of our decisions. Coming from the world of serials cataloging, where I am a proud user of LC documentation, I have long hoped for an answer to the question, "What is a serial work?" The possibilities of larger records to organize and make a coordinated display of holdings for records which today are fragmented into multiple titles has intrigued me for years. I applaud experimentation of the kind Mr Fattahi is doing (I would like to see him tackle serials, too) and believe that more of us should venture outside the confines of what we do daily to explore what can be done. I also recommend reading some of his material on the web, cited in his paper. The Hirons-Graham paper is also welcome. It accords recognition to the longstanding problem of record fragmentation, triply felt in serials because of reproductions, simultaneous versions (some of which may not be presented as serials), and successive changes; and it also focuses on the question of defining the serial work, the serial as manifestation, and the serial as an entity to be described. The conclusion of the paper that the serial description should focus on identification, not transcription, is a common-sense challenge to received ideas. The schema of publications presented in this paper is persuasive, and while the authors' recommendations may seem like special case law to those who disapprove, they are attempts to solve real problems faced daily by serials catalogers. They are an excellent start to discussion. One thing that seems in jeopardy in some of the papers, that I would like to see preserved in any future edition of cataloging rules is that they not be tied to MARC or any other particular format or display, but that they recognize the possibility that their content will be adapted to many different uses and displays, including non-MARC ones and user-created ones. This means that we need to recognize that our descriptive elements are destined to be data elements and should be capable of being broken apart and combined in new ways with the least difficulty possible. This may militate against doing things like giving the name of the publisher in the shortest understandable (i.e., incomplete: "The Society") form . It may require, in fact, that we think about all these other things--keyword searching, Web markup, filing--that impinge upon the user's use of our cataloging record. So much for simplifying. Regards, Frieda ---------- Frieda Rosenberg Serials Cataloging Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill friedat@email.unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 20:26:02 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , Frieda Rosenberg writes >LC's reversion to >the AACR1 technique for microforms is mischaracterized as arbitrary (a >later writer even called it "stubborn," whereas it was both multilateral >and principled (the principle being that of offering access to the work as >it is known and sought). Many libraries here, as the later comment >suggested, go further than LC, denying the reproduction a record of its >own; so we should recognize a difficulty here, not gloss over this >difficulty by fiat. Frieda, I think I was the later writer, but my use of "stubborn" was intended to be ironic: I agree with you! The LC "deviation" reflects a need for greater universality and is consistent with other rules in AACR2. My original post was as follows: <> -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 14:02:47 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? Comments: To: robert@CUNNEW.DEMON.CO.UK In-Reply-To: >Given our desire for greater universality, compatibility etc isn't it >more appropriate to catalogue an *unpublished* copy (eg a microform) of >a *published* printed work in terms of a full description of the item as >published, modified by a local note detailing the library's holdings? Quite often the microform version we are cataloguing *is* published, the NLC publication of theses in microform for example. We would not want one set of rules for published microforms, and another for unpublished microforms. The present divergence in rules of published and unpublished print material in these days of desk top published need to be harmonized as well. Our clients are unhappy with either AACR1 or AACR2 records for microforms, because both relegate needed brief display information to notes. AACR2's inadequacy for microforms is evidenced by the refusal on some agencies implement its provisions. Through Internet discussions, I have discovered that I am not alone in having difficulty integrating microform records created be various agencies using diff rules: usually AACR1 vs. AACR2. Both these rules' solutions to microform cataloguing are unpopular with my OPAC book catalogue customers, since the records produced using either rules produce brief display which does not give needed information. I would like to suggest that as a compromise between the two modes of catalogui microforms, AACR2 1988 revision 1.4G be applied with the following result: 260$aOxford, [England] :$bClarendon Press,$c1890$e(Ann Arbor, Mich. :$fUniversi Microfilms,$g[1994). The collation could give original pagination in curves after the SMD. The same practice can be used to create records for talking books produced by r a particular print edition. The "item in hand" is both a representation of the original work, and a work in a new format. Both ALA and AACR2 rules, as stated above, relegate this information to notes. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 14:59:40 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Old terms, new meanings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Old terms, new meanings ----------------------- The discussion so far seems to indicate some need for a rethinking of basic terminology. This posting is trying to tie a few strings together, on the terms of "main entry" and of "filing". (Another case is surely "serial" vs. "ongoing publication", competently and exhaustively covered in the Hirons/Graham paper.) My conclusion is that one should better find new names for the old terms. Deeply rooted as they are in the world of cards, it is no wonder that the terms "main entry" and "filing" do not cover all the ramifications related to them in the new catalog environments. There are not several cards for an item any more, with one main card containing the full information on an item, and there's no longer a linear sequence of entries. To conclude that both terms are therefore obsolete and best be avoided or ignored is, however, a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That much has become commonplace in this list, as in AUTOCAT. (Or so I think - correct me if I'm wrong.) There must be quite a few catalogers these days who have never done cards. Are there any on this list? What's your opinion? Main Entry ---------- It was pointed out in several postings that the core meaning of "main entry" is something like a *naming convention* (Tom Brenndorfer on 30 Aug.). The important thing is not the card containing the full information, but it is the heading on that card. It amounts to, in most cases, something very close to a "work record", or a name for the work behind the "piece in hand". If the idea of collocation, or the "second objective", is not obsolete, then the main entry concept needs to be preserved. Not the main card, but the "name of the work" part of this concept. Or even shorter, the "entry" has lost significance, not the "main". Since we cannot talk in outdated terms forever, tacitly assuming that everybody understands what we mean, there will eventually have to be a new term. The new term must be simple and expressive. What about "document name"? Just a suggestion. Add to it the date of the original edition, and you have, for many cases, the nucleus of a "work authority record". Filing ------ We have to distinguish between two types of online catalogs: a) the Hit-or-Miss type Basically, you enter a search statement ("FIND this AND that") and get a number of hits. You get to see only what you hit, your search statement is a shot into the dark. (Examples have been cited: make a punctuation mistake and you miss, and get zero hits.) b) the Index Browsing type it permits browsing up and down in a number of alphabetically arranged indexes. Here, you see what you hit, but also what you miss, because in the browsable index, misspellings, variant spellings, terms beginning with the same word or letters are all visible, and your input mistakes become obvious as well. There are those OPACs, of course, that have both features. (Just sometimes, I have a feeling that the index browsing, or scanning, feature is treated or viewed as something secondary.) For further clarification: there are those systems where you do get something that looks like an index display but it isn't, it contains only those names/terms/titles that match your statement, not those coming above or further down, and you cannot page down or up into areas that do not match your statement. These systems still belong to the hit-or-miss type. Presently, there are no rules telling systems designers -- which fields and subfields to index -- what indexes there should be (name index: personal AND corporate names, or two separate indexes? word index: title keywords separate from subject terms? title index: which titles? $t as well? What about articles, or $b? name/title index: should there be one? Which names and titles? and so on and so further) -- how to index these fields and subfields (what to do with punctuation, special characters, multiple subfields, ...) -- how to arrange short title result set listings (what elements to include, on which of these to sort, and how; and what alternative sorting arrangements the user should be able to choose) If, in the interest of competition, this absence of rules is found agreeable, nothing needs to be done. (Only how do we call this principle? Deregulation?) If, in the interest of standardization, some uniformity across all brands of online catalogs is found desirable, something must be done. "Filing rules" invokes the image of card cabinets and linear arrangement (for those who ever have done cards!) And it does not cover the aspect of result set arrangements. This way, even the "hit-or-miss" catalogs are affected. There are no rules saying how short title result lists should be constructed. As was pointed out many times, the main entry comes into play here again. But the layout of the short citation determines the ways the list can be arranged. So, a new term seems to be called for here as well. What about "arrangement rules"? And make these part of the code, as goes without saying. ------------------------------------- The rest is subjective As catalogers, we can live with any terms, even with outdated ones. As long as everybody in our circles knows what we are talking about. If we think the code is purely insider business, then fine. No need to fiddle with the terms. As librarians, can we assume everybody in the firm is willing to bother with learning the true meanings of outdated terms? And happy to break these to the clients? For, with the absence of a "layperson's introduction", someone at some point has to break things to clients, and has to do this unaided. Or not: the OPAC has all those help pages, and is self- explaining anyway! But what terms does it use, and who supplied them? Or is it all icons? Who's got a good icon for "main entry"? Have not catalogers already lost control over the end products of their activities? The card layout and design very much determined the end product, the card catalog's "user interface". This is not true for the MARC record. Don't get me wrong. Everything is probably all right as it is. Or will work out all right sooner or later. If catalogers don't set the necessary standards, someone else will. "Industry standards" will emerge. We can watch the beginnings in the metadata activities, and from Tom Brenndorfer we heard (in his 30 Aug. message) that Microsoft is now entering this arena. So Bill's gonna fix it. (But think twice! What he fixes is hard to break, no matter how bad it is.) BTW, did everyone notice the heading "Developing a card catalog for the expansive Web", cited in Tom's posting? Apparently, that message had not been written by a librarian! But it mentioned card catalogs as a better way of organizing knowledge than what search engines currently do. OPACs were not mentioned. B.E. P.S. In one of his latest postings, Mac wrote: > Our clients are unhappy with either AACR1 or AACR2 records for > microforms, because both relegate needed brief display information to > notes. Exactly this "brief display information" is the link to the "work". But when buried in a note, it is a purely textual link, not usable by any amount of programming to turn it into a brief display or a data link. We have to have the right kind of links, or we get no collocation and no proper arrangement or brief display. Maybe one should stop talking about links in the context of notes. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 09:35:20 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: <9C67B6A627B@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Bernhard Eversberg has addressed the terminology of "Main entry". He asked the opinion of of those of us who have not worked in a card catalog environment. I technically don't fit that description (when I first started as a copy cataloger, cards were produced at OCLC, shipped to us and then filed in the catalog), but in a sense I do. That is, I never actually filed in the catalog and so it took about 3 years before I understood the intent of a main entry card. All of my copy cataloging was done online, so whenever I pulled up a record, I always retrieved the entire record. That said, in this online context I've never found the idea or name main entry to be a problem. I don't find it confusing or outdated. It seems to fit a very logical convention in our Anglo-American catalogs, at least. The need it fills is that of citation (as stated by others) and, at least most of the time, display. Even though there are many entries to the information in the catalog record, it still displays in a standardized way when presented to the user. While the list it's in can change dramatically, the actual display of that record does not, in any catalog I've ever used, change. If I retrieve the record for "Pig production" [I live in a rural area], it's display is static, whether I retrieve the record by author, title, series, subject, ISBN, or some combination, subject limited by date, for example. So, except for those catalogs that have gone to a title main entry display, you still get a display that's something akin to the display you'd get for that item in a bibliography. I find that useful. Without the convention of main entry, this wouldn't be possible (would it?). Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 08:50:29 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Old terms, new meanings Comments: To: EV@BUCH.BIBLIO.ETC.TU-BS.DE In-Reply-To: <9C67B6A627B@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> >Main Entry >The new term must be simple and expressive. What about "document name"? Just >a suggestion. Add to it the date of the original edition, and you have, for >many cases, the nucleus of a "work authority record". For me, "document name" denotes a title. "Main entry" is used by my 50 customers to refer to the person (corporate or personal) primarily responsible for the work. If the absence of such, they refer to "title main entry". I haven't heard "hanging main entry", which is what we used to call it, in years. I suspect this usage is not likely to change. What needs changing is the glossary definition. Apart from Hagler, I haven't heard it used with that meaning in over two decades. >Filing >So, a new term seems to be called for here as well. >What about "arrangement rules"? >And make these part of the code, as goes without saying. This might stand a better chance of acceptance in general usage. Certainly it should be covered by the rules, perhaps under "Catalogue construction, display, and arrangement". Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 20:45:52 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Where is the discussion? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , "J. McRee Elrod" writes > >I would like to suggest that as a compromise between the two modes of catalogui >microforms, AACR2 1988 revision 1.4G be applied with the following result: > >260$aOxford, [England] :$bClarendon Press,$c1890$e(Ann Arbor, Mich. :$fUniversi >Microfilms,$g[1994). > Mac, on the face of it this looks like quite an elegant solution, but it would cause problems in non-MARC systems which don't provide space for luxuries like your $e. We could create a new field in our system but many people are working with off-the-peg systems which they have no control over. >The collation could give original pagination in curves after the SMD. I can't think of any precedent for this in AACR and I fear users wouldn't understand it. Shouldn't we be thinking of ways to make records *simpler*? For practical reasons, whatever the rules we will have to continue adding a local note. Later this year we will be having several hundred published pamphlets scanned onto CD and will then dispose of the originals. We will modify the catalogue using global conversion and batch processing, changing the location and adding the standardised local note. It is difficult to see how we could do an automatic conversion following the rules you propose. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 21:00:11 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , Daniel CannCasciato writes >So, except for those catalogs that have gone to a title main entry >display, you still get a display that's something akin to the display >you'd get for that item in a bibliography. I find that useful. Without >the convention of main entry, this wouldn't be possible (would it?). It's undeniable that a lot of people would be unhappy without main entry. So let's keep it - as an option, with no assumption elsewhere in the rules that we've opted one way or the other. That way the rest of us will also be happy. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 14:41:42 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: simpler records? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Robert Cunnew wrote [in part]: > Shouldn't we be thinking of ways to make records *simpler*? I'd say, no, not really. I think the future development of AACR should lead to a clearer, not necessarily simpler, cataloging *code*: simpler to use, to understand, to apply. I don't think we can impose simplification on our product/service when the universe we're working in and trying to describe is one that's fairly complex (to paraphrase Stephen Hearn from some time ago, discussing subjects). I can understand the desire to take the information we create and present it in a more readily understandable way (the super-record seems to be driven by this). Simplifying the records we create isn't the aim, though, in my opinion. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 14:51:43 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Compound collations Comments: To: robert@CUNNEW.DEMON.CO.UK In-Reply-To: >>260$aOxford, [England] :$bClarendon Press,$c1890$e(Ann Arbor, Mich. :$fUniver >>Microfilms,$g[1994). >> >Mac, on the face of it this looks like quite an elegant solution, but it >would cause problems in non-MARC systems which don't provide space for >luxuries like your $e. It's time for the tail to stop wagging the dog. >>1 micro fiche (350 p.) ... >I can't think of any precedent for this in AACR and I fear users >wouldn't understand it. Shouldn't we be thinking of ways to make records >*simpler*? Putting the number of pages in curves after the smd for a microform is far simpler than a 533 for the print collation (AACR2) or the microform collation (AACR1). Our precedent was the number of frames in curves after the smd for a filmstrip, the playing time for a recording, the running time for a film, etc., etc. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 20:55:37 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Old terms, new meanings In-Reply-To: <9C67B6A627B@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <9C67B6A627B@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de>, Bernhard Eversberg writes > >Presently, there are no rules telling systems designers > >-- which fields and subfields to index > >-- what indexes there should be > (name index: personal AND corporate names, or two separate indexes? > word index: title keywords separate from subject terms? > title index: which titles? $t as well? What about articles, or $b? > name/title index: should there be one? Which names and titles? > and so on and so further) > >-- how to index these fields and subfields > (what to do with punctuation, special characters, multiple subfields, ...) > >-- how to arrange short title result set listings > (what elements to include, on which of these to sort, and how; and > what alternative sorting arrangements the user should be able to choose) > Yes, I agree that AACR should be doing these things. When we set up our (user-defined) automated catalogue we had very little guidance and many mistakes were made before we got it right. It might be argued that you can't standardise at this level, but all we're asking for is guidelines: you can always ignore them. However, I fear that if AACR did this there would be a hole in the middle where MARC takes over, with AACR giving rules for content, MARC saying how this content should be structured in a database and AACR taking over again to say how this structure should be exploited. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:37:56 +22303754 Reply-To: Judith Pearce Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Judith Pearce Subject: Re: Old terms, new meanings Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: <9C67B6A627B@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Bernhard Eversberg wrote: > Presently, there are no rules telling systems designers > > -- which fields and subfields to index > > -- what indexes there should be > (name index: personal AND corporate names, or two separate indexes? > word index: title keywords separate from subject terms? > title index: which titles? $t as well? What about articles, or $b? > name/title index: should there be one? Which names and titles? > and so on and so further) > > -- how to index these fields and subfields > (what to do with punctuation, special characters, multiple subfields, ...) > > -- how to arrange short title result set listings > (what elements to include, on which of these to sort, and how; and > what alternative sorting arrangements the user should be able to choose) > > If, in the interest of competition, this absence of rules is found agreeable, > nothing needs to be done. (Only how do we call this principle? Deregulation?) > > If, in the interest of standardization, some uniformity across all brands > of online catalogs is found desirable, something must be done. I'm not convinced this is something a code like AACR should address. It sounds more like an Implementation Profile, such as those being developed around the Z39.50 standard. There are several Z39.50 profiles which address the needs of the cataloguing community - the ATS-1 Profile, the One Profile for Bib-1, the Union Catalogue Profile currently under development and the profiling work being done by the National Library of Canada for the Canadian virtual union catalogue project. For more about Z39.50 profiles, see the Z39.50 Maintenance Agency Home Page (http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/profiles/profiles.html). None of these profiles address all the issues raised above, but I think this is the most appropriate mechanism for standardisation of access points and browsable indexes in online catalogues. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judith Pearce National Library of Australia Email: jpearce@nla.gov.au Canberra ACT Phone: 61-2-62621652 2602 AUSTRALIA Fax: 61-2-62732116 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 08:08:07 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Robert Cunnew wrote: > > It's undeniable that a lot of people would be unhappy without main > entry. So let's keep it - as an option, with no assumption elsewhere in > the rules that we've opted one way or the other. That way the rest of > us will also be happy. > -- As an option? What does that mean in terms of coding? B.E. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 11:22:34 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Old terms, new meanings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Judith Pearce was not convinced : > I'm not convinced this is something a code like AACR should address. > It sounds more like an Implementation Profile, such as those being > devloped around the Z39.50 standard... An implementation profile can work only with fields and subfields that are already there, and in the specific form they have in the records. The record content is, however, provided according to AACR, what else? The rules for the various entries are certainly based on an understanding about what one is going to do with the headings provided. There is only just not enough regard for the filing and arrangement processes, to make sure the results are what is being contemplated. (Human filers filled in the gaps and ironed out the wrinkles, working by rules that have no equivalent in the online world.) It seems I must point out again that the "Preface to the North American Text" of AACR (1967) did mention the "... interrelationship of rules for heading and uniform titles and rules for filing...", and stated that "There seems to be no serious bar, however, to purely formal modifications in headings for the purpose of achieving by mechanized means the same order contemplated by the rules." That's what I was getting at. Do the rules still "contemplate" a specific order or not? If yes, why was the issue dropped? (Correct me, but I couldn't find any hint as to what happened to that 1967 preface statement, and why it was dropped.) Robert Cunnew spoke FOR the inclusion of filing rules, but then said: > > However, I fear that if AACR did this there would be a hole in the > middle where MARC takes over, with AACR giving rules for content, MARC > saying how this content should be structured in a database and AACR > taking over again to say how this structure should be exploited. > -- Well, if not AACR but an implementation profile says how to exploit the data, this hole would still be there. And it is there NOW. Others in this list have proposed an integration of code and format. There would be no other way to fill that hole. It would mean a big step beyond both MARC and AACR to do this. A single conference cannot undertake this, but opinions can be discussed about it. The real issue that should be discussed is perhaps this: should the rules be concerned with end-products at all, or not? They certainly were, or are, for cards. But for online-catalogs? One can of course take the position that the rules provide for the construction of content of data records, and everything that happens with the records is outside the scope of the rules. That sounds like a clear principle. The rules then do not "contemplate" anything about end-products any more. Control over OPACs has de facto shifted from cataloging to other "agents" already. Should this be made a principle? Then put this in the new preface. B.E. Somehow, I'm still worrying about the initial article, in 246 and $t. But this is a format problem. All titles should be stuctured alike in a proper format, because all need to be indexed alike. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:06:27 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Re: Compound collations Comments: To: "J. McRee Elrod" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII While "1 microfiche (350 p.)" has more precedents, I think it might be clearer to use "1 microfiche of 350 p." which has a precedent at 5.5B3: "1 v. of music (press braille)". The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. Regards, Jim Agenbrod ( jage@LOC.gov ) (On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, J. McRee Elrod wrote: > >>260$aOxford, [England] :$bClarendon Press,$c1890$e(Ann Arbor, Mich. :$fUniver > >>Microfilms,$g[1994). > >> > >Mac, on the face of it this looks like quite an elegant solution, but it > >would cause problems in non-MARC systems which don't provide space for > >luxuries like your $e. > > It's time for the tail to stop wagging the dog. > > >>1 micro fiche (350 p.) ... > > >I can't think of any precedent for this in AACR and I fear users > >wouldn't understand it. Shouldn't we be thinking of ways to make records > >*simpler*? > > Putting the number of pages in curves after the smd for a microform is > far simpler than a 533 for the print collation (AACR2) or the microform > collation (AACR1). Our precedent was the number of frames in curves > after the smd for a filmstrip, the playing time for a recording, the > running time for a film, etc., etc. > > Mac > > __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) > {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ > ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ > Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 09:37:19 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Re: Old terms, new meanings Comments: To: Judith Pearce In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Wednesday, September 10, 1997 I suspect it is harder to get ten colonels to march in step than a hundred privates. In like manner it may be harder to get a few OPAC vendors to agree on a code of practice than hundreds of individual libraries to do so. It may also be that OPAC technology is still in an innovative phase before reaching a stability that could/should be codified. While Cutter thought "the golden age of cataloging is past" (Pref. to 4th ed., 1904) the golden age of online catalogs may be adawning. The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) On Wed, 10 Sep 1997, Judith Pearce wrote: > On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Bernhard Eversberg wrote: > > > Presently, there are no rules telling systems designers > > > > -- which fields and subfields to index > > > > -- what indexes there should be > > (name index: personal AND corporate names, or two separate indexes? > > word index: title keywords separate from subject terms? > > title index: which titles? $t as well? What about articles, or $b? > > name/title index: should there be one? Which names and titles? > > and so on and so further) > > > > -- how to index these fields and subfields > > (what to do with punctuation, special characters, multiple subfields, ...) > > > > -- how to arrange short title result set listings > > (what elements to include, on which of these to sort, and how; and > > what alternative sorting arrangements the user should be able to choose) > > > > If, in the interest of competition, this absence of rules is found agreeable, > > nothing needs to be done. (Only how do we call this principle? Deregulation?) > > > > If, in the interest of standardization, some uniformity across all brands > > of online catalogs is found desirable, something must be done. > > > I'm not convinced this is something a code like AACR should address. It sounds > more like an Implementation Profile, such as those being developed around the > Z39.50 standard. There are several Z39.50 profiles which address the needs of > the cataloguing community - the ATS-1 Profile, the One Profile for > Bib-1, the Union Catalogue Profile currently under development and the profiling > work being done by the National Library of Canada for the Canadian virtual > union catalogue project. For more about Z39.50 profiles, see the Z39.50 Maintenance > Agency Home Page (http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/profiles/profiles.html). > > None of these profiles address all the issues raised above, but I think this is > the most appropriate mechanism for standardisation of access points and > browsable indexes in online catalogues. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Judith Pearce > National Library of Australia Email: jpearce@nla.gov.au > Canberra ACT Phone: 61-2-62621652 > 2602 AUSTRALIA Fax: 61-2-62732116 > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 10:36:00 EDT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Wayne Jones Subject: seriality and monographness Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello all, As others have pointed out, the paper on seriality by Jean Hirons and Crystal Graham is an excellent contribution to the international AACR conference. Some comments: - Even though they establish the concept of equivalency as "whether what is contained in one publication is the same or DIFFERS SIGNIFICANTLY from what is contained in a related publication" (my caps), they very wisely question the value and possibility of being exact or categorical when defining differences, especially when comparing e-serials to serials in any other format. I think that whether (the content of) one format/version/expression/manifestation/etc. -- all the terminology is so loaded that it is hard to know what to refer to! -- is fully equivalent to another really is irrelevant, both practically and theoretically. If a serial sets itself up as being the online counterpart of the print, then it does neither the user nor the cataloger any good to start fussing about whether the online has content that the print does not, and whether it should be cataloged differently if the respective contents do differ. - I think that in spite of the fact that it might not quite fit snugly with any of the three models that the authors propose, the definition of serial, even in the short-term implementation plan, should be: "a publication in any medium intended to continue". I wholeheartedely support the authors' dropping of the requirement that a publication has to be issued as successive parts with designations to be considered as a serial, but I also think that the requirement that the publication be projected to continue indefinitely is unnecessary as well. The "indefinitely" seems to me to be a criterion that is irrelevant to the bibliographic facts of the publication, and relevant only to the publisher's business plan or promotional activities. Serials cease to be published, of course, and the fact that they do does not negate the fact that they were serials while they were alive. The only difference between a serial that starts in 1996, proudly proclaiming its intention to publish, but ceasing in 1997 after 9 hard but wonderful months, and a serial that publishes for those same 9 months but then ceases intentionally, as planned -- the only difference is intention, and I don't think that carries any bibliographic weight. There are still 9 months worth of issues (or updating!) in both cases. - Title changes sometimes frustrate serials catalogers (as well as users of the catalog). The authors wonder whether we should treat title changes differently depending on the type of serial. They cite the example of a journal entered under title, and a conference publication entered under the name of the conference, and suggest that changes in the title are more significant in the first case than in the second. I think that this is a good idea in principle, but that the criterion should not be whether the main entry is under title or under (corporate or conference) name. Main entry is a concept that some of us, as evidenced by other postings to this discussion, think is outdated and unnecessary, and therefore I don't think we should base any distinctions in serials cataloging on what the main entry is. But perhaps this is not what the authors are saying. If they mean that the distinctions should be based on the type of serial, regardless of the entry, then I do think _that_ is a good idea. And, of course, the list of serials for which changes in the title are relatively less significant should be longer than annual reports and conference publications. w Wayne Jones Head of Serials Cataloging MIT waynej@mit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 12:23:02 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Access Points MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII September 10, 1997 I feel it is unfortunate that the narrowing of Professor Hagler's topic from "Principal Access Points" (cf. Cataloging Service Bulletin, no.77, p. 59 and ALCTS newsletter v.8, no. 4, p. 46) to "Access Points for Works" means there are no papers specifically on the choice and form of other access points. For example, under "Works of shared responsibility" when responsibility is shared between two or three persons or bodies with principal responsibility not assigned, the last sentence of 21.6C1 says "If the persons or bodies are not named in the item, enter under the one named first in a previous edition or, if there is no previous edition, under the one whose heading comes first in English alphabetic order." Since "English alphabetic order" is not defined problems can arise (e.g., does Muller, Richard precede or follow Mu"ller, Wilhelm) which could be solved by choosing instead whichever came first in whatever source one was using. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 08:11:04 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Bibliographic utility participation Comments: To: autocat@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Except for the very occasional OCLC response in bureaucratize, we don't see anyone from the utilities (Catss, RLIN, or WLN) participating in the discussions on aacrconf or autocat. During the past week I have been told by representatives of two utilities that they do monitor the lists, but don't participate because there had been adverse reactions to "commercial" participation. OCLC, RLIN, and WLN are all non profit are they not? Format integration of fixed fields was delayed because of the time required to accomplish that by the utilities (apart from Catss which already had it). I would seem to me that the impact of the proposed work authority records on the utilities would be central to the discussion of the concept. It seems to me that the utilities each need an Aaron Kupferman, who can speak in his or her own voice as opposed to officially, to both give a human face to the institutions (as Aaron has for LC), and to help us understand what proposed developments might mean to us as users in our relationship with their respective utilities. I wonder if the owners would be willing to say a word in welcome of such participation. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 08:45:28 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Rules addressing end results Comments: To: EV@BUCH.BIBLIO.ETC.TU-BS.DE In-Reply-To: <9DADDC604FA@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> >Others in this list have proposed an integration of code and format. >There would be no other way to fill that hole. It would mean a big step >beyond both MARC and AACR to do this. A single conference cannot undertake >this, but opinions can be discussed about it. It seems to me that our major code should concern itself with the building of catalogues, not the contruction of records (except as a means to an end). For this to be true, AACR and MARC must be combined (are be companions), and display and arrangement rules must be coordinated with record construction rules. >The real issue that should be discussed is perhaps this: should the rules >be concerned with end-products at all, or not? ... >... [should] the rules provide for the construction of content of data >records, and everything that happens with the records [being] outside >the scope of the rules? That sounds like a clear principle. This would be a major abdication of professional responsibility brought about by technophobia. Mac ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 12:47:34 +0600 Reply-To: Frieda Rosenberg Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Frieda Rosenberg Subject: Re: Rules, Formats, and OPAC Development In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does the existence of a set of rules which does not dictate either machine coding or filing and indexing (though it takes them into account and defines content so as to be compatible with them) preclude other tools which do combine the rules with such formats or guidelines? In other words, are the alternatives really to issue an AACR with all this included, or to do nothing about the other concerns? Could not there be tools with official sanction, like the rules, but distinct from them? (In the past we have had cataloguing rules, filing rules, and coding formats developed completely separately, but, at least in intent, in sync with each other; indexing guidelines could also be developed, as Bernhard Eversberg suggests. As needed, these could be issued as combined tools.) We still have, all over the world, libraries which are not automated. It seems to me that a set of cataloguing rules should not exclude them. And I do agree with Jim Agenbroad that we ought to allow OPAC technology to develop, with our guidance and collaboration, its own innovations. "Our guidance and collaboration" should perhaps be pressed more strongly; many distinctions we are careful to make are universally ignored by all extant systems. Just my opinion, as well. ---------- Frieda Rosenberg Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill friedat@email.unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 13:48:43 EDT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Carroll Nelson Davis Subject: [Wayne Jones : seriality and monographness] Wayne Jones wrote Sept. 10, 1997: - I think that ... the definition of serial, even in the short-term implementation plan, should be: "a publication in any medium intended to continue". ... I also think that the requirement that the publication be projected to continue indefinitely is unnecessary as well. The "indefinitely" seems to me to be a criterion that is irrelevant to the bibliographic facts of the publication, and relevant only to the publisher's business plan or promotional activities. Serials cease to be published, of course, and the fact that they do does not negate the fact that they were serials while they were alive. The only difference between a serial that starts in 1996, proudly proclaiming its intention to publish, but ceasing in 1997 after 9 hard but wonderful months, and a serial that publishes for those same 9 months but then ceases intentionally, as planned -- the only difference is intention, and I don't think that carries any bibliographic weight. There are still 9 months worth of issues (or updating!) in both cases. ******************* Comment: The difference is that in the case of a multipart recognized as finite in nature all the parts will be routed across the desks of catalogers as they are received. Catalog records are modified by staff with knowledge of cataloging (to different degrees), so record-keeping can be highly detailed. In the case of serials expected to continue indefinitely, institutions collecting on anything like a large scale cannot afford to expend the same resources controlling their serial issues that they do on controlling parts of multipart monographs. So, serials check-in processes are adopted out of necessity, done by check-in staff working much faster than catalogers, with less knowledge of cataloging, and not constantly updating details in the bibliographic record. One could argue that serials bibliographic records could be much more informative if serials were cataloged in the same way and with the same assumptions as multipart monographs; and that would be true enough. But institutions have no choice but to use serials control processes and generally keep serial issues away from the catalogers if they want to control their collections and stay within budget; so that argument is not practical or consequential. The context in which records must function should have more weight in constraining cataloging codes (or at least cataloging practices) than more abstract perspectives on how records look from different angles. There may indeed be reasons to redefine "serial" to cover more than present AACR and LCRI definitions include (and both Graham/Hirons and Jones make interesting suggestions). But there will remain the need to distinguish multiparts whose parts are controlled more practically by cataloging processes and those whose parts are controlled more practically by check-in processes. This will be true whether "serial" identifies one of those categories or comes to embrace them both. And another point made by Graham and Hirons is that the code should allow different cataloging procedures for materials with different processing needs. Though re-examining the definition of "serial" is worthwhile, too, this point seems to me more important and more fundamental in plotting a better direction for AACR. Carroll Davis, Serials cataloger Columbia University Libraries cnd2@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 11:27:27 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Rules addressing end results Comments: To: "J. McRee Elrod" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mac wrote [in part:] > It seems to me that our major code should concern itself with the > building of catalogues, not the contruction of records (except as a > means to an end). and that not dictating/directing the look of the catalog (or how the record is handled) > would be a major abdication of professional responsibility > brought about by technophobia. I tend to lean the other way on this, perhaps because of the various aspects of the two items: the record and the catalog. The record is something we create individually, but that we share with each other. We have standards for content (AACR) and for content designation (MARC) to facilitate the sharing of this information. The catalog is something we provide or our local patrons, primarily, to provide access to our local collections. Internet resources are somewhat problematic but still, in a sense, a local resources since we provide access from local workstations. So, do I want or need an international standard for the catalog I help provide for our patrons? It certainly might help drive some changes in what our current vendor does with the data, but a user group can probably be just as effective. Our current vendor's system has difficulty handling treaty headings. Would an international standard help here? Our current vendor has trouble with some MARC tags and displays, for which there are already standards. Is this a problem that is best addressed by the code or by purchasing power? While I agree that catalogers should be fundamentally involved in OPAC displays, I don't see it, at this point, as a concern best addressed by AACR. A lack of participation in this area would be, I agree with Mac, an abdication of professional responsibility. Technophobia (and weariness) are the probable causes, I'd agree with that, too. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 12:20:37 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: A speaker to join the discussion (sorry I'm late) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=====================_873944437==_" --=====================_873944437==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My apologies to those who have been conducting this very stimulating and informative discussion. I was on vacation for a crucial 3 weeks in August, and in addition have been having considerable difficulty printing out papers (with a new computer, an old rickety printer, little technical support and the Catch 22 rule locally that software (e.g. Adobe) cannot be downloaded except by the system administrator, but we don't have a system administrator...). Thus I have only just managed to read all of the messages that arrived while I was away, in the context of the papers, and to begin to formulate some responses. Let me begin with the attached defense of the main entry and challenge to those on the list who persist in calling for abolishing it. (This may look familiar to readers of other listservs, as I have retooled a posting from several years ago...) The attachment is in "MS-DOS"--hope everyone will be able to read it... Martha --=====================_873944437==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Main entry described for JSC.txt" This message is addressed to those who advocate the elimination of the concept of main entry. There has never been any research on how much time choice of main entry takes in cataloging the average item. As a working cataloger, I (and many others) suspect that it usually takes no time at all. The time goes into authority work and subject cataloging. It has been shown that the majority of works we catalog are works of single personal authorship; obviously it takes no time at all to designate the main entry for a work of single personal authorship. We are not sure it takes that much time to determine main entry for works other than those of single personal authorship, either. Not only would elimination of the concept of main entry have no effect on increasing cataloging productivity, but it would wreck the structure of our catalogs and be a tremendous disservice to users [see f.n.]. Because of the lack of a standard citation form (the main entry), it would no longer be possible to display the relationships between works and editions of works, so that a person looking for a work can be told of the existence of a work about that work, or a person looking for a particular edition can be told about a newer revised edition of a scientific text, or a definitive edition of a work of belle lettres. It would no longer be possible to offer users the option of seeing the works on a subject grouped by author, so that they can see who the prolific authors in that field are, or which corporate bodies are active. (Those who advocate abolishing the main entry, but wish to maintain the option of allowing a subarrangement by author, reintroduce the main entry in describing how a record with several authors would be arranged.) Many authors never publish more than one book, and many works never exist in more than one edition or have works written about them, so do not require a main entry to carry out the second objective (i.e., to display all the works of an author and all the editions of a work to the user). However, the single-work authors and their works are not the authors and works most users are looking for. The prolific authors and the multiple-edition works are published and republished because of user-demand. Serials catalogers have had a taste of "no main entry" cataloging under AACR2. What it amounts to is title main entry. The title is a frail reed to bear the burden of displaying relationships between works in our catalog. Titles are almost never unique. As soon as a standard citation is needed to display a relationship between one serial and another, the title must be propped up with parenthetical additions completely invented by catalogers and difficult for users to predict. You can expect the users to know the title and search under it, but you can't expect them to know what parenthetical qualifiers catalogers have been forced to add to the title in order to support the catalog structure. Title main entry for musical works would be hellish. The most obvious option for reducing the amount of time it takes to catalog an item would be to reduce the number of controlled access points we create (and therefore the amount of authority work we do). If we must do this (and there is no way of avoiding the fact that such a reduction means a loss of service to our users), the choice of main entry becomes even more critical. It becomes (among other things) a judgment about the most important access point to make, if we can't afford to make all possible access points. If we decide that we can no longer afford to implement the second objective of the catalog (to show the user all of the works of an author and all of the editions of a work), we might as well decide not to catalog at all. We could get roughly the same results by dumping publishers catalogs into the computer and letting users plunge in to sink or swim. For those who would like to propose the elimination of the main entry from the code, I would like to challenge you to prove by hard research that elimination of the concept of main entry would increase productivity enough to justify destroying the structure of the catalog. f.n. A cataloging refresher course: Main entry is an alphabet-dependent device for carrying out the second cataloging objective, i.e. for displaying together all the works of an author and all the editions of a work. The main entry is the standard citation form for a work; if the work has an author, the main entry consists of the author and title of the work. The standard citation form can be used as a collocation point for editions of that work, works about that work, analytic added entries made when another work contains that work, works related to that work, such as adaptations, or serials with changed titles, or revised editions with changed titles, and so forth. Many of the above will appear _only_ at the main entry; when making an analytic, for example, you must choose one standard citation form for the work, and only if the user searches using that standard citation will he or she be informed about the existence of the analytic. Most online catalogs perform much worse than card catalogs in creating collocation points where main entries come together. When the main entry for a work is sometimes a 100 plus a 240 field, sometimes a 100 plus a 245 field, and sometimes a 700 with a $t subfield, it is rare for an online system to display these together effectively. Bad catalog design has dulled us to our mission to carry out the cataloging objectives. It is possible that catalogs of the future will be able to demonstrate relationships in a more effective way that is not so alphabet- dependent. In the card catalog, there were only a few predictable places that the user could look. In the online catalog, the users have many more kinds of searching available, which makes it that much harder to ensure that they will in fact look at the main entry. So far, however, the main entry is the only way we have to demonstrate these relationships to our users, and we jettison it at our peril. Can anyone suggest a better way to demonstrate these relationships in a shared cataloging environment with thousands of individual catalogs such as the environment in which we find ourselves today? Martha M. Yee --=====================_873944437==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) --=====================_873944437==_-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 12:25:46 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: Pseudonyms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=====================_873944746==_" --=====================_873944746==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please see attachment (MS-DOS). Martha Yee --=====================_873944746==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Pseudonyms--Intl Conf.txt" The approach to pseudonyms was a major change between AACR2 and AACR2R, one major enough to have justified calling it AACR3 instead, in this cataloging theorist's opinion. Entering one author under more than one name had never been sanctioned in Anglo-American practice prior to that time. I find AACR2R's approach to pseudonyms to be deleterious for a number of reasons, which I will detail below. However, I would like to begin by urging that we begin to conceive of the function of cataloging as being that of creating a permanent cultural record that can be accessed by generations to come who wish to study the published and unpublished documents of our century in order to increase their understanding of our times. This function should be contrasted with the function of providing current access to relatively ephemeral materials carried out by the Internet. The proper function of libraries in the future, in my opinion, will be to select from the Internet and all other sources of current materials that which is of lasting value and should therefore be added to the permanent cultural record. A permanent cultural record must be organized in complex ways if it is to be infinitely expansible, and readily accessible through time to members of the public with many different levels of education. The context I have just sketched out is particularly relevant to the issue of pseudonyms. At the beginning of the career of a writer who uses pseudonyms, the public may be unaware of the fact that works published under two different names are actually by one person. However, over time, the facts emerge. For a writer of any importance, other people begin to write critical works and biographies; often these types of works cover the whole career of the writer, including works written under all pseudonyms. Archives begin to collect papers, letters and home movies of the writer, many of them using the writer's real name. If we see our goal as that of creating a permanent cultural record, as opposed to mere current access to current materials, a more permanent and stable method of organizing all of the materials described above that cluster about the career of a writer is to choose one form of name for that writer, making sure that users are led to that name from any form under which they know the writer. For people interested in just the works published under a particular form of name, systems certainly ought to be able to provide searching capabilities and limiting capabilities to support this type of interest, but should it really be our primary goal to do this, at the expense of gathering together the works of an author? The degree to which AACR2R is undermining the cataloging objectives and the structure of our catalogs can perhaps best be illustrated by examining the case of Mark Twain. Here is a writer who wrote consistently under a true pseudonym, yet there are now three headings established for him in the national name authority file: Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 Snodgrass, Quintus Curtius, 1835-1910 Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 1835-1910 This practice ensures that the Twain scholar* will not find everything of interest in any database, such as OCLC, that lacks a linked authority file. *One who trusts us to the do the work we used to do to gather together the works of an author, at any rate... AACR2R's practice also ignores the problem of writers who were forced against their will to write under a pseudonym, and would prefer to have their works properly identified as their own. Many Hollywood screenwriters suffered this fate during the era of blacklisting. So far, only writers have had their works scattered throughout the catalog in this fashion. Now that libraries are finally beginning to notice the public's interest in works that are not strictly textual, our catalogs are beginning to fill up with musicians, actors, painters, photographers, choreographers, and the like. Many of these people have worked under more than one name. For example, it is not at all uncommon for an actor to begin working under his or her real name and then switch to a stage name under which he or she becomes better known. There is a lack of consistency in treating writers differently from people who carry out these other functions. Scattering all of these other people under all of the various names they have used (with their letters and papers under their little-known real names) would create complete havoc in our catalogs, and cause the public to ask, with justification, why pay such high sums to have catalogs that are just as chaotic as the Internet? This inconsistency in practice between writers and other creators can lead to the following kinds of anomalies: For the film The black pirate (1926), Douglas Fairbanks acted under his real name, but wrote the scenario under a pseudonym. Thus we must make two different added entries for the same person on the same bibliographic record, under AACR2R. For the film Mio corpo per un poker (or The Belle Starr story) (1993), Lina Wertmuller directed under the pseudonym Nathan Wich, and wrote the screenplay using two pseudonyms, Nathan Wich and George Brown. Thus we must make three different added entries for her on one bibliographic record (one under Wertmuller, since directors do not fall under the pseudonym rule, and two for the two pseudonyms used in writing). I hope the cataloging world will use the occasion of this international conference to stop and reflect about the kind of service we ought to offer to justify the expense society incurs in creating and maintaining libraries and the bibliographic organization that enables them to be used. --=====================_873944746==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) Campus mail: 302 E. Melnitz 132306 1413 Quintero St. Los Angeles, CA 90026-3417 213-250-3018 --=====================_873944746==_-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 16:03:06 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stephen Hearn Subject: e pluribus unum problum Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'd like to second the comments of Frieda Rosenberg and Daniel CannCasciato re the need for incorporating multiple standards into AACR, or any other single document. Having our cataloging rules, coding standards, filing rules, and so forth as separate documents gives us greater flexibility in working on each of these areas. The fact that these documents are interdependent does not mean that they must take over each other's functions, or merge into some superstandard. And really, would anyone prefer to see USMARC's development proceed at the same rate as AACR's? Specifically with regard to filing rules (or index display standards, or whatever), though, I'd like to point out that we do have published standards of a sort (ALA filing rules, LC filing rules, LCSH) with which vendors could be asked to comply. And while I agree with Daniel that the display one offers will be dependent on the needs of one's local clientele, I also see value in having a collectively agreed upon standard for filing order to point to, so that vendors can perceive that spending the effort to develop a complex index display may be worth it in terms of the number of libraries who would prefer that display over what another vendor has to offer. Stephen Stephen Hearn E-mail: s-hear@tc.umn.edu Authority Control Coordinator Phone: 612-625-2328 University of Minnesota Fax: 612-625-3428 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 13:42:56 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Masterful defense of main entry Comments: To: myee@UCLA.EDU In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19970910192037.008fe14c@pop.ben2.ucla.edu> Ms Yee, that was a *masterful* defense of the concept of the main entry. My "amens" made my office sound like a revival service in full swing. One problem your post points up is the continuing ambiguity of the term "main entry". Is it the principal access point plus uniform title or title, i.e., 100 + 240 or 245 (your usage), the entire record under the principal access point (Hagler and AACR glossary), or the person (100 or 110), or title (130 or 245) chosen as the principal access point (common usage)? Perhaps "main entry" could mean the principal access point (since to change common usage is almost impossible); "work entry" could mean the access point plus title "Main entry card" or "main entry record" (depending) is actually what the present AACR glossary definition describes. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 18:47:05 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Cuttering to keep editions together Comments: To: law-tech@majordomo.netcom.com Comments: cc: cpso@loc.gov I have just catalogued Bieber's dictionary of legal citations, Prince's 5th ed (LCCN 97-21987). Of course my customer will want the principal author, Bieber, as 100, rather than Prince as the LC record has it. This is a rule I very much hope gets changed back. LC has the item Cuttered for Prince. Doesn't present practice still call for Cuttering for Bieber to keep the editions together on the shelf? (Another reason in addition to who is primarily responsible, and agreeing with legal citation, for changing the rule back.) Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:10:08 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Rules addressing end results MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Yesterday, I had written: > > >The real issue that should be discussed is perhaps this: should the rules > >be concerned with end-products at all, or not? ... > >... [should] the rules provide for the construction of content of data > >records, and everything that happens with the records [being] outside > >the scope of the rules? That sounds like a clear principle. > and Mac replied: > This would be a major abdication of professional responsibility brought > about by technophobia. > Thanks, Mac, that's exactly the reply I wanted to elicit. B.E. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 01:14:31 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Rules addressing end results Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: from "J. McRee Elrod" at Sep 10, 97 08:45:28 am Content-Type: text Hi, I think I mentioned this observation before. Anyway, I don't think the lack of standards for catalog presentation and display resulted/results from technophobia. Prior to the proliferation of online catalogs, no one was really interested in tinkering with such displays (because of the duplication of LC cards). It was of no interest. With the advent of OPACS, certain categories of librarians found a new calling--the science of opac displays, and vendors capitalized on that new thrill. With locally defined labelled displays, it became clear that each library in the country could have its own special flavor. That created the industry known as Z39.50, etc., etc. I don't have a problem with the expression of creativity in the presentation of catalog displays. I do have a problem with the enormous waste resulting from the lack of minimum, basic standards for display and indexing. That is waste as in each library having to define it's own display, each "user" having to learn a new system when moving around from library to library, each library having to create its own instructional materials, etc. etc. There seems to be no lack of resources when it comes to entertaining the public with a catalog. You know, what we want and need is a basic catalog that understands very simple processes such a alphabetic order, redirection of cross references, etc. Using a catalog doesn't have to be a psychologically uplifting or even interesting experience. One either needs to use the catalog or not, successfully or not. I guess I assumed that certain groups of public services librarians would have jumped at the chance at creating minimal standards for opac displays/indexes. Mac may be right. It may be time for the cataloging community to exercise some professional responsibility and address this matter officially so that we (as a community) can stop wasting what people continually describe as limited resources. --ralph p. J. McRee Elrod said ............... > > This would be a major abdication of professional responsibility brought > about by technophobia. > > Mac > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:48:57 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Pseudonyms MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Martha M. Yee writes: > Entering one author under more than one name > had never been sanctioned in Anglo-American practice prior to that time. > > I find AACR2R's approach to pseudonyms to be deleterious for a number of > reasons, which I will detail below. For your information: There's one aspect about pseudonyms that Yee doesn't mention but that has changed cataloging policy of the Deutsche Bibliothek a number of years ago: the aspect of data privacy. German laws are such that the Deutsche Bibliothek felt forced to abandon resolving pseudonyms and establishing references for persons who live(d) in the 20th century. Thus if you are using German data, be aware there will be quite a few authors entered under more than one name. You will also find different authors entered under the same name, but that's a different story. German catalog theory has only recently discovered the principle of "individualizing" persons in the catalog, and German practice has only recently begun to establish personal name authorities. B.E. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 11:40:29 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Rules addressing end results MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ralph Papakhian wrote: > I guess I assumed that certain groups of public services librarians > would have jumped at the chance at creating minimal standards for opac > displays/indexes. Mac may be right. It may be time for the cataloging > community to exercise some professional responsibility and address > this matter officially so that we (as a community) can stop wasting > what people continually describe as limited resources. > How can this matter best be "expressed officially" and with the necessary degree of authority (or else it won't be heard)? Only within the framework of AACR? I've been interested in this matter for years. Every time a statement like Ralph's was made, someone objected that OPAC development is still in its infancy and one should not try to set up standards too early, and the current phase of creative experimentation must not be hampered, and so on and so on. And that has always served to shut everybody up. Nobody says AACR should state what an OPAC menu must look like, what function keys it has to have, which colors to use etc. etc. AACR might say, however, that ISBD is a display standard for all kinds of catalogs. It might also say that a short citation should consist of the main entry heading plus date and publisher's name. It might go on promulgating a few guidelines for the arrangement of sorted lists and indexes (IOW filing rules). Theoretically, the upcoming conference is a good opportunity to express a few things officially... B.E. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 09:45:05 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Re: Period Appreciation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thursday, September 11, 1997 Part of the problem is that AACR does not address use of headings for persons, corporate bodies, etc. for subject access. Smith, Bill as an author (100 or 700) ends with a period (full stop)in cataloging records, but in the subject heading for a work on the residences of the same person: Smith, Bill--Homes and hauants. the period migrates to the end of the heading. If AACR gave more guidance authority control systems might learn to do better. It might be necessary to specify in authority records when a final period was part of an abbreviation and thus should be retained: "firm name, inc." for example, becomes "firm name, inc.--History. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:22:57 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Need for standards (was: Period Appreciation) Comments: To: jage@LOC.GOV In-Reply-To: Jim said: > Part of the problem is that AACR does not address use of headings for >persons, corporate bodies, etc. for subject access. Smith, Bill as an >author (100 or 700) ends with a period (full stop)in cataloging records, >but in the subject heading for a work on the residences of the same >person: Smith, Bill--Homes and haunts. the period migrates to the end of >the heading. Except that it doesn't, with automated authority control. Does this bother nobody but me? Am I the only cataloguer who looks at the display of records created? In some cases display practices need to be changed to accord with ISBD and standards which took centuries to evolve. In some cases new standards are needed (e.g., brief displays). In some cases standards may need to change to recognize what a machine can be expected to do (e.g., periods at end of subject headings which vanish with verification). Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 11:16:56 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Sharon Bakula Subject: Re: Rules addressing end results Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:14 AM 9/11/97 -0500, A. Ralph Papakhian wrote: > I don't have a problem with the expression of creativity in >the presentation of catalog displays. I do have a problem with the >enormous waste resulting from the lack of minimum, basic standards >for display and indexing. That is waste as in each library having to define >it's own display, each "user" having to learn a new system when moving >around from library to library, each library having to create its own >instructional materials, etc. etc. > >Mac may be right. It may be time for the cataloging >community to exercise some professional responsibility and address >this matter officially so that we (as a community) can stop wasting >what people continually describe as limited resources. So far I've just been lurking on this list (these days I hardly have time to *read* the posts much less respond to them ;) ) but I finally had to chime in. I strongly agree that the time has come for some standardization in the area of OPAC displays and functions. And if the cataloging community doesn't do something about it, it's a *very* safe bet nobody else will, IMO. Actually, I think the underlying question is something along the lines of: "Is controlling what information is included in library catalog records and how it is displayed one of the legitimate functions of a cataloging code?" If the answer is "no", then nothing needs to be done in the context of AACR, I suppose. But if the answer is "yes", then the time has come to recognize that no matter how how painstakingly the we as catalogers try to apply the rules and enter appropriate information in a correct manner in our catalog records, it is the computer systems we use that determine how that information can be manipulated in searching, and how much of it and in what form it is going to be displayed to our patrons. To put it another way, we as librarians (not just catalogers but all of us) are rapidly losing control of matters that used to be firmly in our grasp. And who are we surrendering them to? In most cases, a bunch of computer geeks who know nothing about cataloging or librarianship. As a cataloger who is also a self-professed computer geek, I hasten to add that I mean no disrespect to anyone. But letting software engineers make decisions that should be made by librarians makes about as much sense, IMHO, as hiring a brain surgeon to repair my car. While that surgeon may display breath-taking brilliance and skill in her own field, those qualities do not necessarily qualify her to change my oil, much less rebuild my transmission. Having said all that, I will admit that I am not really sure about the best way for these matters to be addressed. Yes, we need standardization--desparately. But one problem I see with trying to do this through AACR, is that, as I understand it, the code is still supposed to be a code for all seasons, equally applicable in a computerized or non-computerized context. "Here are the rules of descriptive cataloging," AACR seems to be saying, "based on underlying principles developed by generations of librarians regarding what and how catalog records ought to include and display. You may apply them to any type of catalog with equal validity." That's all right, as far as it goes, but discussions on this list, as well as on AUTOCAT, have made me more and more doubtful as to whether that is still really a viable or valid aim at this point in time. It's like like saying "here's a recipe for a cake; you may use it in either a conventional or microwave oven and expect the same results." But anyone who's done *any* cooking at all knows that it wouldn't produce the same results, at least not without a lot of tinkering, because microwaves and conventional ovens operate very differently. I submit that computerized catalogs and card catalogs also operate very differently, and the "cookbook" (i.e. the cataloging code) somehow does need to address that, especially since at this point in time, most of us *are* cooking in microwaves (i.e. cataloging for computerized catalogs) rather than conventional ovens (card catalogs). I feel like I've run on long enough and raised a sufficient number of issues for several posts, not just one. But I see so many complex and intertwined factors at work that I just can't sort them all out and deal with them in isolation from each other. Sharon #%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%# Sharon Bakula, Cataloger The John M. Flaxman Library School of the Art Institute of Chicago phone 312-899-5100, ext. 2030 (or 312-899-5097) fax 312-899-1465 email sbakula@artic.edu #%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%# ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 12:37:22 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Annette Blum, Tech Services" Subject: Periods and verification It all depends on your software! In our DRA verification, if a period exists at the end of a person's name in the authority record, the verification includes that period--whether the subject includes following subdivisions or not. For instance, if you have Smith, John--Biography, but a period exists in the authority record, verification will change the entry to: Smith, John.--Biography. For this reason, we're very careful to delete any periods that appear at the end of 100, 110, 111, 150, 151, etc., fields. On the other hand, if we enter Frogs as a 650 without a final period, verification will provide a period, even though the authority record has no period. My whole point is that we've learned to work with the way our software handles the punctuation, and we're very happy with the results. We *do* look at the displays all the time, and they matter a great deal to us and our cataloging. Annette Blum Cataloger Charleston County Public Library Charleston, South Carolina ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 12:24:57 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stephen Hearn Subject: Re: Period Appreciation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This discussion is again drifting away from AACR2 concerns, and into the murk of seeking data solutions to programming problems. The rules on end punctuation for headings and and heading components just aren't that complicated (hey, we learn them). Developing a computer algorithm* which would permit a system either to construct the heading for storage in the correctly punctuated form, or to process the heading data for display with correct punctuation at the point of use, is something we can reasonably expect our systems to do, if not now, then soon. This is a problem for systems designers and programmers, and we should press them to address it. As librarians, we have bigger fish to fry, and should not be wasting our time repunctuating all our bib and authority records. Stephen *Here, I'll even take a crack at it: Routine for processing heading strings for display: 1. Check the subfields in the heading string 1.a. If the heading contains a $b or $t, check the preceding character 1.a.1. If the preceding character is something other than a hyphen or period, add a period 1.a.2. If the preceding character is a hyphen or period, make no change 1.b. If the heading string contains no $b or $t, make no change to internal punctuation 2. Check the last character in the heading string 2.a. If the preceding character is something other than a hyphen or period, add a period 2.b.If the heading string ends with a hyphen or period, make no change Wouldn't that cover the vast majority of cases? Stephen Hearn E-mail: s-hear@tc.umn.edu Authority Control Coordinator Phone: 612-625-2328 University of Minnesota Fax: 612-625-3428 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 13:29:47 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Period Migration--Oops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thursday, September 11, 1997 Mac is right, I should have said: "the period is supposed to migrate ..." I think what happens at present in any particular vendor's automated authority control software matters less stating what is wanted where vendors will read and heed it. If AACR is not the place for this and topics such as the handling of free-floating subject subdivisions used with names where should it appear? Cf. Shakespeare examples at ALA rule 42. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 12:50:07 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stephen Hearn Subject: apologies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Darn, I just did it again--read a message posted on one list (USMARC) and responded to another (AACRCONF). My apologies. Stephen Stephen Hearn E-mail: s-hear@tc.umn.edu Authority Control Coordinator Phone: 612-625-2328 University of Minnesota Fax: 612-625-3428 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 13:58:38 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: 1.0D1 = Brief record? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thursday, September 11, 1997 Those who want a definition of what a brief catalog record display should contain could begin by consulting AACR 1.0D1, first level description, and considering how they would ammend it. I was surprised that it allows omission of some ISBD elements. For example, one can omit the first statement of responsibility unless it differs "from the main entry heading in form or number or if there is no main entry heading." (Try showing that to a programmer.) I believe USMARC fixed field 008/32, main entry in body of entry, was intended to assist software to know when to omit 245 $c but it has been obsolete since 1990. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 11:38:58 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: 1.0D1 = Brief record? Comments: To: jage@LOC.GOV In-Reply-To: >Those who want a definition of what a brief catalog record display should >contain could begin by consulting AACR 1.0D1, first level description, and >considering how they would ammend it. I was surprised that it allows >omission of some ISBD elements. For example, one can omit the first >statement of responsibility unless it differs "from the main entry heading >in form or number or if there is no main entry heading." (Try showing >that to a programmer.) Not only does it create programming difficulties, it results in the loss of needed information, e.g., what is the relationship of the person in main entry position and the titie? Author? Composer? Compiler (of an index or bibliography)? Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:57:45 EST Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Neil R. Hughes" Organization: University of Georgia Libraries Subject: Re: Rules addressing end results Sharon Bakula said: > Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 11:16:56 -0500 > From: Sharon Bakula > Subject: Re: Rules addressing end results > To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA > So far I've just been lurking on this list (these days I hardly have time to > *read* the posts much less respond to them ;) ) but I finally had to chime > in. I strongly agree that the time has come for some standardization in the > area of OPAC displays and functions. And if the cataloging community > doesn't do something about it, it's a *very* safe bet nobody else will, IMO. I was heavily involved in developing the public displays for GALIN, the OPAC of the University of Georgia Libraries, and I'm sorry to say that cataloguers and the Cataloging Department _per se_ had very little say in the development of OPAC displays and functions. I think this is fairly typical even in home-grown systems like ours where there is a high degree of local control: the opinions of those who think that "simple is good," or that patrons "never search by ISBN or music publisher number" are given as much weight by the powers that be as the opinions of those of us who are intimately familiar with record data-content and the dangers of limiting functionality in the name of simplicity. (I include display levels, such as "brief" and "full" when I use the term functionality.) Expertise and a sound theoretical knowledge-base were never the issues. Equal input by all areas of the library and the perception that same took place were, however, very much the issues. It was assumed from the outset that compromise would be necessary, but what sorts of things would be compromised were never defined and the cataloguing code was certainly never referred to as a starting point for defining it. (Well ... several of us cataloguers tried, but we might as well have brought up the topic of bubonic plague.) Sadly, expertise in the then largely-anecdotal "science" of OPAC screen design was given more weight in the process than expertise in the functions of the catalogue and how best to achieve those, i.e. if a reference librarian had ever once seen a patron beomc alarmed by too much detail (whatever that was) on a screen, then detail had to go. The overriding concern was that everything "not be too complicated." If we cataloguers raised objections based on anything half as rational as what Ralph Papakhian and Martha Yee have pointed out in the past week, the old saw, "Oh, you don't work with the public!" would be dragged out and that was the end of it, as if not working with the public was _prima facie_ evidence of one's inability to design an OPAC that would do what a catalogue is supposed to do. On the other hand, maybe we cataloguers _should_ work more with the public--at least then they wouldn't be able to toss that one in our faces and make book with it! I know and will state for the record that my views on catalogue functionality would not change one iota were I to work six hours a day with the UGA Libraries public for five years, though my lobbying for more and better bibliographic instruction that used the OPAC as its beginning and end might reach fever pitch. (And perhaps lobbying for extensive cross-training for reference librarians in cataloguing!) That might be the first step toward having our theoretically-sound cataloguing knowledge be given more credibility than the astrological anecdotes and Cassandra-like pronouncements of those who are intensely focussed on the last problem encountered by the patron with whom they interacted just before coming to the catalogue-design meeting. All this took place over five years ago, yet as you can all undoubtedly tell, I'm still bitter. The experience made me realize why people look puzzled when I explain to them that librarianship is a profession and that one must actually attend university for a few years in order to enter it, when our work proceeds from such a glaring lack of shared understanding to the kinds of "compromise" seen in OPAC after OPAC. (And I'm relatively happy with the results here at Georgia--I truly feel for those who have to live with whatever the vendor hands them!) But I froth at the mouth.... The main point of all of this is that there are very real obstacles to cataloguers implementing what we know to be right, and this is all the more reason to be alarmed at the trend among library schools to drop courses in cataloguing and indexing from their core requirements. All the knowledge of LANs, Web-to-Z39.50 interfaces, Java script, and PUSH technology in the world won't buy the baby a shirt if you can't find the right book--_or_ Web site! <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Neil R. Hughes Music Cataloger University of Georgia Libraries Internet: nhughes@libris.libs.uga.edu Telephone: (706) 542-1554 Fax: (706) 542-4144 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:56:22 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Joint Author Displays MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thursday, September 11, 1997 This is a radical extension to my earlier note about brief entries. If two people together author a book, which of the following entries makes it easier for catalog to understand the situation? Smith, Bill. Manual of X / Bill Smith and Fred Brown. - New York : Society for X, 1997. or Smith, Bill and Brown, Fred. Manual of X. - New York : Society for X, 1997. (Bibliographers are more likely to use Smith, Bill and Fred Brown without inverting the second author.) The 1908 rules were the last cataloging code to let catalogers give two authors in a heading. If the main reason for this was to avoid confusing the card filers, the issue could perhaps be reexamined. Of course USMARC does not presently allow repetition of $a in the 100 field but it, I hope, reflects cataloging practice not defines it. The same display could have been developed by other means when the 700 field included a "joint author" subfield and an "alternate" indicator. The original question still seems worth asking--could a new code based on basic principles but freed from card era conventions make our catalog displays easier for readers to understand? Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 17:32:18 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Stephen Hearn Subject: qualifiers and pseudonyms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Responding to Martha Yee's remarks on AACRCONF re qualifiers and pseudonyms. I'm bothered by the suggestion that parenthetical qualifiers added to uniform titles, or for fuller forms of name, etc., are problematic for searchers. It's true that searchers have trouble predicting them, but they shouldn't have to. The qualifier is there to help the searcher decide which of several headings is the desired one when only the known base heading is input. The problem is not so much that searchers can't predict the qualifier data as it is that systems don't properly file the qualifiers as data preceding other alphanumeric continuations of the string. If all the qualifiers sort at the head of the index, they can be easily compared; but if not, the headings will misfile and the whole of a long index may need to be browsed, and THAT is a problem. Some systems are able to use the left parthesis to achieve the correct filing order, and they are to be applauded, and other systems encouraged to follow suit. Regarding pseudonyms, I too was appalled to see that LC had re-established Samuel Clemens, but I don't hold AACR2R at fault. I see the problem as being one of shortsighted adherence to the highly artificial definition of "contemporary authors" (i.e., those who died after 1900) found in LCRI 22.2B3. Twain becomes our contemporary by this test, and cannot be evaluated by the "separate bibliographic identities" test applied to non-contemporaries, which the Twain/Clemens distinction would clearly fail. But I like the separate bibliographic identities concept. It seems to me to provide a significant collocation device for like works which cannot easily be met in any other way under the rules. My authority control experience militates against relying on any non-controlled field for access to specific names, so relying on notes or statements of responsibility (often lacking on older records) doesn't appeal to me. Likewise, using references to link names and pseudonyms together seems to me to achieve the collocation of a single author's work, virtually if not literally, without sacrificing a distinction which many users desire. What I would prefer would be that the "separate bibliographic identities" test be applied across the board as justification for separate headings for the same person, with cases of doubt being put under a single name. (I'd also like to see LC's descriptive and subject people come to an understanding that for anyone established with a pseudonym (not just those with more than two names), one of the names must be designated as "basic" for subject entries. This would require complex coding (or a looser interpretation of what "search also under" means) to account for LC's different practices in name and subject indexing, but USMARC is up to it, and LC should be facing the problem anyway as they merge name and subject authorities for place names. But this is straying from the topic.) As for screenwriting pseudonyms and changes in stage names, I think a similar test could be applied. W.C. Fields used outlandish pseudonyms for his screenwriting credits, but their lush variety argues against considering that they constitute a single or multiple separate identities, so I'd treat them all as "search under" references to Fields. An actor who performs under one name, then finds it's registered and adopts another one has acquired a new name, but not created a new performing identity, and would be treated as a single heading with a reference for the earlier form. In general, I would not consider the use of different names for different relationships (Bill Cosby (actor) vs. William H. Cosby (executive producer)) to a work to constitute separate identities, unless the two names appear on different bodies of work which are distinct in terms of form or genre or style; because it's the distinctions between bodies of work that we're interested in, not how people choose to name themselves in different roles or at different times in the same or similar works. So I'd like to see AACR stick with the concept of separate headings for separate bibliographic identities, drop the distinction between contemporaries and non-contemporaries, and trust catalogers to be able to distinguish when different names for the same person should be kept separate or merged. Sorry to go on at such length. Stephen Stephen Hearn E-mail: s-hear@tc.umn.edu Authority Control Coordinator Phone: 612-625-2328 University of Minnesota Fax: 612-625-3428 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:18:29 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Joint Author Displays Comments: To: jage@LOC.GOV In-Reply-To: James asked us which was better: >Smith, Bill. > Manual of X / Bill Smith and Fred Brown. - New York : Society for X, >1997. >or >Smith, Bill and Brown, Fred. > Manual of X. - New York : Society for X, 1997. In my opinion, neither. For a brief display, I would prefer: Manual of X / Bill Smith and Fred Brown. -- 5th ed. -- New York : Society for X, 1997. -- 300 p. ; 28 cm. With no labels, there is room for all of the above. The ISBD contains neither the main entry nor the tracings. Notes should be omitted for brief display. The collation is very helpful in matching exact edition, and in providing the smd for nonbook materials. (From James' example, I could not tell whether he would include edition or not.) Nothing works better than the ISBD transcription of the title page for me. All sorts of relationships are expressed after the "/" (by, composed by, translated by, compiled by, edited by, in honour of, etc., and in a variety of languages). Why should we force "and" on a non English language pair of authors? The system we saw demoed Monday showed main and added entries lumped together below title labeled "Authors", whether they were authors or not. There were other labels which left us guessing. What do you suppose is mapped to "Also known as:"? Uniform titles for one, but we never tracked them all down. As my son put it, they just reinvented the wheel, but it's square. AACR needs standards for brief and full display of the records for which it supplies standards for content. (The best of all records can by made hash by poor display.) If libraries prefer to create their own square wheel, or allow their vendors to not follow those standards, that's their choice. Where standards were followed, at least there might then exist the possibility of catalogue use instruction received in one library being of some utility in another. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:57:33 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Re: Joint Author Displays MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Friday, September 12, 1997 In my note on this topic I was not attempting to define a complete brief entry, but to stimulate discussion on how a brief entry might succinctly deal with joint authorship by suggesting that the main entry heading could usefully contain more than the established/authoritative form of one person's name. (I would include edition and pagination but maybe not spine size.) When the text following the slash contained other useful data ("with maps by ...", "with an intro. by ..." etc. its inclusion could indeed be desirable--how does one weigh brevity that gets more entries on a screen against giving more information to assist selection? Use of "et", "y", "und" instead of "and" could be considered when the language code made it seem prefereable, or one could use "&" whenever only the Latin script was involved. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 15:38:02 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Helen Buhler Subject: Re: Joint Author Displays In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:57:33 EDT." Jim Agenbroad said: > Friday, September 12, 1997 > In my note on this topic I was not attempting to define a complete brief >entry, but to stimulate discussion on how a brief entry might succinctly >deal with joint authorship by suggesting that the main entry heading could >usefully contain more than the established/authoritative form of one >person's name. (I would include edition and pagination but maybe not >spine size.) In the *heading*?? Am I out of touch or missing something? Helen Helen Buhler, The Templeman Library, The University, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NU. Fax: +44 (0)1227 827107 or 823984 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 08:22:43 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Levels of display (was Joint authors) Comments: To: jage@LOC.GOV In-Reply-To: James said: > In my note on this topic I was not attempting to define a complete brief >entry, but to stimulate discussion on how a brief entry might succinctly >deal with joint authorship by suggesting that the main entry heading could >usefully contain more than the established/authoritative form of one >person's name. There seems to be little to be gained by reinventing the ISBD wheel. The programming to include or not include the 245$c, whether to use "and" or not, etc. would complicate software for little real gain. What about three authors? Title main entry does not begin until there are four. Why not simply make the first brief display ISBD, and include main entry as as in the record for the second level of display? (My customers like subject headings in second level display as well, serving as a sort of annotation.) The third level would be the full MARC record. No labels are needed for any level. James' example was vastly superior to most labeled displays I see, when call even defendants in legal cases "authors". Now if someone would like to propose title main entry beginning with two (as opposed to four) authors, it would be fine with me. It least this would put standard legal works under the surname of one of the original authors as opposed to the redactor of the current edition, where they are lost in single entry lists. We must remember that MARC records are used to produce single entry lists, cards, and book catalogues, as well as OPACs. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 14:49:24 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: Thinking about linking Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=====================_874126164==_" --=====================_874126164==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please see attached. --=====================_874126164==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Thinking about linking.txt" Thinking about linking Martin, Eversberg, et al. have identified the following potential linking devices for demonstrating relationships among our bibliographic, authority and holdings records: 1. Hot links using Web addresses. 2. Standard numbers such as ISBNs and ISSNs. 3. Record numbers, such as an authority record number in the National Name Authority file or an LC card number (are they still called that?) 4. Uniform headings. I would like to suggest that in our current shared cataloging environment, in which we are maintaining numerous local catalogs, with no linkages between catalogs, uniform headings are still the most functional linking device. My reasons are as follows: All are equally bad in terms of stability. All can change over time, and we have no reliable methods for proliferating these changes into all the catalogs which are using the linking device. Uniform headings have the following advantages: 1. As Eversberg points out, they are the only type of link that is "humanly readable." Thus they can represent an author, a work or a subject to a user, enabling the user to recognize and select (or *not* select) a particular heading. Thus, they also have the effect of explaining something about the nature of the link (although various people have suggested ways in which to categorize relationships in a more detailed manner than we have done so far). Thus a link that consists of an author name and a title carries the information that it represents the work named. 2. Since the uniform heading link is "humanly readable," when it gets out of synch, that fact is more likely to be recognizable to catalog editors, who can then put the link back in synch. 3. Certainly all links are prone to error, but it seems probable that "humanly readable" links are less likely to contain errors than meaningless strings of numbers, or at least more likely to be spotted and corrected eventually. 4. And finally, uniform headings strike me as being more "sharable"; unlike the other types of link, a uniform heading actually *can* sit in a catalog that does not have any other records with that heading, and still function perfectly well; once more records with that heading arrive, they should automatically link (assuming no errors and assuming adequate system design). I think it would be helpful if we put more thought into detailing the types of linking that would be helpful in our catalogs. It seems to me that we most commonly need one-to- many links. Consider the following list: Work to its editions (one-to-many, if authority record for work is linked to bib. records for its editions) Author to his or her works (one-to-many, if authority record for author is linked to authority records for his or her works, and thence to bibliographic records attached to the work authority records) Subject heading to the works about that subject (one-to- many, if authority record for subject is linked to bibliographic records using that subject heading) Work to related work links (one-to-one, if authority records for the works were linked; many-to-many if all the editions of one work were linked to all the editions of the other work) That latter category should perhaps give us pause. In my opinion, any link between bibliographic records should be considered to be at least potentially a link between two particular editions of two particular works, not a link between works, since the object of a bibliographic record is a particular edition of a particular work. It seems to me that linking of works would be much more efficient and logically explicable if it could be done as much as possible on a one-to-one basis (work record-to-work record), rather than on a many-to-many basis (bibliographic records-to- bibliographic records). If we do bibliographic record-to- bibliographic record linking, we risk increasing the number of linking added entries on each bibliographic record exponentially. Currently, when we make a related work added entry on a bib. record, in effect, we link that bib. record to two different work authority records; its main entry links it to the work of which it is an edition; its related work added entry links it to the work to which it is related. Each of those work headings then provides one-to-many links to both editions of itself, and works related to it. Chained entries, such as those made between successively entered serials records, and revised editions of texts with authorship changes lose the power of the one-to-many linking. As Watters, Brenndorfer, Elrod, Martin and Papakhian point out, we also need to develop methods of creating hierarchical links between entities that could be used in smart systems to signal to the computer 1) that a cross reference to one element in a hierarchy also applies to all elements beneath it in the hierarchy; 2) that an editing change to one element in a hierarchy should also be applied to all elements beneath it; and 3) that a search that retrieves one element in a hierarchy should display that element and all elements beneath it. One possibility might be to try defining this hierarchy to the computer using the fact that our headings are already designed to be treated this way; thus, one could define the elements beneath as being those that begin with the same heading, but have subsequent subfields attached. (This assertion is probably oversimplified and would benefit from some research! For example, one would probably not often want to exercise hierarchical power over all authors with the same surname... You might want to sometimes, though, e.g. for names beginning with 'Mc'...) Consider the following hierarchical relationships that are currently ignored in OPACs: A corporate body to all of its subdivisions An author to all of his or her pseudonyms An author to all of his or her works represented by author- title headings A work to all of its editions; consider, for example, works such as the Bible that are subarranged by edition information such as language, date, etc., using uniform titles that include such edition-related elements. [If we weren't limiting discussion to descriptive cataloging rules here, we could also list the hierarchical relationships between subject headings and their subdivisions, and between class numbers, and all numbers included underneath them in classification hierarchies.] Because OPACs ignore these hierarchical relationships, a search on FBI Intelligence Division would fail because the cross reference from FBI occurs only on the authority record for 'United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation,' not on the record for 'United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Intelligence Division.' The real problem with all linking devices in a shared cataloging environment, however, lies with the shared cataloging environment itself. Because our thousands of local catalogs are not linked together, or linked upward to the national name authority file, any change in a uniform heading will be made in only three places: the national name authority file; the Library of Congress catalog; and the local catalog of the cataloger who made the change. All other catalogs will henceforward be out of synch, until that heading happens to be worked on locally for some other reason. (John Attig has been trying to point this out to linking enthusiasts for years.) The real solution, and admittedly it's a radical one (but we live in radical times), is that instead of sharing cataloging records, we need to re-reexamine the possibility of sharing a catalog! I have tried to make this point elsewhere (in 'Editions: brainstorming for AACR2000,' a paper which should be appearing shortly in the AACR2000 papers being published by ALA), but will try to reformulate it a bit for this context. If the development of the information superhighway eventually means cheap and ubiquitous telecommunication, could we not begin to envision a single catalog, accessible to all users, and updatable by all catalogers? Advantages for linking: 1. Any link could be made once and would be permanent (but editable), and immediately ubiquitous, i.e. visible to all users. 2. We could demonstrate complex hierarchical relationships using both uniform headings, and, when necessary, mechanical linkages, and presenting authority, bibliographic and holdings records in seamless hierarchical integration. 3. Changes in headings to keep them in line with commonly known forms and current vocabulary could be made once and would be immediately ubiquitous. 4. System design for the OPAC interface (display of records, arrangement of headings, compression and expansion of large displays), so important for supporting the demonstration of relationships, could be done once and shared by all libraries and library users. (I have long had the suspicion that the complexity of programming necessary to build an OPAC that is a true catalog is so expensive, that the library market cannot support it in the current economic approach of multiple private sector vendors. However, I wonder if it could not be supported by tax dollars, as a public good, if it were in fact going to be used by *all* libraries and library users.) This would have the effect of standardizing the catalog interface, as we all long to do. Perhaps we could then teach students to search The Catalog in kindergarten, along with their ABC's... Other advantages: 1. Such an approach has got to be more cost-effective than our current approach of maintaining thousands of local catalogs. Adding an item to a collection would consist of either adding a holdings symbol to an existing record in the catalog (which requires professional judgment, in my opinion, but could be done extremely quickly by a well- educated professional), or adding new record(s) for that item when necessary. 2. We could take all the money we save on AUL's for Tech. Services (!), copy cataloging departments, cataloger updating of multiple catalogs, OPAC vendors, planning for new OPAC software, etc. and spend it on hiring *more* well- educated (not just trained) professional catalogers who would, perhaps, then be able to create analytic records for the individual cuts on sound recordings (as Eversberg suggests), full cataloging records for series with the full panoply of added entries, etc., all of which added value would immediately be available to all users of the catalog. Maybe when Bill Gates finally discovers the limits of "intelligent assistants," we could talk him into funding such a catalog and becoming thereby the Carnegie of the 21st century; after all we have the expensive part already--the USMARC records; the software design would probably cost him about what he spends every year on shoes. 6 --=====================_874126164==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) --=====================_874126164==_-- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 00:51:03 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Old terms, new meanings Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: <9C67B6A627B@buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de> from "Bernhard Eversberg" at Sep 9, 97 02:59:40 pm Content-Type: text some catalogers some place have come up with a few new terms: 150: 0: |a Sorting (Electronic computers) 450/1: 0: |a Computer sorting. 550/1: 0: |w g |a Electronic data processing. 550/2: 0: |w g |a Electronic digital computers |x Programming. 150: 0: |a Library filing rules. 450/1: 0: |a Filing rules, Library. 550/1: 0: |w g |a Filing systems. 150: 0: |a Filing systems. 450/1: 0: |w nne |a Files and filing (Documents) 550/1: 0: |w g |a Information retrieval. 550/2: 0: |w g |a Office practice. 550/3: 0: |a Alphabetizing. 550/4: 0: |a Indexing. 150: 0: |a Electronic filing systems 550/1: 0: |w g |a Filing systems 550/2: 0: |a Office practice |x Automation 150: 0: |a List processing (Electronic computers) 450/1: 0: |a Processing, List (Electronic computers) 550/1: 0: |w g |a Electronic data processing. 550/2: 0: |w g |a Electronic digital computers |x Programming. 550/3: 0: |w g |a File organization (Computer science) 550/4: 0: |w g |a Sorting (Electronic computers) ?????? -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:43:14 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Thinking about linking MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Martha M. Yee, in down-to-earth reasoning, takes a clear position for the "uniform heading link", i.e. the textual link as opposed to the identifier link using record numbers. She lists all the advantages. Compelling though these are, to balance the picture allow me to quote from my contribution "Linking. Part 1": (of Aug. 14) > Disadvantages: > ** These links are easily broken (catalogers have to be instructed > not to make even minor "corrections", or the software must > prevent it) > ** esp., the 1XX in the authority records must never be changed > unless all occurrences in the bib records are changed as well. > On the large (national) scale, changes in established headings are > therefore extremely problematic and costly. and I add another one: ** textual links tend to get long and unwieldy, and thereby take up a lot more storage space than ID numbers. For corporate names and uniform titles (and, if ever we get them, work identifiers) this is serious. Storage may not be a cost issue any more, but waste remains waste, and with databases relentlessly growing, we better think twice about any waste we might be able to eliminate. Though indeed being a workable and time-tested solution, the textual link remains a second-best, and not by a very narrow margin. Wide enough, indeed, to make any database programmer shudder. But then they are not known for down-to-earth approaches. In the second part of her paper, Yee then *does* elaborate on the main disadvantage of the problematic headings changes. Not all headings can remain unchanged for all times. (Some readers may wonder why Lady Di deceases only in a footnote, not in the headings. But there are cases creating more headaches than this one.) Yee then goes on to present her idea of the real solution: > The real solution, and admittedly it's a radical one (but we > live in radical times), is that instead of sharing > cataloging records, we need to re-reexamine the possibility > of sharing a catalog! Anything but down-to-earth. And yet: Radical solutions very much like the one she then sketches out, do exist. The system currently in use in the Netherlands and in large parts of Germany does operate in exactly the way she suggests. One might take a look, perhaps, before turning to Mr. Gates. (He will have no lack of suggestions for alternative ways of spending his shoe budget.) One last remark: "Hyperlinks" or "Hot links" are no new linking device or novel type of link, they are a new way of visualizing and enacting links. No new fields, subfields, or indicators are necessary for this, only new software is. But no software, it may even come from Redmond, Wash., can *establish* links that are not already there, as textual or data links. For the cataloger, it makes no difference whether the end result will be a blue link or an added entry card. Especially, no software can turn INFORMAL links as in a 505 into true data links, and not into blue links either. Intellectual analysis remains the only way of establishing reliable and meaningful links. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 21:49:50 +1100 Reply-To: Hal.Cain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Organization: Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. Subject: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? Comments: cc: mac@slc.bc.ca, Helen Buhler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This message gathers up several matters which perhaps would have been better posted separately -- but if I had waited to do that they might never have been written. Although I suggested on 22 August that I may tackle the question of the purposes of the catalogue and of cataloguing, I shall not have time to do so, so I had better withdraw that offer right now. The question needs attention but I don't think that discussion is pointless without it. I think that a comprehensive, authoritative review of the purposes of the catalogue and of cataloguing should be part of the process which I hope will follow the conference. A. Let's have some realism First, as I have already said (on 22 August), in a time when the general movement is towards what I called "the simplify-the-workflow, trim-down-to-core-record-standard direction" I can see no realistic hope of inaugurating a "multi-level, work/manifestation/item pattern which threatens to impose additional levels of complexity on bibliographic records (in creation, storage, processing, searching, and interpretation)". Discussions on work records, linking, and so on are certainly worthwhile, and worth experimenting with, as explorations of possibilities which will probably come into some form of existence in the future. But if changes in AACR2 such as these imply are the principal outcome of the conference, who will be able to implement them? Not the national libraries, with heavy investments in catalogue (and associated) systems based mainly on the primacy of the item-based record with associated authority files, none of them can possibly contemplate such radical change; not local libraries which do not have the system capacity to install new functions and implement new record levels; and not system vendors, who are fully engaged in incremental development of their existing systems. In other words, these discussions stimulating and provocative, and there is much to learn and to ponder, but the concepts are not yet mature enough. Including them in AACR would produce a new code, not a revision of AACR2. Second, there has been quite a number of specific points raised about particular AACR2 rules. While some of these probably amount to individual preferences, they are worth taking note of for attention when the revision is being written. Third, there has been rather less attention than I expected to the question of the principles embodied in (or implied by) the rules, and IMO that is an area where useful progress can be made. By expressing these principles as clearly as possible, and relating the rules in the code to them as explicitly as possible, we shall be able to make the code clearer and less complex, simpler to use and to explain to others, and less dependent upon elaborate interpretations such as LCRI. One exception is, of course, the main entry principle. I don't propose to add to that discussion here, except to say that AACR2 would work perfectly well without main entry, but we would have to invent some equivalent principle to deal with questions of citation and secondary entry, and of collocation and sequence in single-entry listings and in physical arrangement (shelf order). That being so I see no point in doing away with it; anyone who can see no point can have their local arrangements disregard it (as one library where I have worked did). If we don't have main entry, we'll need something else. Several other principles are evident or have already been cited. AACR2 Part I deals with description of physical entities, and applies the provisions of the ISBD codes (BTW when "virtual machines" and other "virtual" entities are commonplace, surely we should be able to deal with resources we can't get our hands on as "virtual resources"?). Whether this part of the code remains as a general chapter and media/form-specific chapters, or is integrated into a single presentation, is surely an issue of design and composition, not of content and substance? In electronic form it could be presented (as a virtual document) either way from the same source files. One question of substance hardly mentioned in discussion is the role and extent of transcription. Is transcription essential everywhere it now applies? I can quite comfortably envisage an alternative approach (for example) which, while adhering to the general intent of ISBD, would abandon the principle of transcription from physical items in favour of recording in a standard form all information not forming the basis of primary access provision (i.e. title, statement of responsibility, and series), accompanied by a linked file of scanned images of all bibliographically significant sections of the item instead (the file would not have to be within the same catalogue system, a remote master file would suffice). Such details as authors/editors above three in number, and information on individual manifestations not now recorded, would then be retrievable (reprints by the one publisher from different places of publication could be identified, for example); and place, publisher and other data could be recorded in standard form instead of being obscured by the vagaries of publihsers' and printers' inconsistencies. One question which has attracted attention, related to the work-manifestation question, is that of analytic information and the form of analytic records. More developed provision for analysis and multi-level description is certainly needed, and would naturally draw on the discussions of levels and linking, and would open a path to developments in library systems that could lead to the more exhaustive provision that is being discussed. As yet I don't think we're walking, let alone running. Part II deals with access to the work(s) contained in the items described in Part I. Tom Delsey points out that provision for access to the item described is submerged among provisions for access to the work(s) contained in the item. It needs to be addressed explicitly. One particular thorn which irritates me frequently is the lack of guidance on establishing the form of the title to become the uniform title (whether alone or as the title element of an author-title heading), and how to implement a common form of title when the manifestations vary in their title proper. Much of Part II rests upon concepts of usage, authorship, responsibility and association. It would be very beneficial to have those concepts clearly spelled out within the code itself. It would also be worthwhile to have a thorough review of the concepts involved in the special provisions for works such as legal, ecclesiastical and sacred works, and their application; and in that area I would strongly maintain that many ecclesiastical works do not properly fall within the scope of corporate main entry, and also that the Bible is not, and ought not to be treated as, a single multi-part entity, but would better be handled as a collection of separate works related by long usage but not intrinsically inseparable (modern critical work has made clear how much the various books have gone through changes before being collected into the canon). This comes within the scope of the reduction of special cases urged by Gorman and Oddy. B. Let's look at principles The eventual outcome of all this will IMO be much better if serious attention is given to the question of how standards work (or ought to). Unless full consideration is given to these principles in criticising the present AACR2, devising and agreeing on modifications, and drafting and editing the results, it will all have to be done again later, instead of having a revision which is a real advance along the path towards a clear, inclusive, adaptable and fundamentally stable code -- which, I assume, is what we are really trying to achieve. I would like to offer some "metaprinciples" to be kept in mind while we sort out the principles to be expressed in the revised AACR2. (1) The principles we espouse must be clearly *founded in the materials themselves* in the catalogue/database, or at least in the *requirements of the user* consulting the catalogue/database. In other words, avoid arbitrary principles or distinctions extrinsic to the materials described or the behaviour of the user (librarians are also users and their purposes just as valid as other users' purposes). The search power of modern computer systems means that structured approaches are no longer so indispensible (the capacity to organize and display the data may need more design effort though). Avoid principles (e.g. rules for entering treaties) not patently justified by the materials themselves. Apply Occam's razor. Criteria not inherent in the materials or the needs of the users will not remain stable and will have to be fixed in future. Avoid exceptions (unless necessary to deal with conflicting principles). (2) Since cataloguing is a human activity there will inevitably be lots of variations. Make it as easy as possible to apply the rules. The fewer and clearer the principles adopted, and the more consistently they are applied, the less significant the variation will be. For the user, remember that every search forms part of a user's cumulative experience; the more consistent that experience is, the simpler and more efficient searching will be, and the faster skill will be built up. (3) Conversely, avoid naive reductionism (such as elimination of the main entry concept) which abandons useful distinctions, or fails to acknowledge criteria (such as authorship) which are part of the common frame of reference which users bring to the catalogue. Authorship is one of the ways users organize the parts of the bibliographic universe they deal with. Description of the physical (or virtual) materials on offer is another of the ways we deal with identifying the works or the particular items we need. C. Let's build the principles clearly into the code Now I want to discuss the way the principles should be embodied in a code such as AACR2. (Some of this has been said before, e.g. on Autocat, 30 November last). I suggest we can describe four levels at which standards operate in a code or specification: (1) Principles; (2) Application of principles; (3) Options for applications; (4) Approaches to resolving conflicts between principles. These four levels need to be implemented in the code, or there will be continuing problems in using it. It matters less whether they are made explicit (part of the structure and layout) or implicit (embedded in the texts of the code) but they must be there. Otherwise confusion and inconsistency will reign. Other, external standards may be invoked from within a code. AACR2 description implements and extends the provisions of ISBD. Such external standards need to conform to the same principles also, or there will be conflict with the main code. Other standards may operate technically outside the code, but in practice completely entwined with it. USMARC is strictly separate from AACR2 (neither depends on the other to complete its provisions) but what can be achieved with AACR2 is both limited and enhanced by features of USMARC. USMARC is properly a specification for encoding and communicating bibliographic data; there is no need to implement it within any particular system (so long as USMARC records can be loaded to and extracted from the system as required) for the system to be fully compliant with AACR2. USMARC adds coded data of various kinds and provides for control, source and classification data, and for subject and form access which is currently outside AACR2. It also imposes limitations (e.g. loss of initial articles from variant titles and from titles embedded within author-title headings, and failure to distinguish alternative and parallel title data in conformity with ISBD). In practice standards may be badly constructed, or poorly presented, so that practitioners overlook appropriate rules, or have trouble applying them correctly. Supplementary rules then become necessary. The de-facto supplementary standard, LCRI, is based on the practice of one particular library and may include elements and rulings inappropriate elsewhere. On the practical level since LC records are so widely used, we need to know about LC's practices and it is efficient to follow their options. Calls for rule changes and new interpretations may amount to saying that the standards need revision. IMO our standards are essentially incomplete: there are common situations which they don't address; the distinction between principle and application is insufficiently clear; options are not systematically included; and interpretation and problem resolution are left to LCRI (the codified practice of the largest library which has had to address most of the problems). D. Extending AACR2. (1) Display and record content. There has been a good deal of discussion of display standards and collocation of records by sequence, nesting, and so on. IMO the same metaprinciples apply here: display should depend on criteria inherent in the record and an analysis of users' needs. IMO AACR *should* include recommended practices (not, as yet, prescriptions) for displays and sequences, and should expect certain kinds of data for certain levels of display -- this is a case where criteria for content and organization are clearly needed to produce a consistent outcome for users. To support this, AACR2 needs to provide (or USMARC needs to provide in terms compatible with AACR2 requirements) techniques for the cataloguer to identify the data elements appropriate at each output level. Thus, supposing that the code provides for (a) brief record; (2) core record; (c) full record; (4) enhanced record, we should be able to mark the data proper to each higher level. Particularly if LC continues to implement the core record standard as its normal record level, we will need to identify record levels -- and perhaps even the levels of particular areas of the record (added entries may have been improved to full level but notes left at core, for example). There has been much mention on Autocat "full" records actually less than full in content. We are, after all, in the world of the "dynamic record" rather than the fixed, once-for-all description, and we need tools to deal with it. By enabling us to mark within the record itself the data necessary at each level, libraries with different needs can all use the same record at their various appropriate levels, with their own criteria for indexing and display at the appropriate level of completeness (rather than relying on the system designer which has resulted in (Bernhard Eversberg's term) "deregulation". In other words, the code would require the cataloguer to establish what data will be included in brief, medium, full and enhanced records. This suggestion is a development of AACR2's provision (1.0D) of levels of description, which should be reformulated to include a specification for a brief record and another comparable with the core record standard. The number of access points (tracings) would also increase with each greater level of descriptive completeness. 2. Subject content. Finally, a suggestion for extending the scope of AACR. In order to complete its coverage of standard Anglo-American cataloguing practice, at least in outline (and with one eye watching out for future key-words-for-everything reductionists, I suggest that the revised code include a brief Part III, providing specifications for recommended levels of specificity for (a) classification, in terms of level of specificity (perhaps something parallel to my suggested levels of descriptive detail -- broad, medium and exhaustive classification data could be distinguished, enabling libraries to derive classification appropriate to their situations from a common record); (b) content access (subject and form headings) which would categorise coverage in terms of person/corporate body/work dealt with; topic; chronological focus; geographical focus; and form (the particular combination of these elements would depend on the system adopted, e.g. LCSH does it one way, Precis another, USMARC codes could provide some of them). The important point is to establish that all these elements are considered appropriate for a complete record. Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 08:24:39 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Michelle (Collins) Flinchbaugh" Subject: Re: Old terms, new meanings Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Main Entry > >>The new term must be simple and expressive. What about "document name"? Just >>a suggestion. Add to it the date of the original edition, and you have, for >>many cases, the nucleus of a "work authority record". > >For me, "document name" denotes a title. "Main entry" is used by my 50 >customers to refer to the person (corporate or personal) primarily >responsible for the work. If the absence of such, they refer to "title >main entry". I haven't heard "hanging main entry", which is what we used >to call it, in years. I suspect this usage is not likely to change. Now that you said "primarily responsible," it occurs to me that this hits exactly on the kind of term that I would like to see main entry replaced with: "Primary Entry." In my mind, this would indicate the primary importance of that particular entry without the implications of completeness and incompleteness of entry which "main entry" and "added entry" carry. In addition, I think I'd like to see the term "added entry" become simply "entry". Michelle Flinchbaugh Serials Cataloger University of Michigan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:19:54 +0600 Reply-To: Celine Noel Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Celine Noel Subject: Re: joint author displays MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm sorry to be coming to the joint author display postings a bit late but I'm with Helen. I don't understand how joint author entries would work in an authority-controlled environment. And surely we don't want to have the same data in a record twice, the authority-controlled entries and then this other uncontrolled "joint heading" for display. This may be just a terminology problem but to me "heading" refers to the authority-controlled form of a name. And then the other suggestion of using the descriptive statement of responsibility to replace author headings in brief displays is even harder for me to understand (picture a typical conference statement of responsibility). What are we trying to do here? Celine Noel Science Cataloger UNC-Chapel Hill cnoel@unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 11:19:58 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Apparent Conflict? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Monday, September 15, 1997 In his paper, "Beyond MARC", Mick Ridley writes, "... for all that relational databases may not be the ideal for bibliographic uses they do teach us ..." In "Modeling the logic of AACR" Tom Delsey seems to advocate the analysis that leads to relational databases. I may have an opinion on this topic would first like to hear more from Mr. Ridley about how relational databases are less than ideal and what he thinks would be closer to ideal and then possibly a reply from Mr. Delsey. While relational databases per se may be beyond the scope of of AACR, these papers would seem to make this an appropriate topic for this list. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 11:43:14 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Re: joint author displays Comments: To: Celine Noel In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Monday, September 15, 1997 I will try to explain what I'm trying to do here. When two (or three?) people jointly write a "document" this is none too clear to catalog users consulting a brief record unless it inlcudes the complete author statement and the user reads it. The redundancy of the first author in the author statement is an incentive for designers to omit it and for catalog users not read it. Could it be made clearer? If the displayed heading were made of the authority controlled 100 and the first 700 (with indicator 2 = alternate?) separated by an ampersand it might be clearer and existing authority control could still flourish. For example, "Smith, Bill & Brown, George". I am not trying to specify everything that should be in a biref display--edition statement (full or brief?), collation (pagination only or size too?) any or all series, etc., just stimulate discussion on what could be a clearer and more sucinct and useful display. On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Celine Noel wrote: > I'm sorry to be coming to the joint author display postings a bit late but > I'm with Helen. I don't understand how joint author entries would work in > an authority-controlled environment. And surely we don't want to have the > same data in a record twice, the authority-controlled entries and then > this other uncontrolled "joint heading" for display. This may be just a > terminology problem but to me "heading" refers to the authority-controlled > form of a name. And then the other suggestion of using the descriptive > statement of responsibility to replace author headings in brief displays > is even harder for me to understand (picture a typical conference > statement of responsibility). What are we trying to do here? > > Celine Noel > Science Cataloger > UNC-Chapel Hill > cnoel@unc.edu > Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:13:20 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? Comments: To: hecain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au In-Reply-To: <341D12CE.1A88@ormond.unimelb.edu.au> Hal, that is a masterful covering of the waterfront. It is difficult to take exception to any of your many points and suggestions. >One question of substance hardly mentioned in discussion is the role and >extent of transcription. Is transcription essential everywhere it now >applies? USMARC has (via 246 having no filing indicator) already caused us to abandon exact transcription for cover titles, added title page titles, caption titles, running titles, spine titles, and at head of title statements, all without benefit of AACR. >places of publication could be identified, for example); and place, >publisher and other data could be recorded in standard form instead of >being obscured by the vagaries of publishers' and printers' >inconsistencies. Now let's be honest here. The real cause of most variation in place of publication as recorded is our inconsistency in applying jurisdiction (transcribing when there, but not supplying when absent which is not what the rule says), and transcribing postal codes as jurisdictions, rather than using the AACR abbreviation. A rule so universally not followed needs revision. Always providing jurisdiction, using the AACR abbreviations, would go a long way to standardizing this area, while retaining the published form of the city name. Let's not blame our inconsistency here on publishers. >The principles we espouse must be clearly *founded in the materials >themselves* in the catalogue/database, or at least in the *requirements >of the user* consulting the catalogue/database. Following this well stated principle, those useless treaty main entries would quickly bite the dust. >To support this, AACR2 needs to provide (or USMARC needs to provide in >terms compatible with AACR2 requirements) techniques for the cataloguer >to identify the data elements appropriate at each output level. Thus, >supposing that the code provides for (a) brief record; (2) core record; >(c) full record; (4) enhanced record, we should be able to mark the data >proper to each higher level. There also need to be basic standards for software capabilities. We now have a customer attempting to migrate from one system to another. Their present major well know system combined main and added entries in an "Authors" field, and can put all such entries out only as 700, whether main or added, personal or corporate entry. All subject entries were combined into one "Subjects" field, and can put all out only as 650, whether personal, corporate, topic, or geographic subject headings. It is too easy to say that this is a case of buyer beware. Clear authoritative standards against which to have judged the system would have saved them much present grief. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 10:54:34 +1000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Giles S Martin Subject: Re: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? Comments: To: Hal.Cain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au In-Reply-To: <341D12CE.1A88@ormond.unimelb.edu.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hal Cain is right to ask how realistic are proposals for "work records". However, I believe that they could be implemented without great difficulty and without great expense. (1) There is already a format for work records, in the USMARC Authority Format. This provides records for works, in the form of records for name-title headings and uniform title headings. (In USMARC format terms, all 1XX headings with a $t sufield, and all 130 headings). (2) These work records are already linked to bibliographic records: the link is the common name-title heading or uniform title. This lik is obscured by the fact that the name-title heading may be a 1XX field and a 240 or a 245 field in the bibliographic record. (3) Much of the information that could go into work records is already present in bibliographic records. For example, if a library has copies of a movie (e.g. Citizen Kane), then the credits, summary, and added entries will be repeated in each of the bibliographic records. The result is that the library user looking up "Welles, Orson" as an "author" will find him associated with several works called "Citizen Kane". It would be fairly straightforward to take this common information out of the bibliographic records, and put them into the work record for the movie. Then the cataloguer would not have to put the information into the next bib. record for the next manifestation of Citizen Kane, and the catalogue user would find that Orson Welles only "authored" one work called Citizen Kane -- which the library may have in several manifestations. (4) Once information appropriate to the work=level rather than the maifestation-level had be transferred from bib. records to work records by an automated process, there would remain anomalies in the data. However, these anomalies already exist, obscured by the way they are presented in the USMARC format using AACR. It would in fact be easier to find and fix them if the data had been sorted out, and the different levels of data had been distinguished. This means that there is some cost involved -- but the cost involves computer programming costs, and not the costs of additional data entry. Many vendors are busily creating Web-based catalogues at the moment: a model distinguishing "work" from "manifestation" would be ideally suited for this, and ought to be incorporated into the programming for a Web-based catalogue. Giles #### ## Giles Martin ####### #### Newcastle ################# New South Wales #################### Australia ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) ## [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside Australia, the area code is now (02).] On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Hal Cain wrote: > A. Let's have some realism > > First, as I have already said (on 22 August), in a time when the general > movement is towards what I called "the simplify-the-workflow, > trim-down-to-core-record-standard direction" I can see no realistic hope > of inaugurating a "multi-level, work/manifestation/item pattern which > threatens to impose additional levels of complexity on bibliographic > records (in creation, storage, processing, searching, and > interpretation)". Discussions on work records, linking, and so on are > certainly worthwhile, and worth experimenting with, as explorations of > possibilities which will probably come into some form of existence in > the future. But if changes in AACR2 such as these imply are the > principal outcome of the conference, who will be able to implement > them? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 09:06:27 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Helen Buhler Subject: Re: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:13:20 EDT." Mac, >Hal, that is a masterful covering of the waterfront. It is difficult to >take exception to any of your many points and suggestions. Amen to that. > [snip] >>places of publication could be identified, for example); and place, >>publisher and other data could be recorded in standard form instead of >>being obscured by the vagaries of publishers' and printers' >>inconsistencies. > >Now let's be honest here. The real cause of most variation in place >of publication as recorded is our inconsistency in applying jurisdiction >(transcribing when there, but not supplying when absent which is not >what the rule says), and transcribing postal codes as jurisdictions, >rather than using the AACR abbreviation. A rule so universally not >followed needs revision. Always providing jurisdiction, using the AACR >abbreviations, would go a long way to standardizing this area, while >retaining the published form of the city name. Let's not blame our >inconsistency here on publishers. There is also a problem for those not in the first-named country of publication, but who work in a subsequently-named country. We would give the first-named place of publication and the local one. (1.4C5) > [snip] Helen Helen Buhler, The Templeman Library, The University, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NU. Fax: +44 (0)1227 827107 or 823984 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:33:17 +1100 Reply-To: Hal.Cain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Organization: Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. Subject: Re: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? Comments: cc: Giles S Martin , mac@slc.bc.ca, Helen Buhler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Giles S Martin wrote: > > (1) There is already a format for work records, in the USMARC Authority > Format. This provides records for works, in the form of records for > name-title headings and uniform title headings. (In USMARC format terms, > all 1XX headings with a $t sufield, and all 130 headings). > > (2) These work records are already linked to bibliographic records: > the link is the common name-title heading or uniform title. This lik > is obscured by the fact that the name-title heading may be a 1XX field > and a 240 or a 245 field in the bibliographic record. > Many local systems (and Australian Bibliographic Network, as both Giles and I know only too well) can't see 1XX + 240 in the USMARC Bibliographic format as equivalent to 1XX + $t in the USMARC Authority format. A proposal to move from 1XX + 240 to 1XX + St in bibliographic records was defeated in MARBI some time ago. Mac has reminded us in the past that many library systems have *no* authority capabilities. The USMARC authority format would need some development to support work records -- how would subject and added entries for works be incorporated into a system designed to provide consistency in form, a cross-reference structure, and information for the use of cataloguers? If it were thus transformed, would it still be able to provide its original functions? > (3) Much of the information that could go into work records is already > present in bibliographic records. For example, if a library has copies > of a movie (e.g. Citizen Kane), then the credits, summary, and added > entries will be repeated in each of the bibliographic records. The > result is that the library user looking up "Welles, Orson" as an "author" > will find him associated with several works called "Citizen Kane". > It would be fairly straightforward to take this common information out > of the bibliographic records, and put them into the work record for the > movie. Then the cataloguer would not have to put the information into > the next bib. record for the next manifestation of Citizen Kane, and the > catalogue user would find that Orson Welles only "authored" one work > called Citizen Kane -- which the library may have in several > manifestations. I am completely convinced that this sort of thing is desirable, may be achieved (experimentally) in a couple of years, and be commonplace in ten or so. Not all mainstream systems are fully MARC-compliant yet. I don't want to wait ten years for an improved AACR because we're still trying to establish what can be done, on a practical level, so that the code can be written in a form that's possible to implement. Better to strengthen the theoretical underpinning of what we have, make it more practical to use and straightforward to apply, more hospitable to documents in forms as yet unimagined and less dependent on external interpretative supplementary standards. > > (4) Once information appropriate to the work=level rather than the > maifestation-level had be transferred from bib. records to work records > by an automated process, there would remain anomalies in the data. > However, these anomalies already exist, obscured by the way they are > presented in the USMARC format using AACR. It would in fact be easier to > find and fix them if the data had been sorted out, and the different > levels of data had been distinguished. I remain unconvinced that the records we have now, singly or in aggregate, are consistent enough, in content and in coding, to be amenable to such treatment. At a simple level: I spend a noticeable amount of time every couple of months correcting the tagging of records which have been loaded on the Australian Bibliographic Network database which have 650 .0 $a Catholic Church (instead of 610 20) or 650 .0 $a Jesuits (likewise instead of 610 20); or the converse, correcting 610 20 $a Methodist Church to 650 .0 -- and the vast majority of these are straight from Library of Congress. At a more complex level, the information recorded in notes (if indeed it is recorded) which enables us to make the relationship entries is usually buried in undifferentiated 500 tags and virtually irretrievable except by item-by-item review. Analytic added entries in USMARC are supposed to have a 2nd indicator value of "2" but daily I see records where the indicator is wrong. > > This means that there is some cost involved -- but the cost involves > computer programming costs, and not the costs of additional data entry. > Many vendors are busily creating Web-based catalogues at the moment: a > model distinguishing "work" from "manifestation" would be ideally suited > for this, and ought to be incorporated into the programming for a > Web-based catalogue. If the data, and the associated coding, are correct in the first place. I'm sorry to be so pessimistic. I think we are in danger of trying to run before we can crawl. Running remains a worthwhile goal but there is a lot to learn first. I'm hoping for improvements in the rules to help us get the wrinkles out of the carpet so that we can crawl better. If AACR2 were redesigned so as to set out principles and practice (sometimes recommendations) for what to include in the description, how to provide access (to both the physical/virtual item and the work content), what relationships need to be made explicit, what should be the content of display or output at certain levels of completeness, and what groupings or sequences need to be expressed in the way lists are organized, then all the exciting and promising experimentation could proceed on a much firmer basis, and might actually bear fruit sooner. Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 22:26:46 +1100 Reply-To: Hal.Cain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Organization: Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. Subject: Re: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit J. McRee Elrod wrote: > > USMARC has (via 246 having no filing indicator) already caused us to > abandon exact transcription for cover titles, added title page titles, > caption titles, running titles, spine titles, and at head of title > statements, all without benefit of AACR. True. And on the other hand, we are bedevilled by having to make records for UK and US (and Australian and NZ and Canadian) manifestations because the place & publisher are different on the title page recto even though the verso has the same information. The HarperCollins polytopic octopus is a case in point sometimes. Does it make sense to distinguish Uk and US manifestations just because the title page imprint is a bit different? > > >places of publication could be identified, for example); and place, > >publisher and other data could be recorded in standard form instead of > >being obscured by the vagaries of publishers' and printers' > >inconsistencies. > > Now let's be honest here. [snip] A rule so universally not > followed needs revision. Always providing jurisdiction, using the AACR > abbreviations, would go a long way to standardizing this area, while > retaining the published form of the city name. Let's not blame our > inconsistency here on publishers. I don't think we've got the rule right yet. Intelligent use of USMARC 008 country coding would allow a system to insert the jurisdiction when the record is loaded to a system in another jurisdiction. Present AACR2 specification (actually ISBD) does not ostensibly provide well for place of publication of an octopus entity; Australian national bibliography records for items with "Melbourne : Oxford University Press" stand in ABN as virtual duplicates beside "Oxford" "New York" "Bombay" and so on, but when you get your hands on the stuff it's one single manifestation being described, a fact that's obscured by the application of 1.4C5. My suggestion of an image file would be one way to get over that problem. > > >The principles we espouse must be clearly *founded in the materials > >themselves* in the catalogue/database, or at least in the *requirements > >of the user* consulting the catalogue/database. > > Following this well stated principle, those useless treaty main entries > would quickly bite the dust. North American Free Trade Agreement is music to your ears. I can see no place for such artificial constructs -- they operate to the disadvantage of the user, and simple added entry for *all* the participants surely provides all the linking required? > > >To support this, AACR2 needs to provide (or USMARC needs to provide in > >terms compatible with AACR2 requirements) techniques for the cataloguer > >to identify the data elements appropriate at each output level. Thus, > >supposing that the code provides for (a) brief record; (2) core record; > >(c) full record; (4) enhanced record, we should be able to mark the data > >proper to each higher level. > > There also need to be basic standards for software capabilities. We now > have a customer attempting to migrate from one system to another. Their > present major well know system combined main and added entries in an > "Authors" field, and can put all such entries out only as 700, whether > main or added, personal or corporate entry. All subject entries were > combined into one "Subjects" field, and can put all out only as 650, I know some of those too. If there are standards for output (whether card, printed list or screen display doesn't matter much) then we have tools to work on the system designers and vendors. IMO it's too soon to demand that they provide for elaborate relationship linking when we haven't got them to accept standards for layout and content to handle the data we have now. I want to enjoy the benefits of an improved AACR before I retire (in 10 years or so). Hal Cain, Joint Theological Library, parkville, Victoria, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 07:22:43 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Martha M. Yee" Subject: Gorman and Oddy paper Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=====================_874444963==_" --=====================_874444963==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please see attached. --=====================_874444963==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Gorman and Oddy paper.txt" Gorman and Oddy paper As an old Lubetzkyan, I feel compelled to set the record straight. The Gorman and Oddy paper claims that Lubetzkyan ideas are at the core of AACR2; while this is true, if qualified to indicate which Lubetzkyan ideas are still present in AACR2, it neglects to mention that Lubetzky himself bitterly opposed two major changes that occurred between AACR1 and AACR2. One was the death of corporate authorship, and the other related change was the undermining of the concept of main entry in 0.5 of AACR2. (Lubetzky's opposition is made quite explicit in his papers published in The Nature and Future of the Catalog, published by Oryx Press in 1979.) In these very important aspects, Lubetzky felt that AACR1 was clearly superior to AACR2, and that AACR2 represented a retrogression in Anglo- American cataloging practice. The paper also neglects to point out that many Lubetzkyan statements of principle, particularly pertaining to the function of the descriptive part of the record, that were present in AACR1, were dropped in AACR2, to the detriment of the code. I suspect Lubetzky would also have opposed the entry of one author under more than one name introduced in AACR2R, although I can't be sure of this, as he has not gone on record with his thoughts concerning separate bibliographic identities. The two improvements in AACR2 over AACR1 that did indeed represent Lubetzkyan ideas were the better integration of rules for nonbook materials (still not perfectly carried out, however, and for that reason still plaguing us), and the movement toward naming persons and corporate bodies using the names by which they are commonly known (i.e. using title page forms for both, as opposed to the earlier practice of using the fullest form of a personal name, and using entry under place for corporate names). --=====================_874444963==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martha M. Yee Cataloging Supervisor UCLA Film and Television Archive 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 213-462-4921 x27 213-461-6317 (fax) myee@ucla.edu (Email) --=====================_874444963==_-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 13:07:50 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Kevin M. Randall" Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:00 PM 9/9/97 +0100, Robert Cunnew wrote: >It's undeniable that a lot of people would be unhappy without main >entry. So let's keep it - as an option, with no assumption elsewhere in >the rules that we've opted one way or the other. That way the rest of >us will also be happy. How in the world can something like "main entry" be *optional*? If we already have trouble sharing records, this would only make it many times worse! Or am I mistaken, and Robert Cunnew's message was tongue-in-cheek? Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:26:36 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19970916130701.4d9f0c5a@hecky.acns.nwu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <2.2.16.19970916130701.4d9f0c5a@hecky.acns.nwu.edu>, "Kevin M. Randall" writes >At 09:00 PM 9/9/97 +0100, Robert Cunnew wrote: >>It's undeniable that a lot of people would be unhappy without main >>entry. So let's keep it - as an option, with no assumption elsewhere in >>the rules that we've opted one way or the other. That way the rest of >>us will also be happy. > >How in the world can something like "main entry" be *optional*? If we >already have trouble sharing records, this would only make it many times worse! > >Or am I mistaken, and Robert Cunnew's message was tongue-in-cheek? > No, I meant what I said: each cataloguing agency could make its own decision. A national bibliographic agency would clearly want to include a designated main entry point in each record, but other libraries (or co-operative schemes) could take it or leave it. We already have some options in the rules for description regarding main entry, eg when referring to another publication in a note you can use main entry plus title proper or title proper plus statement of responsibility. It would just mean carrying this a little further, eg the rules for when to make a new entry for a serial shouldn't depend on what the main entry is under as they do now. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 16:35:07 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Robert Cunnew wrote: > No, I meant what I said: each cataloguing agency could make its own > decision. How would this work for monographs that are translations, revised editions, etc.? The examples you give are for notes, not access points. I really don't see how this would be applied in practice. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 10:35:45 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Kevin M. Randall" Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:26 PM 9/16/97 +0100, Robert Cunnew wrote: >No, I meant what I said: each cataloguing agency could make its own >decision. A national bibliographic agency would clearly want to include >a designated main entry point in each record, but other libraries (or >co-operative schemes) could take it or leave it. We already have some >options in the rules for description regarding main entry, eg when >referring to another publication in a note you can use main entry plus >title proper or title proper plus statement of responsibility. It would >just mean carrying this a little further, eg the rules for when to make >a new entry for a serial shouldn't depend on what the main entry is >under as they do now. Options for notes are one thing. But extending the concept of "options" to choice of main entry is going too far. The concept of main entry (or main entry heading, or primary access point, or primary citation form, or whatever kind of terminology we may end up with) is very much a part of bibliographic tradition in our society, and not only in libraries. I strongly endorse Martha Yee's excellent posting on the issue. The only way I would support main entry being an option is if it applied to *local catalogs only*--that is, strip out the main entry heading in your own catalog if you don't want it, but include it in any records you add to union databases. (But then, that's really the case now anyway; any library is free to follow whatever practices it wants within its own confines.) Re the idea of when to make a new entry for a serial: if the decision were not to depend on what the current main entry is, we would then end up with earliest entry cataloging for some things, which is probably not what the great majority of librarians would really want. Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 21:04:53 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19970917103519.20c77962@hecky.acns.nwu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <2.2.16.19970917103519.20c77962@hecky.acns.nwu.edu>, "Kevin M. Randall" writes > >Options for notes are one thing. But extending the concept of "options" to >choice of main entry is going too far. The concept of main entry (or main >entry heading, or primary access point, or primary citation form, or >whatever kind of terminology we may end up with) is very much a part of >bibliographic tradition in our society, and not only in libraries. Agreed, but most of our users know little of bibliographic tradition and care even less! We find the following alternatives to main entry quite satisfactory: 1. For citation in catalogue outputs, single entry listings etc: title. 2. For subarrangement within class number: accession order. 3. For citation in works about a work, ie as a subject term: title plus all author headings. > >Re the idea of when to make a new entry for a serial: if the decision were >not to depend on what the current main entry is, we would then end up with >earliest entry cataloging for some things, which is probably not what the >great majority of librarians would really want. > Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. The rule I was referring to was the one which says if a serial has main entry under a corporate body and the body changes its name, create a new record. (I'm working from memory as I don't have AACR to hand.) The principle is a sound one and it reflects a *similar* rule for ISSNs/key-titles, but for libraries opting *not* to use main entry a main-entry-neutral equivalent is needed. Ideally this would be more closely aligned with the ISDS manual. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 18:24:53 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Kevin M. Randall" Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:04 PM 9/17/97 +0100, Robert Cunnew wrote: >In article <2.2.16.19970917103519.20c77962@hecky.acns.nwu.edu>, "Kevin >M. Randall" writes >>Options for notes are one thing. But extending the concept of "options" to >>choice of main entry is going too far. The concept of main entry (or main >>entry heading, or primary access point, or primary citation form, or >>whatever kind of terminology we may end up with) is very much a part of >>bibliographic tradition in our society, and not only in libraries. > >Agreed, but most of our users know little of bibliographic tradition and >care even less! We find the following alternatives to main entry quite >satisfactory: > >1. For citation in catalogue outputs, single entry listings etc: title. >2. For subarrangement within class number: accession order. >3. For citation in works about a work, ie as a subject term: title plus >all author headings. I was mulling over all of this main entry stuff while walking to lunch today, and recalled earlier discussions on AUTOCAT regarding this topic. We're talking about rules which are intended to apply to all kinds of libraries of all sizes. (From AACR2 0.1: "These rules are designed for use in the construction of catalogues and other lists in general libraries of all sizes. They are not specifically intended for specialist and archival libraries, but such libraries are recommended to use the rules as the basis of their cataloguing and to augment their provisions as necessary. ...") As Martha Yee and others have pointed out, elimination of the concept of main entry would be a disaster for a great many of us. Since any library is free to disregard rules in its own local catalog, I believe that it would be much better to *have* the rule of main entry, and let those who don't want to use it ignore it in their own houses, instead of *not* having the rule and thus introducing chaos everywhere else. AACR2 does not purport to be *the* standard for all libraries in the English-speaking world, but it does attempt to be an international standard that a great majority of the libraries can accept. If some significant aspects of AACR2 are irrelevant or inappropriate for any given library, that does not mean that something is wrong with either the library (implying the library must adapt to the rules) or AACR2 (implying the rules must be adapted to the library). It simply means that AACR2 is inappropriate and should not be used in that library. Any library is free to use any parts of AACR2 that it wishes; the only requirement is that if any given record varies from AACR2 in any material way, it may not be called an "AACR2 record". (I can make a batch of cookies from a chocolate chip cookie recipe and leave out the chocolate chips; they're still valid cookies, but I can't call them chocolate chip cookies.) >>Re the idea of when to make a new entry for a serial: if the decision were >>not to depend on what the current main entry is, we would then end up with >>earliest entry cataloging for some things, which is probably not what the >>great majority of librarians would really want. >> >Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. The rule I was referring to was the >one which says if a serial has main entry under a corporate body and the >body changes its name, create a new record. (I'm working from memory as >I don't have AACR to hand.) The principle is a sound one and it >reflects a *similar* rule for ISSNs/key-titles, but for libraries opting >*not* to use main entry a main-entry-neutral equivalent is needed. >Ideally this would be more closely aligned with the ISDS manual. The rule on whether or not to create a new record for a serial (21.3B) would remain the same, and be applied the same, whether we keep the rule on main entry or make it optional. That is because the rule applies only to serials which have been entered under main entry heading. If the option of using a main entry has been used, the rule is needed to avoid "earliest entry cataloging"; if the option of *not* using a main entry has been used, that one rule does not apply to that situation (for any given item being cataloged, most of the rules in AACR2 do not apply). If the principle of main entry is to be retained, the question here is simply: should the principle be *mandatory* or *optional*? My problem is that I just don't see how such a major principle, so fundamental to our catalog structure, could be made optional (that seems even stranger to me than simply abandoning it). Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 16:58:16 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Old terms : Main entry In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, Robert Cunnew wrote [in part]: > Agreed, but most of our users know little of bibliographic tradition and > care even less! I wonder if that's true. I doubt they'd be able to specify any tradition, but they do search for a work by an author and vice versa; isn't that what we're talking about? They work from bibliographies that follow this concept. They work from footnote citations and style manuals that also ustilize this concept. When they write papers and provide bibliographic citations, they follow this concept. I still don't see the advantage to our patrons, nor the need in cataloging, to abandon this concept. I agree with Kevin Randall, that on a local basis a library can abandon or ignore this idea (mostly in display I'd imagine). I'd say that if it better serves your patrons, you're pretty much obliged to abandon it. And, as Martha Yee pointed out, the need to abandon this in cataloging is not clearly documented. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 14:25:16 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Re: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hal Cain had written: > > >One question of substance hardly mentioned in discussion is the role and > >extent of transcription. Is transcription essential everywhere it now > >applies? > and Mac had replied: > USMARC has (via 246 having no filing indicator) already caused us to > abandon exact transcription for cover titles, added title page titles, > caption titles, running titles, spine titles, and at head of title > statements, all without benefit of AACR. > This belongs into the ISBD list (what's the address of that one anyway?) For as long as AACR are tied up with ISBD (and from the Gorman/Oddy paper we can take it this is not at issue), there's little that can be done, and little use discussing that question here. But apart from this, The larger issue is that the descriptive fields are very often these days doing double duty to provide access points as well. Not being under standardization, let alone authority control, these descriptive elements make very poor access points, of course. Title fields suffer the most from this conflict of principles, as Mac's example makes clear. The only sound principle would be, of course, to have a strict separation between access elements and display (descriptive) elements, with much redundancy and input duplication as side effects. Systems here usually have extra fields, for example for the title proper, coming into use only when there is this kind of conflict. Let's say, for example, we create a 249 as an extra "access field" for the title proper. Then we would enter the "access title" here, but only if it differs from the transcribed title in 245$a. The software, of course, has to be aware of this and use the 249 for access point, index arrangement, short title sorting etc., if it exists, and then ignore the 245. This compromise greatly reduces extra input labor and redundancy. With titles, however, experience shows that one need not really go to these lengths and have extra access fields for all titles. What's really needed, however, is a way of filtering out parts of the title field for the purpose of sorting. The MARC non-filing indicator just really isn't good enough, I'm sorry to have to return to this again and again. (Yes, I know, discussion paper 102 is coming to the rescue, only when?) To have this mechanism would rid us of all the irritation with skipped articles in 246 and $t sub- fields, and other trouble. It becomes clear from this that sound and simple principles must go hand in hand with proper features in the format to enable implementation. Although the code need not refer to any format explicitly, format designers and rule makers will always have to talk. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 09:38:07 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Revising, reshaping or reinventing? Comments: To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de In-Reply-To: from "Bernhard Eversberg" at Sep 18, 97 02:25:16 pm Content-Type: text One issue the conference may address is the purpose of all title entries. Currently (21.30J) title added entries are made for items (not works). This has a long Anglo-American tradition. Title added entries traditionally have been made only for titles or variations that appear in an item, rather than for a title by which a work may be known. Havomg grown old in that tradition, I have mixed feelings about changing it. But the time may have come.... --ralph papakhian Bernhard Eversberg said ..... > > But apart from this, > The larger issue is that the descriptive fields are very often these > days doing double duty to provide access points as well. Not being under > standardization, let alone authority control, these descriptive elements > make very poor access points, of course. Title fields suffer the most -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 17:44:15 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: The doing of double duty MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ralph Papakhian writes: > One issue the conference may address is the purpose of all > title entries. Currently (21.30J) title added entries are made for > items (not works). Assuming work-orientation becomes predominant over item-orientation. All elements of *description* will still have to be transcriptive and thus closely tied to the item - as long as ISBD remains the cornerstone. Where work-oriented *access* is concerned, the muddled concept of data elements doing double duty for description and access will have to go. Those entries referring (or linking) to works should maybe not called "added entries" any more because that term has its focus on the item (or so I feel about it). Or, lacking a new term, one might classify added entries into two or more different types according to function. Another very sore spot of USMARC seems to be the parallel title. It is often transcribed in 245$b, sometimes with a preceding " =". This makes for a good ISBD display, but as title access point it is next to useless. The 246 with second indicator 1, according to USMARC documentation, would be the place for the parallel title: It would get its initial article chopped off, but otherwise it would make a good title access point there. This is obviously not done very often, but rather (if at all) the parallel title goes to a 740 where no program can determine what it is. (Presumably this is being done because one gets nicer cards this way... ... and ok, Mac, we know your customers don't want the foreign language added entries anyway) This is just one additional example of the adverse effects of the doing of double duty being enforced or not inhibited by the current AACR/ISBD combination. Maybe its not such a good principle after all. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 12:02:25 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Titles by which known Comments: To: papakhi@INDIANA.EDU In-Reply-To: <9709181438.AA23892@browndwarf.ucs.indiana.edu> >One issue the conference may address is the purpose of all >title entries. Currently (21.30J) title added entries are made for >items (not works). This has a long Anglo-American tradition. >Title added entries traditionally have been made only for >titles or variations that appear in an item, rather than >for a title by which a work may be known. We have long made title entry for the title by which an item is commonly requested, e.g. "White paper on taxation", "Kever report". We used to put these in 730, but with 246$i we now enter both the commonly used title, and the form used for legal citation. AACR2 21.29C says "In addition make an added entry under ... a title if some catalogue users might suppose that ... an item would be found under that ... title ..." It seems to me a catalogue user might expect an item to be found under the title by which it is referred to in newscasts. Certainly titles in 780/785$t may not be found in the item. Perhaps "whether in the item or not" should be added to the above rule. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 12:13:07 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: The doing of double duty Comments: To: EV@BUCH.BIBLIO.ETC.TU-BS.DE In-Reply-To: >The 246 with second indicator 1, according to USMARC documentation, >would be the place for the parallel title Not *the* place, an *additional* place. We capture the parallel title in a macro key while keying 245 (minus the initial article) and code it in 246 31. Yes, it's redundant. But as long is initial articles are in 245 =$b (or just " = " if the first title has a subtitle), what else can one do? This is just one of many problems created by the lack or coordination between AACR and MARC. >This is obviously not done very often, but rather (if at all) >the parallel title goes to a 740 where no program can determine what it is. We always do it, and have not seen a parallel title in 740 in a new derived record since format integration. >... and ok, Mac, we know your customers don't want the foreign language added >entries anyway) They don't object to the parallel titles in the record, and as added entries, but they want the English title first regardless of title page order, and they don't want a 130 or 240 in the original language for translations. I certainly *don't* think main entry should be optional (apart from OPAC brief display). But uniform titles in a language different from the working languages of a library are another matter. Unless suppressed in filing and display, they just loose material in special libraries. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 09:30:23 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: F AYRES Subject: Spanner in the works MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Having looked at the papers for the Toronto Conference and the comments on them , I find it difficult to see very much appreciation of likely future developments in libraries and cataloguing. It seems that a lot of the thinking is aimed at making the old methods better rather than looking at the impact of new developments on an old code. Perhaps I am a heretic. Well here is a heretics view. First of all the future of libraries. There are a number of developments in place at the moment which will force libraries and professional librarians to face a crisis in credibility unless they are prepared to take advantage of the new developments and at the same time accept that these developments may fundamentally alter the shape of the library they know and the profession that they practice. Three factors are likely to bring this change about. The first two are linked; the increase in electronic publishing and the digitising of conventional library materials. Electronic publishing and digitising add up to a situation where the library and in particular the academic library will find that most of its heavy demand can be satisfied in electronic form. From the librarys point of view this would be a major step forward: the need for additional space would disappear and demand could be satisfied much more quickly by downloading the full text in electronic form from databases. These databases, however, need not necessarily be held by the library or accessed through the library. Any user with a PC or access to a PC will be able to bypass the library from office or home and obtain the items that are required from data warehouses which might be anywhere. This will mean that the library catalogue will cease to be an independent unit providing an entry to a particular local collection. It will form part of a world-wide network catalogue. Alongside these developments and forming an integral part of them is the Internet. and the second revolution in information that it is going to create. It is probably true to say that the first information revolution took place half a millennium ago with the invention of printing. This dramatically speeded up the way in which information was disseminated.. However, it took mankind over five centuries to capitalise on the ability to transfer information and to devise methods of information retrieval . This is perhaps a misnomer as we never retrieve information only the containers of information. The Internet will have an impact as great as the invention of printing but will differ because the impact will not take half a millennium - the second information revolution is taking place almost while we watch. The Internet has been accompanied with an equally rapid growth of computing power and storage and this has led to the development of an entirely new controlling mechanism - the search engine. Whether we like it or not the search engine is a form of catalogue. However, unlike the library catalogue it controls not the containers of information but information itself. Our task as librarians is to consider how AACR2 or anything that develops from it can be used to integrate the considerable achievement of bibliographic control into the further development of the search engine. We also need to consider whether the techniques used in the construction of search engines have a place in our library catalogues. . Perhaps searching for information will be a two stage approach. First the traditional approach of bibliographic control to find the container of information and then a second stage which will produce the information itself. In the light of the developments taking place the role of the catalogue will change and even more important the basis on which it is constructed will change. Up to now catalogue construction has used complex codes of practice which pre-coordinate the structure of the catalogue and the parts which give the catalogue entry its shape and content. This will need to continue. However, the parts of catalogue construction which attempt to pre-coordinate the way the catalogue is used could be post-coordinated. Vast amounts of money are spent on national and international authority control and this will increase as databases become larger and movement between databases becomes more frequent. We have little idea of how effective authority control is and even less of how important it is to the user. Providing we ensure that the catalogue record has the correct structure and all the necessary links then it is possible for the user to decide what he wants to see and how he wants to see it. New types of OPACs which are now being developed will enable users to do this and Mick Ridley will be demonstrating the Bradford work at the Toronto Conference. However OPACs new and old rely very heavily on the format which in its turn is based on an accepted code of practice. That is why it is important to have an unambiguous AACR which provides all the necessary links and as full an entry as possible is important. The costly and complex use of ISBD and authority control will be unnecessary because the OPACs of the future will be able to provide the user with information he needs in the form that he needs when he needs it. The Toronto Conference and the decisions it makes are of crucial importance to the development of future catalogues. AACR2 and the MARC Format which is based on it are sophisticated tools which are in need of urgent overhaul. Priority should be given to stripping AACR2 of all ambiguity. All the alternative options in AACR2 are the options of compromise based on the past. It would not be difficult to do away with them and it should have been done a long time ago. If nature abhors a vacuum the computer abhors an ambiguity. The next area needing to be examined are the relationship of AACR to the MARC Format, meta tags, Z39.50, search engines, and the development of OPAC displays. These are all areas where librarians are actively involved yet reading the papers and comments on them it s difficult to believe that this is the case. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 12:16:03 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Double duty MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Yesterday, I had written > >The 246 with second indicator 1, according to USMARC documentation, > >would be the place for the parallel title > and Mac had replied: > Not *the* place, an *additional* place. right, but it should be the *primary* place, because what use is having the parallel title in the correct ISBD place but no proper access to it? (And by this I mean not just keyword access but the possibility of having a browsable title string index as well.) If double duty is seen as a way to avoid redundancy, then the question is what field should be doing the duty, and that means, is access more important than correct ISBDs or the other way? (F. Ayres, according to his posting of today, will have a decided opinion on this.) (BTW, some programming could still produce the correct ISBD out of the 246 by inserting it behind the $a of 245. If only there wasn't the initial article...) Mac goes on: > We capture the parallel title > in a macro key while keying 245 (minus the initial article) and code it > in 246 31. Yes, it's redundant. But as long is initial articles are in > 245 =$b (or just " = " if the first title has a subtitle), what else can > one do? > USMARC and ISBD being what they are, this is the best possible solution. But then SLC is obviously delivering a better service here than LC. In order not to make unfounded statements, I searched a representative sample of 18.000 USMARC records, 6300 of which originated at LC. Here's what I found: 783 have a parallel title in the 245 (tagged ... =$b or ... = ) (sometimes it is not given as a full parallel title) 233 of these came from LC 46 of the 783 have a "246 X1" for the parallel title 3 of these came from LC. Looking at LC's database directly for examples of books with parallel titles, I found just one single instance of a 246 but several 740s containing parallel titles. More disillusioning, I found records where the parallel title was not even mentioned, or not properly ISBD-punctuated within the 245. (Is anybody listening at LC? That a matter of policy?) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Then, regarding the question of main entry, Mac's customers have their preferenes: > > They don't object to the parallel titles in the record, and as added > entries, but they want the English title first regardless of title page > order, and they don't want a 130 or 240 in the original language for > translations. > > I certainly *don't* think main entry should be optional (apart from OPAC > brief display). But uniform titles in a language different from the > working languages of a library are another matter. Unless suppressed in > filing and display, they just loose material in special libraries. > Must we conclude that an internationally and universally acceptable main entry is not possible? Does this speak against the main entry principle as such? Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 09:58:10 -0400 Reply-To: hostage@law.harvard.edu Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: John Hostage Organization: Harvard Law School Library Subject: Re: Double duty Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit EV@BUCH.BIBLIO.ETC.TU-BS.DE wrote: > > > USMARC and ISBD being what they are, this is the best possible solution. > But then SLC is obviously delivering a better service here than LC. > > In order not to make unfounded statements, I searched a representative > sample of 18.000 USMARC records, 6300 of which originated at LC. > > Here's what I found: > > 783 have a parallel title in the 245 (tagged ... =$b or ... = ) > (sometimes it is not given as a full parallel title) > 233 of these came from LC > 46 of the 783 have a "246 X1" for the parallel title > 3 of these came from LC. > > Looking at LC's database directly for examples of books with parallel > titles, I found just one single instance of a 246 but several 740s > containing parallel titles. More disillusioning, I found records > where the parallel title was not even mentioned, or not properly > ISBD-punctuated within the 245. > (Is anybody listening at LC? That a matter of policy?) > I'm having a hard time making sense of this discussion. First of all, it should be kept in mind that before format integration access to parallel titles was provided in the 740 for monographs. Those records were not revised at LC or other (inter)national databases after format integration, to my knowledge. Since format integration it has been standard practice to transcribe at least the first parallel title in the 245 and to give access in a 246. I'm not saying that LC or anybody else never makes mistakes, but I haven't noticed a lot of deviation from this practice. > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Then, regarding the question of main entry, Mac's customers have their > preferenes: > > > > They don't object to the parallel titles in the record, and as added > > entries, but they want the English title first regardless of title page > > order, and they don't want a 130 or 240 in the original language for > > translations. > > > > I certainly *don't* think main entry should be optional (apart from OPAC > > brief display). But uniform titles in a language different from the > > working languages of a library are another matter. Unless suppressed in > > filing and display, they just loose material in special libraries. > > > Must we conclude that an internationally and universally acceptable main > entry is not possible? Does this speak against the main entry principle > as such? > Actually, one could conclude from the above statements that any sharing of bibliographic records is impossible, if one insists on customizing them for particular groups of users. I think much of the perceived problem with uniform titles and main entries comes from disregarding chapter 26 of AACR2. A catalog without a proper reference structure, which is half of what authority control is all about, is just an inventory, IMHO. An internationally and universally acceptable main entry is probably still a long way off, if you consider the difficulties of names of jurisdictions and corporate bodies, as well uniform titles, varying forms of romanization, etc. Just getting agreement in the Anglo-American community is hard enough. But there have been theoretical proposals of an international authority record that would contain various forms of a heading that could be used in different contexts, which might be the way of the future. None of this speaks against the principle of main entry. -- ___________________________________________________________ John Hostage Authorities Librarian Langdell Hall hostage@law.harvard.edu Harvard Law School Library (617) 495-3974 (voice) Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 496-4409 (fax) ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 08:30:50 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mary Grenci Subject: Re: Spanner in the works In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > We have little idea of how effective authority control is and even less > of how important it is to the user. While it's true that some users may not see the importance of authority control, that's only because they don't know what it is. If you explain to them that it allows all works by or about an author or subject to be filed together in the catalogue, their attitude generally changes. They then realize that it's much more likely that they will find everything they're looking for if authority control is in place. One of the things that good public service staff do is to explain things like this to their patrons. And, if you want to get an idea of how effective authority control is, just compare a catalog that has good authority control with one that has poor or no authority control. The difference is obvious. > The costly and complex use of ISBD and authority control will be > unnecessary because the OPACs of the future > will be able to provide the user with information he needs in the form > that he needs when he needs it. Can you explain *how* these new OPACs will provide the user with the information he needs, without using authority control? Are you saying that any information is equal to the information that the user needs? Searching by one term may bring up some information, searching by another term may bring up different information on the same topic. If the user only uses the first term, not knowing of the existence of the second term, how can you say that he has found the information he needs? And, if the OPAC allows retrieval of all the information when there is only one search done by the first search term, than there must be some kind of authority control mechanism in place (although, granted, it may be different from what we know as authority control today). Mary ****************************** Mary Grenci Serials Catalog Librarian Knight Library 1299 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1299 mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu Phone: 541-346-5607 Fax: 541-346-3485 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 08:19:10 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Spanner in the works Comments: To: fayres@COMP.BRAD.AC.UK In-Reply-To: Thanks to F. Ayers for some new perspectives. >These databases, however, need not necessarily be held by the library or >accessed through the library. Any user with a PC or access to a PC will be >able to bypass the library from office or home and obtain the items that >are required from data warehouses which might be anywhere. Bifocaled lawyers tend to go to their librarians for this, as opposed to accessing these resources themselves. The role of the librarian in a well run special library is more crucial than ever. In terms of the application of traditional cataloguing rules to these resources, the objections I get are just the opposite to yours, that they are not applied fully enough. In particular I get objections to the absence of a collation, particularly an smd, to display at the second level. After a certain number of relevant resources have been discovered via Alta Vista or some other search engine, more than one screen of bookmarks becomes less than adequate as organization. Remember those little card files of frequently asked questions we used to keep at the reference desk? There is no need to reactivate a search engine the fifth time you have the same question. >Alongside these developments and forming an integral part of them is the >Internet. and the second revolution in information that it is going to >create. As already mentioned, my son at a futures conference heard the Internet described as a library with all the books on the floor after an earthquake. But for me the major characteristic of the Internet (apart from this lack or organization) is the equal amounts of valuable information, misinformation, and even hate literature. While we have as a principle as cataloguers attempted unbiased value free cataloguing, the book does present other clues to authenticity, including the reputation of the publisher. Internet resources have fewer such clues, or at least the clues are not as apparent to the user. The greatest change in the practice of librarianship I see the Internet creating is the *necessity* to make value judgments about the reliability of information. Until now, that judgment was pretty well limited to the selection of reference materials. This area, however, is outside the scope of AACR, unless we propose to introduce a note and MARC field for such evaluation. This would be revolutionary in terms of our stated principles. Parents' call for filtering is just the tip of the iceberg. > The Internet has been accompanied with an equally rapid growth of >computing power and storage and this has led to the development of an >entirely new controlling mechanism - the search engine. I experience the search engine as the "anyword" search on any OPAC writ large. It is a finding device, not an organizing tool. >Whether we like it >or not the search engine is a form of catalogue. However, unlike the >library catalogue it controls not the containers of information but >information itself. Not all that different form the index of an encyclopedia in my experience, where finding tool and text are in one publication. We don't feel threatened by the encyclopedia index, or any other adjunct to the catalogue. As librarians we have traditionally augmented the catalogue with additional resources and finding aids. "Have you tried the Vertical File?" "Have you tried Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature?" Now we say "Have you tried Alta Vista? Let me show you." >However, the parts of catalogue construction which attempt to >pre-coordinate the way the catalogue is used could be post-coordinated. >Vast amounts of money are spent on national and international authority >control and this will increase as databases become larger and movement >between databases becomes more frequent. We have little idea of how >effective authority control is and even less of how important it is to the >user. I haven't had the courage to say this. Thank you. When my customers reject the present authority structures (except as they put cross references in book catalogues), I am appalled at the discussion of an even more elaborate authority structure, including the book authority record. We may be playing with dinosaur bones. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 20:42:30 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Spanner in the works In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , F AYRES writes > All the alternative options in AACR2 are the options of >compromise based on the past. It would not be difficult to do away with >them and it should have been done a long time ago. An option is an option: you can do A or you can do B. If you're going to do away with optional rules you have to decide whether it's to be A or B: make the optional rule obligatory or remove all reference to it. You might say individual libraries are free to deviate as they wish in any case, but the advantage of an optional rule is that it has been worked out properly, you know you can adopt it without any unforeseen conflicts or inconsistencies emerging. So I absolutely agree you - so long as the options retained are those I use rather than those you use ... -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 20:28:23 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: The doing of double duty In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , Bernhard Eversberg writes > >Another very sore spot of USMARC seems to be the parallel title. >It is often transcribed in 245$b, sometimes with a preceding " =". This >makes for a good ISBD display, but as title access point it is next >to useless. [...] > >This is just one additional example of the adverse effects of the >doing of double duty being enforced or not inhibited by the current >AACR/ISBD combination. Maybe its not such a good principle after all. > We mustn't blame AACR for the shortcomings of MARC. Our own homespun user-defined non-MARC system enables us to apply AACR perfectly for parallel titles with full and proper indexing: The^% title proper = The^% parallel title is split at the indexing stage at "^%" (invisible in displays) and "=", generating the index entries TITLE PROPER PARALLEL TITLE -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 21:01:55 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Double duty In-Reply-To: <342284F2.7357@law.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <342284F2.7357@law.harvard.edu>, John Hostage writes >I think much of the perceived >problem with uniform titles and main entries comes from disregarding >chapter 26 of AACR2. A catalog without a proper reference structure, >which is half of what authority control is all about, is just an >inventory, IMHO. I know the tail shouldn't wag the dog but if 99 out of 100 dogs have autonomous tails isn't that something that needs to be taken into account? How many library systems provide a truly integrated reference structure, equivalent to the interfiled references in card catalogues? In our system we can create references in a separate thesaurus file but in searching you would only encounter them if (in a command-based search interface) you typed exactly the non-preferred term or alternatively consulted the thesaurus directly. If you were searching via a browsable index (often the best way for author-title enquiries) you would know nothing about the references. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 19:07:47 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Main entry: reply to Yee Martha Yee wrote: >Not only would elimination of the concept of main entry have no effect on increasing cataloging productivity, but it would wreck the structure of our catalogs and be a tremendous disservice to users [see f.n.]. Because of the lack of a standard citation form (the main entry), it would no longer be possible to display the relationships between works and editions of works... The concept of main and added entry points, both parts of the overall concept of main entry, has little meaning in an online catalog, since any data element can be made an access point. However, the concept of standard citation form (another sense of main entry) continues to be very useful, especially to those of us who support the second objective of the catalog. I would never advocate the wholesale elimination of "the concept of main entry", merely the elimination of the requirement to select a main access point under which to arrange the record's descriptive elements. In other words, I reject both author and title main entry. My reasons have little to do with questions of cataloging productivity. They have to do, rather, with concerns about conceptual clarity and database design. I still suffer from perhaps the naive desire to see fields (or data elements), views (or the arrangement and display of fields), and field separators (or punctuation) as distinct and individually manipulatable components of our bibliographic databases. That they don't appear to be wholly distinct and manipulatable makes me uneasy and resentful. My trusty bibliographic software allows for that kind of manipulation, whereas catalogers are every day asked to do manually what machines could do much better. In short, I find the typical catalog record in an online catalog to be a conceptual muddle. (Incidentally, I also find it a bibliographer's nightmare. I'm talking about those of us who still produce book catalogs or extended bibliographies from electronically captured catalog records. As we rethink AACR it would be kind if we gave a passing thought to our bibliographer brothers.) Abandonment of main entry would indeed "wreck the structure of our catalogs," given the current cataloging situation. But are we not here precisely to examine that situation? Mr. Eversberg showed us in an excellent post how the display of relationships among works can safely be left to our catalog software once these relationships are clearly articulated (he suggested assigning separate indicators to them in MARC field 787). I suggest that the display of different kinds of intellectual responsibility, of which authorship is just one example, could be similarly left to our software provided these are likewise articulated. Our cataloging rules, or the structure of the MARC record do not now permit this. Witness the dumping of all personal names associated with a publication (except for main author, of course) into undifferentiated 700 fields. Given that situation, abandoning main entry would indeed leave us without the means of generating a standard citation form, arranging under author (the authorship principle), and so collocating (albeit incompletely) the various editions of an author's works. A clearly articulated structure (separate fields for distinct types of intellectual responsibility) would make for a cleaner and more effective database design. In conjunction with some linking mechanism, such as Mr. Eversberg describes, I think it could deliver the kinds of displays and collocation we expect of a good library catalog. Elisabeth E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 15:48:56 +1100 Reply-To: Hal.Cain@ormond.unimelb.edu.au Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Hal Cain Organization: Joint Theological Library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. Subject: Re: The doing of double duty MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Cunnew wrote: > > We mustn't blame AACR for the shortcomings of MARC. Our own homespun > user-defined non-MARC system enables us to apply AACR perfectly for > parallel titles with full and proper indexing: > > The^% title proper = The^% parallel title > > is split at the indexing stage at "^%" (invisible in displays) and "=", > generating the index entries > > TITLE PROPER > PARALLEL TITLE > > -- > Robert Cunnew > Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London If parallel title were a separate subfield in USMARC the same results (apart from the articles question) would be possible there. With a bit more provision, it might even be possible to tag other title forms embedded in 245 data. Some of us envisage MARC (whatever the type) as a specification which enables us to code recorded data so that the *output* meets AACR specifications. Others of us seem to prefer the data held in the MARC record to be fully AACR, just set up in a MARC framework for communication and processing. I think the different frames of reference make quite a difference to how we think about the activity of cataloguing. I'm glad Robert Cunnew is here to remind us we don't have to have MARC at all. When it comes to data maintenance (editing for correction or enhancement) the former model (more concise and more highly coded) is more amenable to editing (data recorded once only is amended once only). If in future we will want to reshape existing records to have the benefit of new facilities supported by new AACR provisions, we need to take that into account. If AACR specifies more clearly and completely just what additional title entries should be made, the MARC implementation should be as straightforward and elegant as possible. Possibly USMARC now obscures some distinctions, while failing to make others which we could use. Hal Cain, Joint Theological library, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 16:31:24 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Spanner in the works On Fri, 19 Sep 1997 09:30:23 +0100 F AYRES writes: Up to now catalogue construction has used complex codes of practice which pre-coordinate the structure of the catalogue and the parts which give the catalogue entry its shape and content. This will need to continue. However, the parts of catalogue construction which attempt to pre-coordinate the way the catalogue is used could be post-coordinated. It's not clear to me what you are saying here, what two kinds of pre-coordination you are distinguishing. Could you elaborate on this, give some examples, etc.? Thanks. Elisabeth E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 15:47:15 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Main entry: reply to Yee In-Reply-To: <19970919.190749.3758.0.espanhoff@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <19970919.190749.3758.0.espanhoff@juno.com>, Elisabeth D Spanhoff writes > >I still suffer from perhaps the naive desire to see fields (or data >elements), views (or the arrangement and display of fields), and field >separators (or punctuation) as distinct and individually manipulatable >components of our bibliographic databases. That they don't appear to be >wholly distinct and manipulatable makes me uneasy and resentful. My >trusty bibliographic software allows for that kind of manipulation, >whereas catalogers are every day asked to do manually what machines could >do much better. I agree, and in this respect UKMARC - which does not require the cataloguer to input ISBD punctuation - is clearly superior. And yet the USMARC practice of requiring punctuation to be input is clearly going to win over, as more and more UK libraries switch to USMARC. >I suggest that the display of different kinds of >intellectual responsibility, of which authorship is just one example, >could be similarly left to our software provided these are likewise >articulated. Our cataloging rules, or the structure of the MARC record >do not now permit this. Witness the dumping of all personal names >associated with a publication (except for main author, of course) into >undifferentiated 700 fields. I believe you are suggesting we end up with the following kind of display: Author: A Smith Editor: J Williams Title: A nice book And yet (as Mac has often pointed out) the ISBD already provides us with the more consistent, elegant and informative: A nice book / by A Smith ; edited with an introduction and additional material by J Williams > Given that situation, abandoning main >entry would indeed leave us without the means of generating a standard >citation form, Have you considered the raw ISBD record? > arranging under author (the authorship principle), Are you thinking of a card catalogue? On an OPAC surely you can search under any author and generate a complete listing of his works, *including* those in which his role was subsidiary. > and so >collocating (albeit incompletely) the various editions of an author's >works. Doesn't the same apply? > -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 04:53:40 UT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Thomas Brenndorfer Subject: Re: Double duty -----Original Message----- From: International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR On Behalf Of Robert Cunnew Sent: Friday, September 19, 1997 4:02 PM To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: Double duty In article <342284F2.7357@law.harvard.edu>, John Hostage writes >I think much of the perceived >problem with uniform titles and main entries comes from disregarding >chapter 26 of AACR2. A catalog without a proper reference structure, >which is half of what authority control is all about, is just an >inventory, IMHO. I know the tail shouldn't wag the dog but if 99 out of 100 dogs have autonomous tails isn't that something that needs to be taken into account? How many library systems provide a truly integrated reference structure, equivalent to the interfiled references in card catalogues? In our system we can create references in a separate thesaurus file but in searching you would only encounter them if (in a command-based search interface) you typed exactly the non-preferred term or alternatively consulted the thesaurus directly. If you were searching via a browsable index (often the best way for author-title enquiries) you would know nothing about the references. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ********* [] This speaks directly to what I have come to consider the single biggest problem facing both AACR and MARC. We have such a sharp dichotomy in the treatment of titles, where some titles are uniform headings with references, and others are titles as "found" (the terminology used in LCRI) which point back to the bibliographic item only. Field 246 is for the parallel title(s) that refers to the main work indicated in the record. Parallel titles for >other< works (i.e. analytical works) as found on the item are still recorded in field 740, yet with no clear indication as to which work is meant by that parallel title. All that matters is that the title reflects a character string found on the physical item, such that the bibliographic item is found. Once at the bibliographic record we may meander into a note that justifies the title added entry. The "gathering" function of authority control and work headings in a proper reference structure gets the short end of the stick, not just in MARC, but in the very foundation of AACR. AACR seems entirely dependent upon the vagaries of filing rules in a card catalog, where display and entry options dovetail into an elegant arrangement, with uniform titles and "found" titles and title propers and name-titles, etc. are meshed together to create a highly functional structure. But this structure rarely holds up in an automated environment where fudging and truncating and overlapping are anathema to the whole enterprise of computing -- an enterprise utterly dependent on cold hard divisions between concepts and data elements. Calls to simplify and reuse current data elements, or to eliminate redundancy seem to miss the point entirely that the current structure DOES NOT WORK WELL in an automated environment. Why can't I have the 246 parallel title point both to the bibliographic record where it originated and also be a reference to the work heading? Why can't I have the 740 parallel title to a >second work< so contained in the item also function in the same way? Why can't this structure be independent of a bibliographic record, such that if I need to make a subject heading or a related work heading, I have a full set of references from all possible titles at all times and in all places? Why do I have to grit my teeth when I have to explain to patrons that the titles they see in the OPAC's title index for a film, with the qualifiers (Motion picture), without the qualifier as a title proper, with perhaps a slight variant form filed close by, may or may not lead them to the simple videotape they desire? I use a system that alphabetizes all titles, regardless of origin, into a single index, but with no reference structure. There is no hierarchy, no differentation, no proper collocation, no real gathering function, no reference structure as one would have in an authority controlled author index. Is this just a system problem? No. This problem stems from AACR, further stymied by the inflexibility of MARC. What may have worked quite adequately in a card catalog is a real bear to work with on an OPAC. I have worked with several systems, seen some others, and read about others still. Some systems do neat things, but I have neither seen nor heard of any system that fulfills all of the intentions of the original AACR code with regard to the dual finding and gathering function of title entries. There is no point in waiting for computer systems "to evolve" to some higher state, when the underlying conceptual framework in AACR is not precise on the point of how title access to items and works is to be treated, in all possible products, not just card catalogs. Tom Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library thomasb@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 13:50:55 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Main entry: reply to Yee On Sat, 20 Sep 1997 15:47:15 +0100 Robert Cunnew writes: >I believe you are suggesting we end up with the following kind of >display: > >Author: A Smith >Editor: J Williams >Title: A nice book I am not recommending any particular kind of display. My point is that, with clear articulation of data elements, we have it in our power to design any number of different displays, whatever the cataloging community decides (in the event display standards are developed), or whatever the specific library requires. This does not rule out the ISBD display. I realize that to preserve transcription (and I think there is great value in preserving it) we may be stuck with a certain amount of redundancy in our catalogs. > >Given that situation, abandoning main entry would indeed leave us without the means of generating a standard citation form, > >Have you considered the raw ISBD record? That's fine for identification and citation of a particular piece, but not for organizing a catalog. For that you need normalization of names and, in some cases, titles. For an ordered listing of a person's works, you also need to be able to pull his name out of the grabbag of names associated with a publication (if you abandon main entry) and specify his exact relationship to the publication (author, editor, cinematographer, adaptor, etc.). I would love to own the software that could pull that kind of information out of the raw ISBD record. > arranging under author (the authorship principle), >Are you thinking of a card catalogue? On an OPAC surely you can search under any author and generate a complete listing of his works, *including* those in which his role was subsidiary. Yes, you do get a list, but not a very meaningful one. E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 11:26:26 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Conceptual muddle (Reply to E.Spanhoff) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Elizabeth Spanhoff writes: > > I still suffer from perhaps the naive desire to see fields (or data > elements), views (or the arrangement and display of fields), and field > separators (or punctuation) as distinct and individually manipulatable > components of our bibliographic databases. That's certainly not naive but the only sensible approach. The "conceptual muddle" that USMARC has grown into is the result of a long process of development during which layer upon layer was added to a once simple card production scheme. Back then, when programmers had to express themselves in assembly language, to include punctuation in the data made sense because it simplified card formatting, as did the arrangement of fields in the order they appear on the card. Back then, nobody thought of databases, OPACs, let alone hyperlinks. But we still operate on that foundation. There are better designs, UNIMARC being one example. But UNIMARC, like any other format, can be used in good and poor ways. The cataloging code has to provide the right mindset, the right conceptual approach to data, there's no way around that. > ... I suggest that the display of different kinds of > intellectual responsibility, of which authorship is just one example, > could be similarly left to our software ... Right. You are talking about UNIMARC again. Dinosaurs could not escape extinction because they could not accelerate their evolution. Can we do better, at least with our technical dinosaurs? Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 11:08:55 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Leonard Will Subject: A single set of rules for librarians and archivists? MIME-Version: 1.0 I have not seen any discussion in this list yet of the specific needs of rules for cataloguing collections of archives. There still seems to be a significant split between archivists and librarians, despite the fact that many archival collections are housed in, or closely associated with, libraries. The revision of AACR seems an opportunity to produce a set of revised rules that both communities can accept, with great benefits in the form of joint catalogues, joint authority files, or at least allowing researchers to use the same terms, tools and techniques in searching, irrespective of the form in which material happens to be. I hope that the conference will look at the rules produced by bodies such as the International Council of Archives and see whether these can be reconciled with AACR: ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description http://www.archives.ca/ica/dds/isad(g)e.html ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families http://www.archives.ca/ica/dds/isaar_e.html (both the above are also available in WordPerfect format) as well as: [UK] National Council on Archives: Rules for the construction of personal, place and corporate names, 1997 http://www.hmc.gov.uk/rules/title.html Leonard Will -- Willpower Information (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, Sheena E Will) Information Management Consultants Tel: +44 181 372 0092 27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex, EN2 7BQ, UK Fax: +44 181 372 0094 L.Will@Willpower.demon.co.uk Sheena.Will@Willpower.demon.co.uk ------------------ http://www.willpower.demon.co.uk/ ------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 11:34:16 +0600 Reply-To: Celine Noel Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Celine Noel Subject: Re main entry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Robert Cunnew wrote: "> arranging under author (the authorship principle), Are you thinking of a card catalogue? On an OPAC surely you can search under any author and generate a complete listing of his works, *including* those in which his role was subsidiary." Yes, you can. I think the issue here is linking works that are *about* another work or in some way referring back to it (e.g. supplements, adaptations, etc.). Perhaps this could be thought of as a way of linking secondary sources and derived works back to their originating works. This is important and requires an explicit link because derived works do not usually share authors OR titles with the work they refer to. I don't quite see how software could identify and create links for some of these more subtle relationships. Celine Noel Science cataloger Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cnoel@unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 10:29:26 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Double duty & catalog objectives In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 21 Sep 1997, Thomas Brenndorfer wrote [in part]: > Some systems > do neat things, but I have neither seen nor heard of any system that fulfills > all of the intentions of the original AACR code with regard to the dual > finding and gathering function of title entries. There is no point in waiting > for computer systems "to evolve" to some higher state When AACR was put forth, I think we all worked with similar technology, whether card catalogs or printed catalogs. And we understood them pretty clearly. Online systems ARE different. When thinking about online catalogs, I'm appalled to say, I never even questioned what the vendor's display priorities were or why they deviated from AACR and failed to make use of the information thousands of us were diligently putting into our records. I failed in my job in this area, clearly. This discussion has changed that for me. One positive outcome of the conference, for me, would be a clear statement in AACR that any catalog system that fails to utilize AACR and our work is not a viable catalog (something along that line anyway). The statement is not solely for catalogers (although I can always use the reminder), but for administrators and vendors, to make it clear just what is needed in an online catalog. Having such a statement would also help support each of us from sounding like a lone, inflexible, cataloger. Is AACR the best place for this? I'm not sure. I think such a statement wasn't needed in the past, because it was assumed; it was too obvious to need mentioning. Hmmm ... perhaps indicating the objectives of the catalog would be a good idea, too. In 0.1 AACR states that the rules are designed for the construction of a catalog, but does not then indicate what the objectives of a catalog are. By specifying the objectives (always a good idea in a manual of any kind, I'd say), we would be helped in delineating what an online catalog should be required to do. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 14:26:46 EDT Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Comments: To: papakhi@INDIANA.EDU Comments: Resent-From: Michael Borries Comments: Originally-From: "J. McRee Elrod" From: Michael Borries Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Titles by which known In-Reply-To: <9709181438.AA23892@browndwarf.ucs.indiana.edu> >One issue the conference may address is the purpose of all >title entries. Currently (21.30J) title added entries are made for >items (not works). This has a long Anglo-American tradition. >Title added entries traditionally have been made only for >titles or variations that appear in an item, rather than >for a title by which a work may be known. We have long made title entry for the title by which an item is commonly requested, e.g. "White paper on taxation", "Kever report". We used to put these in 730, but with 246$i we now enter both the commonly used title, and the form used for legal citation. AACR2 21.29C says "In addition make an added entry under ... a title if some catalogue users might suppose that ... an item would be found under that ... title ..." It seems to me a catalogue user might expect an item to be found under the title by which it is referred to in newscasts. Certainly titles in 780/785$t may not be found in the item. Perhaps "whether in the item or not" should be added to the above rule. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ I like Mac's proposed addition, but it only addresses part of Ralph's concerns. The entries still appear only on bibliographic records for an item. They must be added to each such record for each manifestation (edition) of that item. If the title(s) are on one manifestation, but not another, do they get added anyway (e.g., I had a work which had an alternative title on earlier editions but not later). In case of works "commonly known as", "commonly" to whom? You may know legal works; I would not. And again, they must be repeated on each bibliographic record. I do not fully understand the concept of a work record, never mind knowing whether I support it or not, but in situations like these it sounds like less work, not more. I think most of this should be recorded on an authority record in our current environment, but I then wonder about the necessity of recording the same added entries on multiple bibliographic records (except to cope with primitive limitations of online systems which were supposed to be an advance on the card catalog). Michael S. Borries ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 15:25:25 -0400 Reply-To: Kent Haworth Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Kent Haworth Subject: Re: A single set of rules for librarians and archivists? In-Reply-To: <$3MdWHA3OkJ0EwkH@willpower.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I am pleased to see Mr. Will's posting, which finally pushes me over the edge, from being only an observer of these many weeks of discussion about the future of AACR, to a "vocal" participant Most of you may, or may not, be aware of the fact that Canadian archivists spent 7 years developing Rules for Archival Description/Regles pour la description des documents d'archives (Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archvists, 1990). Canadian archivists based RAD/RDDA on the principle of respect des fonds (Rule 0.22) and the structure of the ISBD(G), thereby making them compatible with AACR. In the course of this somewhat long period of development of the rules, for all media found in archives, we had to resolve issues around the tension between bibliographic concepts and archival concepts (for example, the concept of authorship and creatorship). There was also the fundamental issue of multilevel description (e.g., describing a fonds and its parts), a technique that some in this discussion have pointed out might be more richly developed for bibliographic purposes, as Canadian archivists have devloped it in RAD/RDDA. I also am sympathetic to much of F. Ayers "heretical" comments about the conference and havee been disappointed in much of the discussion to date. Canadian archviists, and I believe our colleagues in the United States, have recognized the virtue and value of the bibliographic model in making our holdings available. I cannot speak for the Americans but I am sure my colleague Steven Hensen, who will also be attending the conference, may have something to add to my own views. One of AACR's fundamental principles is that you describe the physical manifestation of the work. I was disappointed that the Gorman/Oddy paper side-stepped this thorny issue presented by today's challenges, so well-described by Ayers, by referring to the principle as "descriptions are based on the bibliographic item." Avoiding the issue of the physical versus the intellectual content of the work is not going to make the problem disappear. Is a description of the physical manifestation of records in electronic form comprising an archival series (not a publisher's series) of government census records necessary for users seeking to use them? Just as important, does the physical manifestation of the records really matter as much as it once did? Many librarians might say to us archivists: well, if you cant use the bibliographic model for your purposes dont force us to change what works quite well for us. Well, I happen to know that many librarians are becoming increasingly frustrated by events around them and which Ayers has presented so well. I would like to think that librarians and archivists could work together to sustain the code, and its relevance, into the 21st century. This is what I had hoped might form a vision for the conference. I am not optimistic that this will happen. I hope that I am proven wrong and look forward to joining in the discussion. On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Leonard Will wrote: > I have not seen any discussion in this list yet of the specific needs of > rules for cataloguing collections of archives. There still seems to be a > significant split between archivists and librarians, despite the fact > that many archival collections are housed in, or closely associated > with, libraries. The revision of AACR seems an opportunity to produce a > set of revised rules that both communities can accept, with great > benefits in the form of joint catalogues, joint authority files, or at > least allowing researchers to use the same terms, tools and techniques > in searching, irrespective of the form in which material happens to be. > > I hope that the conference will look at the rules produced by bodies > such as the International Council of Archives and see whether these can > be reconciled with AACR: > > ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description > http://www.archives.ca/ica/dds/isad(g)e.html > > ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for > Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families > http://www.archives.ca/ica/dds/isaar_e.html > > (both the above are also available in WordPerfect format) > > as well as: > > [UK] National Council on Archives: Rules for the construction of > personal, place and corporate names, 1997 > http://www.hmc.gov.uk/rules/title.html > > > Leonard Will > -- > Willpower Information (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, Sheena E Will) > Information Management Consultants Tel: +44 181 372 0092 > 27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex, EN2 7BQ, UK Fax: +44 181 372 0094 > L.Will@Willpower.demon.co.uk Sheena.Will@Willpower.demon.co.uk > ------------------ http://www.willpower.demon.co.uk/ ------------------- > Kent M. Haworth (416) 736-5442 University Archivist fax: (416) 650-8039 & Head, Special Collections ----------------------------------------------------------------- ASC home page: http://www.library.yorku.ca/depts/asc/archives.htm "The very circumstance that archival documents were created for legal or administrative purposes and not cultural purposes gives them a special cultural value." Elio Lodolini, 1989 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 20:04:54 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: A single set of rules for librarians and archivists? In-Reply-To: <$3MdWHA3OkJ0EwkH@willpower.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <$3MdWHA3OkJ0EwkH@willpower.demon.co.uk>, Leonard Will writes >I have not seen any discussion in this list yet of the specific needs of >rules for cataloguing collections of archives. [...] >I hope that the conference will look at the rules produced by bodies >such as the International Council of Archives and see whether these can >be reconciled with AACR: > I assume you are thinking in particular of chapter 4 (manuscripts)? We use this quite a bit for eg unpublished theses and my main concern is that it should integrate as closely as possible with the rest of the rules. This might rule out the kind of modification archivists would like to see? In my contacts with archivists it has been clear they do not, for example, share the librarian's concern for title page transcription. How do you think AACR should change to better accommodate archivists? -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 16:31:22 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Kent Haworth Subject: Re: A single set of rules for librarians and archivists? Comments: To: Robert Cunnew In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Further to my previous note, Robert should look at RAD/RDDA. Canadian archivists have adapted AACR for archival description. I would be interested in the reaction of any or all members on this discussion list to the approach we took. On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Robert Cunnew wrote: > In article <$3MdWHA3OkJ0EwkH@willpower.demon.co.uk>, Leonard Will > writes > >I have not seen any discussion in this list yet of the specific needs of > >rules for cataloguing collections of archives. > > [...] > > >I hope that the conference will look at the rules produced by bodies > >such as the International Council of Archives and see whether these can > >be reconciled with AACR: > > > I assume you are thinking in particular of chapter 4 (manuscripts)? We > use this quite a bit for eg unpublished theses and my main concern is > that it should integrate as closely as possible with the rest of the > rules. This might rule out the kind of modification archivists would > like to see? In my contacts with archivists it has been clear they do > not, for example, share the librarian's concern for title page > transcription. > > How do you think AACR should change to better accommodate archivists? > -- > Robert Cunnew > Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London > Kent M. Haworth (416) 736-5442 University Archivist fax: (416) 650-8039 & Head, Special Collections ----------------------------------------------------------------- ASC home page: http://www.library.yorku.ca/depts/asc/archives.htm "The very circumstance that archival documents were created for legal or administrative purposes and not cultural purposes gives them a special cultural value." Elio Lodolini, 1989 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 20:21:05 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Double duty & catalog objectives In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , Daniel CannCasciato writes > >One positive outcome of the conference, for me, would be a clear statement >in AACR that any catalog system that fails to utilize AACR and our work is >not a viable catalog (something along that line anyway). That's an excellent idea. It would be best to couch recommendations in terms of an international standard for OPACs, something with the kind of kudos that would keep software developers awake at night, something with the same kind of authority as Z39.50. A set of obscure initials would certainly help! Some minimum level requirements might be: * Ability to disregard initial articles in all title fields. * Ability to distinguish between different kinds of data in indexing, searching and display * Ability to generate ISBD punctuation in display. * Ability to reproduce foreign accents and diacritics without this adversely affecting indexing. * Ability to ignore punctuation in indexing. One problem would be MARC/non-MARC. Would it be possible to create a standard for making an OPAC out of MARC records that would also be applicable to non-MARC systems? -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 23:41:39 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Titles by which known Comments: To: mac@slc.bc.ca In-Reply-To: from "Michael Borries" at Sep 22, 97 02:26:46 pm Content-Type: text Yes, That was only part of my concern. The tradition for title tracings on bibliographic items has to do with titles appearing on the item. Other titles have typically been associated with a name and have been provided by the reference structure. The assumption in these cases is that catalog user has begun a search by an author/composer's name (this is the citation tradition several have observed). But now we find interest in providing title access to works which have traditionally been accessed by name. For example, should there also be title access enabled to the following: Ü 1 010 n 97074821 Ý Ü 2 040 DLC ßc DLC Ý Ü 3 005 19970724142443.8 Ý Ü 4 100 10 Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, ßd 1732-1799. ßt Barbier de Sâeville. ßl English Ý Ü 5 400 10 Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, ßd 1732-1799. ßt Barber of Seville, or, The futile precaution Ý Ü 6 400 10 Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, ßd 1732-1799. ßt Barber of Seville Ý Ü 1 010 no 92013677 Ý Ü 2 040 InU-Mu ßc InU-Mu Ý Ü 3 005 19920601051847.2 Ý Ü 4 100 10 Benda, Friedrich Ludwig, ßd d. 1792. ßt Barbier von Sevilla Ý Ü 5 400 10 Benda, Friedrich Ludwig, ßd d. 1792. ßt Barber of Seville Ý Ü 6 400 10 Benda, Friedrich Ludwig, ßd d. 1792. ßt Vergebliche Vorsicht Ý Ü 7 670 Benda, F. Sinfonia to The barber of Seville, c1967. Ý Ü 1 010 n 81024799 Ý Ü 2 040 DLC ßc DLC ßd DLC Ý Ü 3 005 19950802114624.3 Ý Ü 4 100 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Barbiere di Siviglia Ý Ü 5 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Lazebnâik sevillskây Ý Ü 6 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Barber of Seville Ý Ü 7 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Sevil§skiæi ëtìsirëiìul§nik Ý Ü 8 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Sevillai borbâely Ý Ü 9 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Prâecaution inutile Ý Ü 10 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Barbier von Sevilla Ý Ü 11 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Barberaren in Seville Ý Ü 12 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Alma Viva Ý Ü 13 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Inutile precauzione Ý Ü 14 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Almaviva Ý Ü 15 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Barbier de Sâeville Ý Ü 16 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Inutile prâecaution Ý Ü 17 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Bæarbierul din Sevilla Ý Ü 18 400 10 Rossini, Gioacchino, ßd 1792-1868. ßt Sebiria no rihatsushi Ý --ralph p. Michael Borries said > > > I like Mac's proposed addition, but it only addresses part of Ralph's > concerns. The entries still appear only on bibliographic records for > an item. They must be added to each such record for each manifestation > (edition) of that item. If the title(s) are on one manifestation, but > not another, do they get added anyway (e.g., I had a work which had an > alternative title on earlier editions but not later). In case of works > "commonly known as", "commonly" to whom? You may know legal works; I > would not. And again, they must be repeated on each bibliographic > record. I do not fully understand the concept of a work record, never > mind knowing whether I support it or not, but in situations like these > it sounds like less work, not more. I think most of this should be > recorded on an authority record in our current environment, but I then > wonder about the necessity of recording the same added entries on > multiple bibliographic records (except to cope with primitive limitations > of online systems which were supposed to be an advance on the card catalog). > > Michael S. Borries > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:41:41 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Main entry & subect terms MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII September 25, 1997 In a recent message: "We find the following alternatives to main entry quite satisfactory: ... 3. For citation in works about a work, ie as a subject term: title plus all author headings." How would this work when two authors use the same title and there are several works about each work? For example, Shakespeare and Faulkner wrote books with the title Hamlet. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 17:46:54 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: F AYRES Subject: Spanner in the works 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Spanner in the works 2 Thanks to all of you who tried to extract the spanner and for doing it so politely. I will try to answer the points that you make and to do so as briefly as possible. Of course I cant argue with all the good things that are said about authority control. However with new developments that are being investigated for OPAC development it may be possible to do all the things that authority control does without the costly and time consuming precoordination that is necessary with existing systems. BOPAC2 is an experimental OPAC which has been developed at Bradford University. It is web based and downloads retrievals from Z39.50 servers which have been selected from the large number that are now available. It then enables the retrieval to be navigated using a Java applet. At present it is able to arrange the retrieval in author or title and switch from one to the other almost instantaneously. Selections can also be made by for example format or publisher. Once selected the full records can be displayed rapidly, the Marc record can be called up and there is a Find facility. I am suggesting that it is the development of these sort of systems that may effect our attitude to authority control. Contact me direct if you want to know more. I agree that searching by one term may bring up some information and searching by another term may bring up different information on the same topic but if the links are there any catalogue system should be able to handle this situation. Have you looked at the Library of Congress Experimental Search System? They have a facility to arrange a retrieval in subject order. The result is quite impressive. We use the same technique with BOPAC2 but using various combinations of the author title information. It is not entirely satisfactory although still extremely useful. We call it collapsing a retrieval or a selected part of a retrieval. We feel that it would work very efficiently with a MARC format based on an AACR without ambiguous options and links where any bibliographic relationship exists. I was sorry to see a fairly negative approach to search engines. We cant write them off - there are too many of them, they are too large and they are used too much. The techniques that cataloguers use, hopefully refined to take advantage of modern technology and combined with search engines would provide a very powerful tool. I see the link between the two as the meta tag. A meta tag which has the same kind of structure as a bibliographic format would form as entry point to the increasing number of sites which have restricted entry. Put another way they will alert us to the containers of information on the Internet which interest us. They may seem crude and they may give false drops too often but they have certain features that we cannot ignore or match. They are very fast, they are more comprehensive than library catalogues, most of them offer Boolean searches and they offer relevance and refinement options that are often effective and which can be extremely efficient The number of catalogues that occupy sites on the Internet has increased very rapidly as has the number of sites with their own search engines. Unfortunately it is not technically possible to provide a web catalogue with a search engine. When it is possible to get a web crawler into a library catalogue the combination of traditional cataloguing techniques and search engine techniques will be very powerful. The argument that one mans option may be another mans poison might have been valid at one time but is not tenable in computer based systems. Options in a catalogue code seem to be there for two reasons, political or economic and both these were important in the card catalogue era. If they remain in a new AACR they can only hinder the improvement of OPACs in a period of rapid development. My use of the terms pre-coordination and post-coordination seems to have confused the issue and I will try to make myself clearer. Cataloguing is obviously a pre-coordinated operation but the use of the catalogue need not be entirely pre-coordinated. Provided the catalogue record has been formatted correctly and all the links put in place then the library user can take over. With new OPACs that are now in the development stage the user will not need the expensive authority control that is in place at the moment because it will be possible to navigate through the retrieval using new facilities. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 10:33:31 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mary Grenci Subject: Re: Spanner in the works 2 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, F AYRES wrote: > I agree that searching by one term may bring up some information and > searching by another term may bring up different information on the same > topic but if the links are there any catalogue system should be able to > handle this situation. I'm afraid I still don't understand this. Perhaps it's a matter of syntax? If a system provides links between subject terms, isn't that authority control? Someone has to go in and tell the system that subject term 'x' links to subject term 'y'. And when a new subject term appears that also links to 'x', someone has to go in and update a record somewhere in order to link the new term. It may not be the traditional MARC format authority record, but it is authority control. > I was sorry to see a fairly negative approach to search engines. We cant > write them off - there are too many of them, they are too large and they > are used too much. But that doesn't mean they work very well. Lots of things are popular and abundant, but that has nothing to do with quality. The problem of retrieving hundreds to thousands of hits, many of which are irrelevant or contain information which is in no way verifiable and may be just plain wrong, is not something that can be ignored or glossed over in the research environment. If and when search engines progress to the point of providing the kind of quality control and retrieval that library collection development and cataloging provide, then we can and probably should embrace them. Until then, we will be doing our patrons a grave disservice of we give up these things. Mary --------------------------- Mary Grenci Serials Catalog Librarian Knight Library 1299 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1299 mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu Phone: 541-346-5607 Fax: 541-346-3485 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 10:51:32 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Spanner in the works 2 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I agree with Mary Grenci's post and have just a few other comments. Regarding modifying the code based on search engines, hasn't that been, more or less, Fred Kilgour's stance for years? I don't believe that's a valid objective. Designing for search engine strengths is akin to designing for the search strategy strengths of specific classes of users. On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, F AYRES wrote: > With new OPACs that are now in the development stage the > user will not need the expensive authority control that is in > place at the moment because it will be possible to navigate through the > retrieval using new facilities. Systems can do a lot, yes. In a very vague way, they are promoted as *eventually* being able to do just about everything. Those eventual strengths first need to become widespread. Prototype catalogs or those in release but only available to smallish numbers of monied libraries shouldn't be treated as the dominant context on which we base our catalog record requirements. To do so would destroy cooperative cataloging and the sharing and the distribution of resources. Should that golden day arrive when, say, 80% of us have catalogs that function well without the need for authority control (or some other requirement), I'll be happy to adapt. Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 14:14:37 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Access Points Comments: cc: Joan Aliprand MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thursday, September 25, 1997 This note is a second attempt to evoke some discussion on the topic of nonroman script access points. AACR2 says (rule 1.0E) to give the title in the original script whereever practicable. It also says (21.30J) to make an added entry for the title proper for every item entered under a personal name, corporate body or uniform title (there are a few exceptions). Thus AACR2 authorizes some access points in other than the roman script. (Do I need to mention that some Anglo-American libraries acquire books and other documents with their text and title page in other scripts?) Nor is the exclusive use of the roman script for access points among the AACR2 principles in the Gorman and Oddy paper. AACR2 does however proscribe use of nonroman scripts for access points for persons, coroprate bodies and uniform titles. Despite this at least in North America catalogers using RLIN or OCLC make nonroman access points for persons, corporate bodies and uniform titles for at least Chinese, Japanese and Korean items. They make them because nonroman sccess points simplify access to these cataloging records--searchers need not detour through the slough of transliteration, i.e., guess how other catalogers would represent these names in the roman script. (Those wanting to learn more about the limitations of transliteration should consult articles by Sumner Spalding and Hans Wellisch in the winter 1977 and sprit 1978 issues of 'Library resources and technical services', v.22, no. 1 and 2 respectively.) If AACR is to keep pace with technology it should permit access points for persons, corporate bodies and uniform titles in othr scripts. If it wishes to lead it should prescribe the form of these access points and references to them. Both could be optional since some cataloging systems do not yet permit nonroman input, display, searching and sorting. When such changes were adopted the relation of nonroman headings to roman ones for the same entity would pose a new issue for authority control. If Chekhov or Aristotle never wrote a word in the roman script it seems strange (xenographphobic?) to assert that the only authorized form of their names is in the roman script. Instead I would propose that persons and corporate bodies have an established form of their name in every script that their name appears in works in a particualr library or is likely to be sought by readers of a particular library and references to these from others in the same script. A library with a Russian collection and Russian readers would establish Russian authors in the roman and Cyrillic scripts. Whether to use one or two authority records for such authors is beyond the scope of AACR and a topic for another day. It is perhaps worth mentioning that 2XX and 3xx tags appear unused in the USMARC authoritiey format. Those interested in this topic should consult Joan Aliprand's article "Linking of alternate graphic presentation in USMARC authority records" in Cataloging & classification quarterly (18:1, 1993). Just as many languages are written in roman script, several languges may use a nonroman script, e.g., among other langauges Arabic script is used for Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Sindhi. In such cases should all headings in a single script be arranged together in a single, alphabetic sequence (escept possibly for Chinese) as is done with roman script headings or would separate sequences for different languages be possible and preferable? This too may be beyond the scope of AACR. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 07:24:04 +1000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Giles S Martin Subject: Re: Main entry & subect terms In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It gets worse with musical works. How many composers have wriiten works with titles like "adagio", "symphony no. 9", "trumpet concerto"? Does a list of citations like: Symphony no. 9 (Beethoven, Ludwig van) Symphony no. 9 (Dvorak, Antonin) Symphony no. 9 (Haydn, Joseph) Symphony no. 9 (Haydn, Michael) Symphony no. 9 (Mahler, Gustav) Symphony no. 9 (Schubert, Franz) really help the user more than the traditional citations under the heading for the composer? #### ## Giles Martin ####### #### Newcastle ################# New South Wales #################### Australia ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) ## [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside Australia, the area code is now (02).] On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, James E. Agenbroad wrote: > September 25, 1997 > In a recent message: "We find the following alternatives to main entry > quite satisfactory: ... 3. For citation in works about a work, ie as a > subject term: title plus all author headings." How would this work when > two authors use the same title and there are several works about each > work? For example, Shakespeare and Faulkner wrote books with the title > Hamlet. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 20:35:24 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Main entry & subect terms In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In article , "James E. Agenbroad" writes > September 25, 1997 >In a recent message: "We find the following alternatives to main entry >quite satisfactory: ... 3. For citation in works about a work, ie as a >subject term: title plus all author headings." How would this work when >two authors use the same title and there are several works about each >work? For example, Shakespeare and Faulkner wrote books with the title >Hamlet. For staff searching we use Boolean in command mode. Although index scan is available for readers they can do Boolean within this if they want. The search string would be: SHAKESPEARE;nam&HAMLET;nam or FAULKNER;nam&HAMLET;nam the ";nam" indicating the NAMES field (a subject field). Readers could do the same, using a menu system. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 16:58:08 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Main entry & subect terms In-Reply-To: from "Robert Cunnew" at Sep 25, 97 08:35:24 pm Content-Type: text But would be found if the citation before them had Gamlet instead of Hamlet? --ralph p. Robert Cunnew said > > In article , > "James E. Agenbroad" writes > > September 25, 1997 > >In a recent message: "We find the following alternatives to main entry > >quite satisfactory: ... 3. For citation in works about a work, ie as a > >subject term: title plus all author headings." How would this work when > >two authors use the same title and there are several works about each > >work? For example, Shakespeare and Faulkner wrote books with the title > >Hamlet. > > For staff searching we use Boolean in command mode. Although index scan > is available for readers they can do Boolean within this if they want. > The search string would be: > > SHAKESPEARE;nam&HAMLET;nam > > or > > FAULKNER;nam&HAMLET;nam > > the ";nam" indicating the NAMES field (a subject field). Readers could > do the same, using a menu system. > -- > Robert Cunnew > Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 08:16:49 +1000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Giles S Martin Subject: Re: Main entry & subect terms In-Reply-To: <9709252158.AA16452@browndwarf.ucs.indiana.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII What they might find if they looked up "Gamlet" is the Russan film version of Shakespeare's Hamlet -- the romanised title of which is "Gamlet" because the Russian language has no "h" sound. Giles #### ## Giles Martin ####### #### Newcastle ################# New South Wales #################### Australia ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) ## [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside Australia, the area code is now (02).] On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Ralph Papakhian wrote: > But would be found if the citation before them had Gamlet instead > of Hamlet? > --ralph p. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 18:37:11 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Ralph Papakhian Organization: Indiana University W&G Cook Music Library Subject: Re: Main entry & subect terms In-Reply-To: from "Giles S Martin" at Sep 26, 97 08:16:49 am Content-Type: text I guess my point is that the title Gamlet also appears as a reference in several author/title authority records. Do library catalogs offer title access or keyword access to such records? Ü R7Ý GAMLELANDETS SONNER ENGLISH 1 Ü R8Ý GAMLET 2 Ü R9Ý GAMLET (FANTASY OVERTURE) 1 ÜR10Ý GAMLET (INCIDENTAL MUSIC) 1 ÜR11Ý GAMLET (MOTION PICTURE MUSIC) 1 ÜR12Ý GAMLET (MOTION PICTURE) 1 ÜR13Ý GAMLET I DON KIKHOT ENGLISH 1 ÜR14Ý GAMLET PRINTS DATSKII 1 --ralph p. Giles S Martin said > > What they might find if they looked up "Gamlet" is the Russan film > version of Shakespeare's Hamlet -- the romanised title of which is > "Gamlet" because the Russian language has no "h" sound. > > Giles > > #### ## Giles Martin > ####### #### Newcastle > ################# New South Wales > #################### Australia > ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au > ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) > > ## > [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside > Australia, the area code is now (02).] > > On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Ralph Papakhian wrote: > > > But would be found if the citation before them had Gamlet instead > > of Hamlet? > > --ralph p. > -- A. Ralph Papakhian, Indiana University Music Library Bloomington, IN 47405 812/855-2970 papakhi@indiana.edu co-owner: MLA-L@listserv.indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 23:52:55 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "H. Arthur Vespry" Subject: Main entry - an obsolete concept? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Having lived abroad for the past 20 odd years, and used bibliographical database standards that did not follow AACR, I'm not up-to-date on the current status of the Rules, or on the proposals for change. Thus I'm hesitant to join the debate on proposals for changes. That said, I do hope that the "main entry" concept is already history, or is shortly to become so. If anyone still needs to be convinced that the main entry is an albatross around our necks, a few bad-tempered words on the subject follow. Ours may be the only service profession that shuts some of its brightest and most highly trained members* completely away from its customers, and requires them to make decisions that have no impact on their service, though a process and for ends that they would not dare to describe to those customers. Why not? Our customers would think us mad! Children whose parents read to them know about TITLES by the time they are two years old. They know about AUTHORS by the time they are six or eight. Lucky grade-school pupils go to the school or public library and learn about SUBJECT HEADINGS. The bright high-school student learns about CORPORATE responsibility as he or she becomes acquainted with publications of government bodies, commercial organizations, churches, the United Nations. University students learn about SERIES of reports, monographs and the like, and about CONFERENCE papers and proceedings. Our customers come to our OLPACs, and look up material by whatever access point seems appropriate. Nobody except librarians ever wonders which access point is the "MAIN ENTRY", because they have never heard of such a thing. Why not? Because it is completely irrelevant to the real world in which they live. We would not dare to tell them what it is and what it costs us (and ultimately the tax-payers or corporate sponsors of our efforts), because they would be incredulous and hostile, and, as said above, they would think us mad! Main entries are the legacy of times when catalogue cards were hand-written or individually typed -- few now active in the profession will remember such times, though we may have seen such cards and marvelled at the labour represented in them. When we could duplicate unit cards, our libraries ceased to need main entries, because any access point lead to the whole bibliographic record for each item. Main entries are also a legacy of the single-access bibliographies, notably the LC Catalogue and the NUC. Those single-access catalogues were designed according to the economic necessity of their day; surely nobody thought or thinks that single access has anything beyond dreary economy to recommend it. BNB and Canadiana as I remember had indexes from their beginnings. The profession and the customers need multiple access (provided by indexes in printed works). Justifying the main entry on the basis of a single-access system that was always painful to use and is now obsolete is a sensible as putting shock-absorbers on ships to protect them if they should sail off the edge of the flat earth. How do you design citations (or catalogue cards, if they are still used) without a main entry to put on top? I've gone on long enough, but if you need to know, ask me. I've been doing it for years. Would cataloguers be fired if we no longer needed them to produce main entries? Of course not; they should be out meeting and advising our customers. Do you think doctors and lawyers could command the salaries and the respect (or fear) that they do if they stayed in the back room and sent the least trained members of their staff out to deal with the public? Engineers, professors, scientists of various kinds, all deal hands-on with the matter of their professions. Our "matter" is information, and it is people -- ourselves and our customers -- who are INFORMED. Words on paper, data in databases, are raw materials. As a profession we have to be concerned with the process by which people are INFORMED. We have to send our best and brightest out to meet our customers. But enough, that is a separate topic! As said above, I hope that this rant was unnecessary, and that the main entry has been or is well on the way to being laid to rest. * I've been in technical services/databases most of my career, so it is possible (if unlikely) that I am biased. Marianne Forsyth Vespry (905) 523-6591 vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 09:56:02 +0100 Reply-To: pwevans@biblio-tech.com Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Peter Evans Organization: Biblio Tech Limited Subject: Re: Double duty & catalog objectives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Cunnew wrote: > > In article 100000@mumbly.lib.cwu.edu>, Daniel CannCasciato > writes > > > >One positive outcome of the conference, for me, would be a clear statement > >in AACR that any catalog system that fails to utilize AACR and our work is > >not a viable catalog (something along that line anyway). > > That's an excellent idea. It would be best to couch recommendations in > terms of an international standard for OPACs, something with the kind of > kudos that would keep software developers awake at night, something with > the same kind of authority as Z39.50. A set of obscure initials would > certainly help! Some minimum level requirements might be: > > * Ability to disregard initial articles in all title fields. > * Ability to distinguish between different kinds of data in indexing, > searching and display > * Ability to generate ISBD punctuation in display. > * Ability to reproduce foreign accents and diacritics without this > adversely affecting indexing. > * Ability to ignore punctuation in indexing. > > One problem would be MARC/non-MARC. Would it be possible to create a > standard for making an OPAC out of MARC records that would also be > applicable to non-MARC systems? > -- > Robert Cunnew > Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London I am currently building a Web site (Biblio Tech Review - http://www.biblio-tech.com/biblio) that relates specifically to the library automation industry - reviewing technologies, products and hopefully providing suppliers with common standards for system specification and ...OPACS? As an ex-cataloguer and someone who has spent much of his career on the supplier side of the industry, I have been both excited by ideas and developments from computer professionals and appalled by the lack of attention to AACR principles - a few of which have been suggested as basics for OPAC evaluation in this thread. I am willing to promulgate a standard set of criteria - please supply lists of your own and I will attempt to consolidate and then disseminate. PArt of the process will be testing systems against the criteria and liaising with suppliers. Peter Evans -------------------------------- Peter Evans, Biblio Tech Limited, 24, Old Sneed Avenue, Bristol, BS9 1SE, UK pwevans@biblio-tech.com. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 14:09:51 +0200 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Donald Pisani Subject: main entry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Hello AACR-Friends, I haven=B4t been following all of this discussion, but I would like to = make a suggestion: Why don=B4t we just rename the main-entry "first-among-added-entries" (-: and then leave it at that? We are going to have to have some sort of filtering rules for added entries and they will imply that some entries are more important than others. We will probably end up having main-entries (one for authors, = one for titles and one for corporate bodies). Do we really want to replace one complicated set of rules with another? I have the Manual of Style here and in the General rules (15.31) it is = written: "A citation should enable the interested reader to find the source with a minimum of effort. Thus, a reference to a book should begin with the element under which the reader may expect to find it in = a library catalog ....". The key words here are: minimum of effort; reference to a (one) book; library catalog. It seems to me that the writer and the reader are also choosing main entries. Should we really = drop the main entry or try to improve the rules so that our footnote readers find their books in our catalogs? Don Pisani . The Library of the Institute for World Economics Duesternbrooker Weg 120 24105 Kiel Tel.-Nr. 0431/8814 415 Fax-Nr. 0431/8814 520 e-mail d.pisani@zbw.uni-kiel.de ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 08:17:18 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mary Grenci Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? In-Reply-To: <199709260352.XAA06548@mail0.tor.acc.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, H. Arthur Vespry wrote: > How do you design citations (or catalogue cards, if they are > still used) without a main entry to put on top? I've gone on > long enough, but if you need to know, ask me. I've been doing it > for years. Okay, I'll bite. The big question I have about getting rid of main entry is exactly what you state above: How do you decide what to put on top? Or, to put it another way, if one of several authors has primary responsibility for an item, is it really fair to list all the authors in alphabetical order (or whatever) rather than giving credit where credit is due? I know I'd be a bit peeved if it was me. And, once again, there's the question of common titles. Please explain and give examples of how you handle this. Mary ****************************** Mary Grenci Serials Catalog Librarian Knight Library 1299 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1299 mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu Phone: 541-346-5607 Fax: 541-346-3485 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 11:22:54 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Steve Hensen Organization: Duke University, Special Collections Library Subject: Another archival perspective MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Along with my colleague, Kent Haworth, I, too, wish to thank Mr. Will for finally raising the question of where archival materials and description fit into the larger picture of the revision of AACR. I also want to thank Kent for so clearly articulating some of the issues and concerns that archivists share with respect to this proposed revision. First of all, I am very pleased that the JSC saw fit to invite an archival perspective to the Toronto meeting. While I am still not very sanguine that archivists and library catalogers can see totally eye to eye on the details of cataloging, I am at least hopeful that archival participation in the discussions this go-around will forestall the sort of anomalies that made chapter 4 so problematic for most archivists and manuscript curators. I would also hope that we can come to some essential agreement on fundamental principles. Looking to the future, it seems to me that one of the more important lessons to be gleaned from the development of AACR2 and its various “supplemental” manuals is that the world of description of and access to cultural resources is much larger than Panizzi, Cutter, or Lubetsky ever imagined and that there are inextricable and important relationships between those resources that can usefully be exploited and enhanced in the context of what have heretofore been more narrowly defined as systems for “bibliographic control and access.” It seems clear that the emergence of fully integrated access to books, serials, motion pictures, archival materials, photographs, museum collections, etc. in what were previously strictly “bibliographic” databases has been both evolutionary and revolutionary and a positive force for improved research and scholarship and access to information in general. That we must now consider digital surrogates and delivery of these resources (as well as yet unimagined new formats) was, I had supposed, the premise for the upcoming conference. While most of the published papers have been interesting and thought-provoking, the level of discourse on this list--with some notable exceptions--has been somewhat disappointing. I had hoped that, with the first international conference on cataloging principles in 36 years coming upon us--particularly considering the digital revolution of the past 10 years--there would be much more focus on the forest and less on the trees (to say nothing of the branches and twigs). The most important and interesting question before us is whether the principles set forth in Paris in 1961 are indeed still meaningful or operative. And more important, are they operative in the expanded world of bibliographic control and access applied to this larger universe of cultural resources? While any discussion of cataloging is inevitably bound to get bogged down in some detail, it does seem to me that at the very least questions of punctuation ought to be outside the scope of the present discussion. Surely minutiae such as this or even questions relating to such so-called “larger” issues relating to choice of headings, main entries, or online catalog displays will fall in their proper place once first principles are established. At the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists last month in Chicago, William Y. Arms, of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, gave a paper entitled “Advances in Digital Library Research and Development.” In this paper he spoke, among other things, of the increasing irrelevance of library cataloging in the rapidly expanding information universe. When asked if he saw any hope in correcting this situation, he replied that the answers to the question were probably more “sociological,” than technical. I hope he is wrong. I am very much looking forward to the discussions in Toronto and to whatever contributions Kent and I can offer to the deliberations. Over the years, archivists have become quite proficient at describing and managing large, often disorderly masses of material consisting of a wide array of physical types. We have managed this because we have instinctively understood that the individual items and their physical characteristics are of very little importance; more important, rather, are the context and content of the items and how they fit into the larger entity of which they are a part. The hierarchy of metadata (access points, catalog records, finding aids, etc.) that we have employed to accomplish evolved into a comprehensive descriptive apparatus, while also encouraging the fuller integration of archival information through an acceptance of AACR-based standards with respect to access points (some decidedly troublesome and “bibliocentric” principles underlying their formulation notwithstanding). The recent emergence and quick acceptance of the principles of SGML-based Encoded Archival Description (EAD) as a means of making this apparatus more dynamic and responsive in the Internet environment suggests to me that there are many ways today to effectively manage information on cultural resources. My own hope is that the weight of the last 154 years of cataloging practice does not inhibit us in doing what must be done. -- ******************************************************* Steven L. Hensen Director of Planning and Project Development Special Collections Library Duke University Box 90185 Durham, NC 27708-0185 hensen@acpub.duke.edu 919-660-5826 919-660-5934 (fax) ******************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 11:10:49 -0700 Reply-To: Daniel CannCasciato Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Daniel CannCasciato Subject: Re: Another archival perspective In-Reply-To: <342BD34D.AA8647A9@duke.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Steve Hensen wrote: > the level of > discourse on this list--with some notable exceptions--has been somewhat > disappointing. That's fine. If you want other content, then provide it. If you believe that what you have to offer is less disappointing, then produce it. What purpose does notification of your disappointment serve? >archivists have become quite proficient at describing and >managing large, often disorderly masses of material consisting of a wide >array of physical types. We have managed this because we have >instinctively understood that the individual items and their physical >characteristics are of very little importance; Interesting statement. From my experience, I can say that your basic *library* patron would disagree. The individual item and it's physical characteristics are vital. I remember a cataloger once "eliminating" a largish backlog of monographs (15,000 or so titles) with one collection level record. We thought it absurd, in our context. > The most important and > interesting question before us is whether the principles set forth in > Paris in 1961 are indeed still meaningful or operative. And more > important, are they operative in the expanded world of bibliographic > control and access applied to this larger universe of cultural > resources? Could you expand on this? What are your thoughts on the operativeness of those principles? Daniel ------------------------------------------- Daniel CannCasciato Head of Cataloging and Interlibrary Loans Central Washington University Library 400 East 8th Ave Ellensburg WA 98926-7548 509 963-2120 509 963-3684 (FAX) dcc@cwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 21:18:46 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Leonard Will Subject: Re: Another archival perspective In-Reply-To: <342BD34D.AA8647A9@duke.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <342BD34D.AA8647A9@duke.edu>, Steve Hensen writes >It seems clear that the >emergence of fully integrated access to books, serials, motion pictures, >archival materials, photographs, museum collections, etc. in what were >previously strictly bibliographic databases has been both evolutionary >and revolutionary and a positive force for improved research and >scholarship and access to information in general. > I was very glad to see Steve Hensen take up this point, because it seems to me that this should affect our thinking about the underlying principles on which a set of cataloguing rules is built. For some years now the museum community has been moving away from the concept of simply creating a standalone catalogue record of an object, including within it the names of the people, organisations, places, events, materials and so on with which it is associated. In the relational models that seem most effective, these become separate independent files, of equal status to the file of object records. Links are then created to associate a person with an object, one person with another, a person with an organisation, an object with an event, an object with another object, and so on. It seems that the increasing use of authority files in library systems is a recognition of this approach, and I wonder whether it is time to recognise it explicitly as a fundamental principle. Instead of just creating a file of records for bibliographical items, we create files for works, physical manifestations of works, people, organisations, places, subjects, events, and whatever other entities we need. The links may be implemented as "joins" within the structure of a relational database, or as SGML hypertext links, or in other ways, such as the MARC 76x - 78x tags. A user or a cataloguer should not need to be concerned with the underlying structure, because the "view" presented to them should be dynamically merged so that they can choose to see a record for a book and its associated names, an author and his/her associated works, an organisation and its associated bodies, a serial and the articles within it, a subject and material relating to it, or any combination of these. We already have the basis of this structure, and many systems already work in this way, but AACR and the MARC format are not adapted to this structure. Instead of just rules about forms of name, do we need rules for the creation of "person", "organisation", and "place" records, each of which which may have may additional attributes? Could these records of entities other than books be shared in the same way as bibliographical records are now, independently of their links to any bibliographical records? Within the life of AACR3 is it likely that such files will be held centrally and read and updated over the Internet as required, rather than having to be copied to local systems? There is nothing new in all this, but it does seem that it calls for a change of viewpoint, making the record for the bibliographic item just one among many types. Do other people agree? Leonard Will -- Willpower Information (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, Sheena E Will) Information Management Consultants Tel: +44 181 372 0092 27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex, EN2 7BQ, UK Fax: +44 181 372 0094 L.Will@Willpower.demon.co.uk Sheena.Will@Willpower.demon.co.uk ------------------ http://www.willpower.demon.co.uk/ ------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 08:59:45 +1000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Giles S Martin Subject: Re: main entry In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE I would suggest renaming one meaning of "main entry" as "standard=20 citation". This is a concept which most library users would understand=20 (although the more perceptive would notice that there are varying=20 standards for "standard citations", both in bibliographies and in=20 bibliographic databases). In AACR a "standard citation" would be the uniform heading for a work,=20 consisting of either: (1) The heading for the person or organisation solely or chiefly=20 responsible for the work, plus the uniform title for the work, or (2) The uniform title for the work, where no one person or=20 organisation is regarded as solely of chiefly responsible for the work. In USMARC, a "standard citation" could consist of: (1) a 100/110/111 field plus a 240 field (2) a 100/110/111 field plus the title proper part of a 245 field=20 (where there is no 240 field) (3) a 130 field (4) the title proper part of a 245 field (where there is no 1XX field)= =20 (5) the title part of a 440 field (6) a 6XX or 7XX field with a $t subfield (7) the name and title parts of an 800/810/811 field (8) the title part of an 830 field (There would be a few other linking fields mainly used for serials that=20 also contain "standard citations") Other meanings of "main entry" could remain as they are, for where they=20 are still useful in card/book/microfiche catalogues. Giles #### ## Giles Martin ####### #### Newcastle ################# New South Wales #################### Australia ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) ## [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside=20 Australia, the area code is now (02).] On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Donald Pisani wrote: > Hello AACR-Friends, >=20 > I haven=B4t been following all of this discussion, but I would like to ma= ke > a suggestion: Why don=B4t we just rename the main-entry > "first-among-added-entries" (-: and then leave it at that? >=20 > We are going to have to have some sort of filtering rules for added > entries and they will imply that some entries are more important than > others. We will probably end up having main-entries (one for authors,=20 > one for titles and one for corporate bodies). Do we really want to > replace one complicated set of rules with another? [matter deleted] > I have the Manual of Style here and in the General rules (15.31) it is=20 > written: "A citation should enable the interested reader to find the > source with a minimum of effort. Thus, a reference to a book should > begin with the element under which the reader may expect to find it in=20 > a library catalog ....". The key words here are: minimum of effort; > reference to a (one) book; library catalog. It seems to me that the > writer and the reader are also choosing main entries. Should we really= =20 > drop the main entry or try to improve the rules so that our footnote > readers find their books in our catalogs? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 23:16:45 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? In-Reply-To: <199709260352.XAA06548@mail0.tor.acc.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <199709260352.XAA06548@mail0.tor.acc.ca>, "H. Arthur Vespry" writes >If anyone still needs to be convinced that the main entry is an >albatross around our necks, a few bad-tempered words on the >subject follow. Essentially I agree with you, although I think it's more of a fly than an albatross. I think it's part of a general feeling that an automated catalogue should be just that: a card catalogue that lives inside a computer. > >Would cataloguers be fired if we no longer needed them to produce >main entries? >Of course not; they should be out meeting and >advising our customers. Do you think doctors and lawyers could >command the salaries and the respect (or fear) that they do if >they stayed in the back room and sent the least trained members >of their staff out to deal with the public? Engineers, >professors, scientists of various kinds, all deal hands-on with >the matter of their professions. Our "matter" is information, >and it is people -- ourselves and our customers -- who are >INFORMED. Words on paper, data in databases, are raw materials. >As a profession we have to be concerned with the process by which >people are INFORMED. We have to send our best and brightest out >to meet our customers. But enough, that is a separate topic! I can't go along with this. Yes the main entry is an outdated concept but assigning main entry is surely a small part of a cataloguer's work. And don't let's denigrate the back room. With or without main entry we need specialists to create and maintain professional catalogues. There is nothing more noble about sitting at a counter all day doing other people's research for them. I agree that a cataloguer's expertise can be invaluable in enquiry work and a certain amount of enquiry work can be valuable to a cataloguer, but people who answer enquiries all day have no time (both literally and by inclination) for cataloguing: if it was left to them there would be no catalogues ... -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 14:48:48 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Central vs. local records Comments: To: L.Will@WILLPOWER.DEMON.CO.UK In-Reply-To: >Could these records of entities other than books be shared in the same >way as bibliographical records are now, independently of their links to >any bibliographical records? Within the life of AACR3 is it likely that >such files will be held centrally and read and updated over the Internet >as required, rather than having to be copied to local systems? I would certainly not be surprised to see records for entities other than books created centrally and shared as are bibliographic records. That is already the case for name authority records (which are after all records for persons), and records for nonbook materials. But I suspect central records accessed remotely is not the wave of the future. Many of the questions posed on autocat have to do with the problems which arise from OCLC's one record serves all architecture, and debates concerning whether an item is a new work or not. With the sophistication of local systems, and drop in price of hardware, many libraries are now doing inhouse what they used to do on a bibliographic utility, and just use the utilities as a source of records. After becoming accustomed to the user file architecture of Catss, I would not be happy having to make active use of a central record created without reference to the particular needs of my patrons. Greater simplification and standardization of the core requirements for records, coupled with greater variety and flexibility in their enhancement in local catalogues (as in BNA enhanced records for example), would seem to be a more likely direction of development. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:32:17 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "H. Arthur Vespry" Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:17 26/09/97 -0700, Mary Grenci wrote: >On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Marianne Vespry wrote: >> How do you design citations (or catalogue cards, if they are >> still used) without a main entry to put on top?... Ask me.... >Okay, I'll bite. The big question I have about getting rid of main entry >is exactly what you state above: How do you decide what to put on top? The following is a very brief summary of experience of the last time I produced databases for a small special library (in Bangkok, for the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations): We did not make catalogue cards. We printed a monthly bibliographic bulletin, with indexes to provide multiple access, and offered copies of the database to network partners in the region. Some of the partners contributed records, on paper or diskette. Several display formats were available for on-line searches and for bibliographies of search results printed (or downloaded) on demand; the customers could chose whatever was appropriate for their purposes. Fortunately nobody ever asked us for a main-entry format, as we could not have done it. To develop a format, we made a list of access points and other elements in our citations, put it in an order that seemed reasonable for our purposes, and did not deviate from it. Obviously, if one element was missing, we went on to the next. If there were several authors, corporate entities responsible, titles etc, they were listed in the same order in which they appeared on the document. The result did not look like a Library of Congress card. Oddly enough, none of our customers protested this, or even remarked on it. For our bulletin format, the main elements we used were as follows, presented in the following order: Call number Running number for lookup from the indexes Personal author 1; Personal author 2;.... Personal author n Corporate responsible 1 Corporate 2 ... Corporate n Title 1. ....Title n Edition Imprint or source of analytic Collation (Series 1; ...Series n) Holdings or other notes Conference Abstract Descriptors/Subject headings Address from which document could (theoretically at least) be obtained Thus a citation might have one or several personal authors plus one or several corporates before the title; it might have authors or corporates before the title, or if we could identify neither authors or corporates responsible it would begin with the title. Type face, indentation, spacing etc. were used to distinguish various elements. We printed a sample record at the beginning of each number of the monthly bibliographic bulletin, identifying each element. One of the formats available on-screen and for printouts of searches included an identifier before each of the main elements. I do not recall that that format was much in demand. >If one of several authors has primary >responsibility for an item, is it really fair to list all the authors in >alphabetical order (or whatever) rather than giving credit where credit is >due? I know I'd be a bit peeved if it was me. We listed them in the same order as on the document, so we preserved the priority accorded therein. >And, once again, there's the >question of common titles. Please explain and give examples of how you >handle this. Common titles? Such as "annual report"? In the title field we copied the title(s) given on the document. If it said: "Annual report of X" or "Review of the work of X in 1997", of "Great things we did last year", or "Oops, maybe you don't want to read about this year", we copied that in the title field. We also had a descriptor "Annual report", which was assigned whether or not the title began with "Annual report". Searchers could specify fields if they wished, but mostly didn't bother, so a boolean search for organization name AND "annual report", retrieved it, whatever it was called. We received lots of grey literature, which at times required arbitrary handling to cut or stretch to fit into even our generally un-Procrustian format. One of our arbitrary decisions was that every piece would have a title, even if we had to make it up. We didn't have to deal with symphonies or horn concerti (outside our scope) but I don't see that they would have been a problem. A boolean search for composer AND e.g. "second symphony" would have retrieve it. On the principle of supplying all reasonable access points, we would have supplied "Unfinished" or "Pastoral" or whatever descriptive or common name attached to a work as an additional title; also the opus number, in a separate searchable field. (I have no experience in a music library.) Similarly, other subject fields have their specialized materials with their own naming and publishing conventions. The principle is that all reasonable access points should be provided; the details must be worked out by those of us who are most familiar with the particular subjects/materials. Again, I've gone on too long. Marianne Vespry ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:33:53 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: main entry On Sat, 27 Sep 1997 08:59:45 +1000 Giles S Martin writes: >I would suggest renaming one meaning of "main entry" as "standard citation". This is a concept which most library users would understand... >In AACR a "standard citation" would be the uniform heading for a work, consisting of either: > (1) The heading for the person or organisation solely or chiefly responsible for the work, plus the uniform title for the work, or > (2) The uniform title for the work, where no one person or organisation is regarded as solely of chiefly responsible for the work. This way of defining 'standard citation' seems reasonable enough and will probably be fairly easy to apply. Not so the one that follows: . >In USMARC, a "standard citation" could consist of: > (1) a 100/110/111 field plus a 240 field > (2) a 100/110/111 field plus the title proper part of a 245 field (where there is no 240 field) > (3) a 130 field > (4) the title proper part of a 245 field (where there is no 1XX field) > (5) the title part of a 440 field > (6) a 6XX or 7XX field with a $t subfield > (7) the name and title parts of an 800/810/811 field > (8) the title part of an 830 field One important reason for getting rid of main entry in the sense other than as standard citation is so we can do away with the elaborate rules for choice of main entry, the rules that tell us when to use and what to put into our field 100, 110, 130, etc. I may be misreading you, but to define 'main entry' (standard citation), as you seem to be doing here, in terms of these very fields commits you to keeping those rules and gets us no closer to a clearer, more logical catalog record. E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:32:33 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisabeth D Spanhoff Subject: Re: Another archival perspective On Fri, 26 Sep 1997 21:18:46 +0100 Leonard Will writes: >For some years now the museum community has been moving away from the >concept of simply creating a standalone catalogue record of an object, >including within it the names of the people, organisations, places, >events, materials and so on with which it is associated. In the >relational models that seem most effective, these become separate >independent files, of equal status to the file of object records. >Links are then created to associate a person with an object, one person with >another, a person with an organisation, an object with an event, an >object with another object, and so on. > >It seems that the increasing use of authority files in library systems >is a recognition of this approach, and I wonder whether it is time to >recognise it explicitly as a fundamental principle. Instead of just >creating a file of records for bibliographical items, we create files >for works, physical manifestations of works, people, organisations, >places, subjects, events, and whatever other entities we need. The >links may be implemented as "joins" within the structure of a relational >database, or as SGML hypertext links, or in other ways, such as the >MARC 76x - 78x tags... >We already have the basis of this structure, and many systems already >work in this way, but AACR and the MARC format are not adapted to this >structure. Instead of just rules about forms of name, do we need rules >for the creation of "person", "organisation", and "place" records, >each of which which may have may additional attributes? > >Could these records of entities other than books be shared in the same >way as bibliographical records are now, independently of their links to >any bibliographical records? Within the life of AACR3 is it likely that >such files will be held centrally and read and updated over the Internet >as required, rather than having to be copied to local systems? > >There is nothing new in all this, but it does seem that it calls for a >change of viewpoint, making the record for the bibliographic item just >one among many types. Do other people agree? Michael Heaney appeared to be thinking along those lines in his 1995 article, "Object-Oriented Cataloging," Information Technology and Libraries (September 1995), if I read him right. E. de Rijk Spanhoff State Library of Louisiana espanhoff@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 12:22:30 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Robert Cunnew Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? In-Reply-To: <199709272132.RAA12056@mail0.tor.acc.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <199709272132.RAA12056@mail0.tor.acc.ca>, "H. Arthur Vespry" writes >For our bulletin format, the main elements we used were as follows, >presented in the following order: > >Call number >Running number for lookup from the indexes >Personal author 1; Personal author 2;.... Personal author n >Corporate responsible 1 >Corporate 2 ... >Corporate n >Title 1. ....Title n >Edition >Imprint or source of analytic >Collation >(Series 1; ...Series n) >Holdings or other notes >Conference >Abstract >Descriptors/Subject headings >Address from which document could (theoretically at least) be obtained With respect, I think you are confounding two issues: 1. Order of elements in a bibliographic description. 2. Whether a bibliographic description once established needs some kind of heading and if so what that heading should be. With regard to (1) we have the International Standard Bibliographic Description as incorporated into part 1 of AACR. To my knowledge no-one on this group has put forward any serious objection to the order of elements in the description. With regard to (2) I can see that if you wish to preface each description with a heading, one automatically selected according to your formula may be preferable to one that requires much scratching of heads by trained cataloguers. But once you have broken with main entry why not leave out the heading entirely - why can the ISBD (beginning with title) not stand as a citation in its own right? This is not to say we don't need to assign author and other index terms, just that there is no need to display them. -- Robert Cunnew Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 20:18:14 UT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Thomas Brenndorfer Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? -----Original Message----- From: International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR On Behalf Of H. Arthur Vespry Sent: Saturday, September 27, 1997 5:32 PM To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? At 08:17 26/09/97 -0700, Mary Grenci wrote: >On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Marianne Vespry wrote: >> How do you design citations (or catalogue cards, if they are >> still used) without a main entry to put on top?... Ask me.... >Okay, I'll bite. The big question I have about getting rid of main entry >is exactly what you state above: How do you decide what to put on top? The following is a very brief summary of experience of the last time I produced databases for a small special library (in Bangkok, for the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations): We did not make catalogue cards. We printed a monthly bibliographic bulletin, with indexes to provide multiple access, and offered copies of the database to network partners in the region. Some of the partners contributed records, on paper or diskette. Several display formats were available for on-line searches and for bibliographies of search results printed (or downloaded) on demand; the customers could chose whatever was appropriate for their purposes. Fortunately nobody ever asked us for a main-entry format, as we could not have done it. To develop a format, we made a list of access points and other elements in our citations, put it in an order that seemed reasonable for our purposes, and did not deviate from it. Obviously, if one element was missing, we went on to the next. If there were several authors, corporate entities responsible, titles etc, they were listed in the same order in which they appeared on the document. The result did not look like a Library of Congress card. Oddly enough, none of our customers protested this, or even remarked on it. For our bulletin format, the main elements we used were as follows, presented in the following order: Call number Running number for lookup from the indexes Personal author 1; Personal author 2;.... Personal author n Corporate responsible 1 Corporate 2 ... Corporate n Title 1. ....Title n Edition Imprint or source of analytic Collation (Series 1; ...Series n) Holdings or other notes Conference Abstract Descriptors/Subject headings Address from which document could (theoretically at least) be obtained [...] Marianne Vespry [] ******************* This seems to be a very fine inventory control mechanism, but the primary difference between this approach and AACR is that an inventory approach goes no farther than designating a work as coterminous with the physical bibliographic item. There are similar approaches, such as the Books in Print CD-ROM, where I tend to find what I want, and other staff generally do not complain about results, search methods, or displays. But, clearly, an indexed inventory list is still a notch below an effectively created catalog using AACR, which separates the concept of work from document. The main entry concept, accompanied by authority control, can apply to both bibliographic items and to works -- a common thread that facilitates a far more accurate grouping function than Boolean searching alone can provide (at least potentially -- the implementation of work headings in MARC leaves a lot to be desired). A main entry is about choice, form, priority, and naming conventions -- basic skills that children learn well before they learn about titles and authors in a catalog. The main entry concept is the glue that brings togethers relationships between works in an intelligible fashion. That those relationships should be so indicated by controlled headings, has, to my knowledge, never successly been accomplished by any other method other than through an application of the main entry concept. Citations of specific bibliographic items is no difficult task. But citations that link together the intellectual content represented by the work is a much more significant endeavour, and is critical for certain kinds of works, such as musical compositions. Linking can be accomplished by control numbers, or other controlled terminology, but making relationships "intelligible" is a key purpose of the main entry heading. Moreover, there seems to be a great convenience in having that intelligibility transferred to shelf arrangement. Here, choice is unavoidable, and a "single entry" organization is thrust upon us. We could rely on pure subject call numbers or accession numbers, but these are not always the best solutions for certain cases. We cannot have a copy for every possible access point. And if we pick the first access point as found on the item, issues of control and priority are inevitably going to crop up -- solved once again by the main entry concept. The main entry concept has >>solved<< certain occasional problems -- eliminating main entry without replacement by an equal or better solution is not, I think, going to be the end result of this AACR conference. In these cases, we could live without the main entry, just like I can live not having one shoe tied up. And determining main entry is hardly a difficult task -- the vast majority of the author-listed-first cases would automatically match the correct main entry chosen by a cataloguer. This is an excellent contribution to the debate. However, I would classify your approach as good inventory control, where some of the control aspects of the main entry concept have been redistributed to other mechanisms. That the work is assumed to be coterminous with the bibliographic item is the primary difference between this approach and AACR. Tom Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library thomasb@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:47:48 METDST Reply-To: B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Bernhard Eversberg Organization: UB der TU-Braunschweig Subject: Main entry, no end in sight? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Time and again, we hear that in the online age all access points are equal, and therefore no distinction needs to be made anymore between them. And ergo, out with the main entry, out with authority control - new software, machine-generated hyperlinks, next-generation search engines will make everybody happy. Since opinions to this effect were voiced even in this list, a few remarks seem in order. One feels tempted to ponder the hidden agenda behind those opinions, but that's not what I want to do here. Nothing much needs to be added to Tom Brenndorfer's (yesterday) and Martha M. Yee's (some time ago) splendid defenses of the main entry concept. What I want to do here is to express some concern on a more general level, regarding the fact that cataloging is coming under scrutiny from outside the profession or even from outside librarianship. The fact that those opinions persist makes it obvious once again that there ought to be very clear statements (now missing) in AACR as to the purpose and objectives of the rules. But will that be enough? If cataloging as we know it is to survive, will there not also have to be what was called a "Layperson's Introduction", a concise summing-up in popular language (intelligible for people with no background in library science) of what cataloging is and attempts to do? We are finding ourselves in the middle of a vast and relentlessly expanding universe of recorded knowledge. Any hope to make it navigable with reduced intellectual effort is futile. That universe is created and shaped by human intelligence. We cannot rely on machine intelligence to map it for us or provide an autopilot. (AI research has made it clear that machine intelligence is something fundamentally different.) What we need is not just an ever larger array of access points of equal weight. We need qualified and prioritized access points, structured arrange- ments of result sets, links that group records in meaningful ways and collocate records which belong together but can never be found together without those links. The main entry concept, in its function of identifying a work, is one such device. Who wants to abolish it, first find a better one. It is just its name that is obsolete, and it does seem urgent now to find a new one. One might discuss the possibilities of introducing the "primary intellectual responsibility" (a UNIMARC term) into the code and of upgrading the uniform title. Combining (or post-coordinating) both could provide approximately the same services the main entry provides now. But the decisions involved would be the same. Reduced intellectual input into retrieval systems leads directly to those huge result sets we get from the search engines. The very word "result set" is wrong for those assortments of records. They contain masses of irrelevant material and yet there's no guaranty that the most relevant items are even among them. This annoys everybody (when it should alarm them), even those who propose reduced intellectual input in cataloging. Bernhard Eversberg Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836 e-mail B.Eversberg@tu-bs.de ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:26:43 +0100 Reply-To: mh@bodley.ox.ac.uk Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Mike Heaney Subject: Main entries Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII [Long post - apologies!] There seems to be a lot of confusion and posting at cross-purposes when it comes to the concept of "main entry". People are using the phrase in at least two different senses. The AACR2 definition is: "The complete catalogue record of an item, presented in the form by which the entity is to be uniformly identifed and cited. The main entry may include the tracings" There are three elements here, which underlie the confusion: the completeness (which is the core of the definition), the form, and the use for identification and citation. The completeness aspect relates to the other entry concepts, added entry and alternative entry. Before computer processing and uniformly distributed catalogue cards (and LC cards are only a small part of the AA bibligraphic universe!) there was a real time/cost element to the production of extra entries, which was often minimised by making the added entries shorter (e.g. just having added author, title and date). The"alternative entry" (late lamented in MARC coding) is simply an added entry which is not reduced but repeats all the information present in the main entry. From the point of view of completeness, alternative entries in print have abolished the main entry, as have computer displays which display the same catalogue record information regardless of the access point used to reach it. The form of presentation is perhaps closer to what many people are arguing about. Although AACR2 explicitly disavows prescribing a particular layout (rule 20.4) in practice people have taken the layout as prescriptive. In fact all that AACR2 is saying is "if you're only going make one entry, make this one". If you are making several entries (as the proponents of the "abolish main entry" argument are doing implicitly) then what you are doing is taking the "added entry" route in the broad sense, and rejecting "alternative entry" by not repeating the first author in the added entries. It is MARC which takes the AACR2 non-prescribed layout and fossilizes it, including the optional element that the main entry "may" include the tracings, giving us the 1XX/7XX split. The 1XX is often loosely referred to as the "main entry" and that is where much of the confusion lies. Can I suggest (without much hope of it happening) that "main entry" be defined as in AACR2, and if we want to talk about the 1XX/7XX problem, we talk about "main access point"? The use for identification and citation follows on from the selection of one access point as *the* access point to create first. The AACR2 definition founders slightly here, as it implies that all of the catalogue record should be used for identification and citation purposes. One can perhaps go along with this for citation purposes. (A side-swipe here: if AACR2's so good, why is it not used by the majority of journals for the references in their articles?). Identification, however, produces problems. Identifying what? For some users the name and title are enough. These are the people looking for "works". For others, the edition may also be necessary (those looking for "expressions", in IFLA-FRBR speak). Yet others may want a particular manifestation (e.g. if they're looking for the paperback not the hardback) or even a particular physical item. By and large the arrangement implied by AACR2 (author, uniform title, title, edition, publisher &c) follows this descending level of specificity in identification. So identification does not simply equate with "access point". The implication is, however, that we can home in on what we want by seeing it in relation to the things around it, which implies seeing its position in a sequence, or at least in a group, of other records. I agree with Bernard Eversberg's position that filing rules are an integral part of a catalogue; perhaps expanding this to take in Mark Ridley's and Rahmatollah Fattahi's approaches to the presentation of bibliographical information, which go beyond "filing". The first-level approach (beyond going into the library and saying, as people do, "I'm looking for a book" :-) ) is to the work, and indexes to library catalogues ought to take users at least that far, i.e.to the name+[uniform] title level. The anti-main-access-point view here would be that a work by authors A.B and C should be equally identifiable as Author A+Title, Author B+Title etc.; and of course it is easy to construct catalogues which enable us to do this. But underlying any of these is the "real" work [Author A+B+C+Title] which responds to any of the above searches and allows any display desired. It has to be *uniquely* identified in the catalogue database somehow. This may be by an internal reference number, or it may be by a human-legible string, in which case "Author A+Title" is as good as any. In a multilevel system, unique identifiers are needed for works, expressions, manifestations and items (in the IFLA-FRBR sense), of which works are at the top of the hierarchy. The only environment in which you can truly say there isn't a main entry is in the card catalogue using alternative entries, where for every instance of an entry for an item, all the catalogue information, including the tracings, is present, and an alteration can start with any one of them and be replicated to the others. The equivalent of that in an automated environment would be massive and pointless redundancy. So far from abolishing the main entry concept, in the sense of a complete entry identifying an item, the computer catalogue makes it indispensable. Argue as much as you like about variations on the themes of search and display, but all that is secondary to the form in which the data are held. Mike Heaney Associate Director (Service Assessment, Planning and Provision) University Library Services Directorate University of Oxford michael.heaney@ulib.ox.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:31:28 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Alison Hall Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? In-Reply-To: from "Robert Cunnew" at Sep 26, 97 11:16:45 pm Content-Type: text > >Would cataloguers be fired if we no longer needed them to produce > >main entries? > > >Of course not; they should be out meeting and > >advising our customers. Do you think doctors and lawyers could > >command the salaries and the respect (or fear) that they do if > >they stayed in the back room and sent the least trained members > >of their staff out to deal with the public? Engineers, > >professors, scientists of various kinds, all deal hands-on with > >the matter of their professions. Our "matter" is information, > >and it is people -- ourselves and our customers -- who are > >INFORMED. Words on paper, data in databases, are raw materials. > >As a profession we have to be concerned with the process by which > >people are INFORMED. We have to send our best and brightest out > >to meet our customers. But enough, that is a separate topic! > > I can't go along with this. Yes the main entry is an outdated concept > but assigning main entry is surely a small part of a cataloguer's work. > And don't let's denigrate the back room. With or without main entry we > need specialists to create and maintain professional catalogues. There > is nothing more noble about sitting at a counter all day doing other > people's research for them. I agree that a cataloguer's expertise can > be invaluable in enquiry work and a certain amount of enquiry work can > be valuable to a cataloguer, but people who answer enquiries all day > have no time (both literally and by inclination) for cataloguing: if it > was left to them there would be no catalogues ... > -- > Robert Cunnew > Librarian, Chartered Insurance Institute, London > Thanks from the 'back room' for your support. If cataloguing is not 'hands on' work, I don't know what is! (But then, I'm obviously biased.......) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alison Hall, Head of Cataloguing, Carleton University Library ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alison_Hall@Carleton.ca ph: + (613) 520-2600 Ext. 8150 Carleton University Library fx: + (613) 520-3583 1125 Colonel By Drive Ottawa ON K1S 5B6 Canada ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:32:20 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Dan Kniesner Subject: Re: Access Points Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I think Jim Agenbroad's proposal that certain name authorities should have a nonroman script form is both timely and thought-provoking. Jim Agenbroad wrote on Sept. 25: >"Instead I would propose that persons and corporate >bodies have an established form of their name in >every script that their name appears in works in a >particular library or is likely to be sought by readers >of a particular library and references to these from >others in the same script." I think his proposal is very timely because I've noticed that: (1) In its strategic plan "Beyond 2000" recently released, OCLC seems to be increasing its emphasis now on internationalization, including providing literature and documentation in Chinese script, as a start. (2) At least two major library system vendors are preparing completely rewritten client-server systems that are based on Unicode among other things (DRA's Taos and VTLS's Virtua). (3) Both Microsoft's and Apple's desktop operating systems are becoming increasingly internationalized. An upgrade to the Mac OS (8.0.1) to be released by end of this year, for example, will allow file names of up to 255 Unicode characters. How this translates into our everyday experience at the keyboard and screen is uncertain in my mind but thought-provoking. The implications for authority control and online catalog displays are yet another factor to be considered by revisers of AACR2. Is Jim's proposal a good example of where the concept of international access records would be useful -- that is, "authority" records with names in various forms (and scripts), none of which is truly the established form? Local libraries could choose one to be displayed in their catalogs? If a local library would choose more than one, however, doesn't that go against Cutter's objective of collocation much the same as a library who enters some of Mark Twain's works under Twain and others under Clemens? How these names would be sorted in an online catalog is another problem that Jim mentions. Most library system vendors have figured out how to sort together ascii data regardless whether it's in upper case or lower case, so I guess they could figure out how to sort Unicode data that is outside the ascii range. Without some computerized transliteration tables, however, or without access records that could serve a transliteration purpose, it's hard to imagine how online catalogs could do it. Or should we even worry about it? Is it a nonissue? Those catalog users who are nonroman-oriented would simply have to learn how Unicode sorts? As Jim mentions, AACR2 rule 1.0E covers the transcription of titles in the language and script in which written. If catalogers actually do this in the future, what impact would this have on our current practice of uniform titles? Would it result in an expansion of the use of uniform titles? I am not familiar with the current practice of CJK cataloging on OCLC or RLIN. September 29, 1997 Dan Kniesner Oregon Health Sciences University Library Portland, Oregon Internet: kniesner@ohsu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:58:17 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "H. Arthur Vespry" Subject: Re: main entry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 14:09 26/09/97 +0200, Donald Pisani wrote: >Hello AACR-Friends, > I haven't been following all of this discussion, but I would > like to make a suggestion: Why don't we just rename the > main-entry "first-among-added-entries" (-: and then leave > it at that? A different suggestion: Why don't we forget the word "entry" (which was something typed on a catalogue card) and use the phrase "access point" 8-) ? >We are going to have to have some sort of filtering rules >for added entries and they will imply that some entries are >more important than others. Why? The most important access point is the one the searcher (librarian, customer) is using at the moment. If I'm searching for a title, it is the "main" object of my search; similarly with an author, a corporate entity, or whatever. You can't know what will be "main" to me, except that it is likely to change from one to another of the possible access points according to my knowledge and my task at hand at a particular moment. Why should you care? Provide the access points, and let the users get on with their searching. >We will probably end up having main-entries (one for authors, >one for titles and one for corporate bodies). Again, WHY? >Do we really want to replace one complicated set of rules with > another? Definitely not! Let's simplify. We are not making catalogue cards any more; let's move away from the constraints that the card imposed upon us. >I have the Manual of Style here and in the General rules (15.31) > it is written: "A citation should enable the interested reader > to find the source with a minimum of effort. Thus, a reference > to a book should begin with the element under which the reader > may expect to find it in a library catalog ....". This is of course a cop-out. The reader should expect to find the work under multiple access points in the library catalog.... But take it a step further. Lists of references are an adjunct of scholarly publishing or serious technical works. The people that produce them will continue to prefer entry under personal or corporate entity in most cases. If they have a number of references to papers in a report series, they may use the series as the main access point in their bibliography. The folk who compile and edit bibliographies will continue to do what makes sense for their particular purposes, without requiring a copy of cataloguing rules to determine "main entries". >The key words here are: minimum of effort; If you can find it under any reasonable access point (we exclude e.g. colour of the cover), that is true minimum of effort. >reference to a (one) book; A unique reference is a different question from the question of access points or main entries. >library catalog. As said, in the catalogue/database, you can expect to find it under all reasonable access points. >It seems to me that the writer and the reader are also choosing > main entries. A bibliographer or compiler of footnotes is choosing a FORMAT for his/her list. You have to being with something (everything has to be somewhere) so you begin with what you care about. In a scholarly list the citations typically begin with the names of scholars and/or the institutions in which they work. But if there is a handier way to group to save space, they may e.g. begin with a series entry. A list of picture books for pre- schoolers, on the other hand, might better be arranged by titles; most parents don't know the authors of their children's favourite bedtime books. We can't predict what is going to be primary; it changes from bibliography to bibliography; and in the final analysis it is not our concern. Our concern is to provide easy access from all reasonable identifiers of a work >Should we really drop the main entry or try to improve the rules > so that our footnote readers find their books in our catalogs? If we provide all reasonable access points, they will find it. "Main entries" don't help users; they have never heard of such a thing. Fine-tuning something that is completely irrelevant to them is NOT the way to help our customers. They are looking for particular authors, titles, corporate entities, works on a topic of current concern. If we do our jobs properly, they will find the pertinent items in our databases. Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:58:28 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Another archival perspective Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:22 26/09/97 -0400, Steve Hensen wrote: >While any discussion of cataloging is inevitably bound to get >bogged down in some detail, it does seem to me that at the very >least questions of punctuation ought to be outside the scope of >the present discussion. Surely minutiae such as this or even >questions relating to such so-called "larger" issues relating to >choice of headings, main entries, or online catalog displays >will fall in their proper place once first principles are >established. Perhaps one of these first principles should be that the question of "access points" -(which should be provided, and how they should be presented)- is a separate question from display and print formats. If the necessary elements, including the ACCESS POINTS, are included in the record, with each element cited in the way specified in AACR, records can be displayed and/or printed in whatever FORMAT is suitable for the intended audience, and from time to time in different formats depending on the expected audience/use. Formats can be longer or shorter (more of less complete), and they can vary the order of the elements which are selected. Thus results of a subject search would be expected to displayed subject first, title search results would be displayed with the title first, and so on. Similarly, printed bibliographies should be tailored to the target audience and expected use. Thus one of the criteria for establishing the various elements should be to avoid constraining display/print formats unnecessarily. >At the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists last >month in Chicago, William Y. Arms, ... When asked if he saw any >hope in correcting this situation, he replied that the answers >to the question were probably more "sociological" than >technical. I hope he is wrong. Probably not. Anything I've read about paradigm shifts isn't encouraging. Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:58:46 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: main entry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:59 27/09/97 +1000, Giles S Martin wrote: > >I would suggest renaming one meaning of "main entry" as >"standard citation". This is a concept which most library users >would understand (although the more perceptive would notice that >there are varying standards for "standard citations", both in >bibliographies and in bibliographic databases). Aren't we talking about a format? Maybe it should be called the "standard print format"? Though, as noted, citation standards vary. "Default print format"? "Responsibility-led format"? "Citation format", because it is close to the format used in footnotes and reference lists? >In AACR a "standard citation" would be the uniform heading for a >work, consisting of either: > (1) The heading for the person or organization solely or >chiefly responsible for the work, plus the uniform title for the >work, or It is seldom possible to discern who is chiefly responsible when more than one author's name appears on the document, let alone when there is corporate responsibility. The student did the work, but the professor put his name first? The head politician or bureaucrat signed, but the names of those who wrote it are omitted? We have to fall back on what person(s) and/or organization(s) is/are credited on the document. Why, then, make these "priority decisions" at all? Unless attributions are clearly spurious, treat all the personal and/or corporate names as access points in the database, i.e. enter them in the record. (Well, maybe not all. Et al. is a useful escape.) The "standard citation" that I find in lists of references in the textbooks on my shelf starts out with all the authors, e.g. Smith, Brown and Jones (1997) Title..... Why should our "standard/main" format show only one author above the title? Similarly, if a document is produced by the World Bank and UNDP, why should we decide that the name of only one of these organizations should appear above the title? Anyone who knows anything about inter- (or intra-) organizational politics shudders at the idea of implying priority among institutions who will work together ONLY if equality is assumed (even in cases where such equality is merely a polite fiction). > (2) The uniform title for the work, where no one person or >organization is regarded as solely of chiefly responsible for >the work. Again, why are we making decisions about sole or chief responsibility? If authors/editors/compilers/illustrators/etc are shown, we record them as access points; the same with organizations that see fit to have their names on the document. They can appear above the title in the "responsibility-led format" and below in the "title-led format". Of course, if no responsibility is discernable, the title would be the first element of the citation, even in the "responsibility format". Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:58:34 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Another archival perspective Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 21:18 26/09/97 +0100, Leonard Will wrote: >For some years now the museum community has been moving away >from the concept of simply creating a standalone catalogue >record of an object, including within it the names of the >people, organisations, places, events, materials and so on with >which it is associated. In the relational models that seem most >effective, these become separate independent files, of equal >status to the file of object records. Links are then created to >associate a person with an object, one person with another, a >person with an organisation, an object with an event, an object >with another object, and so on. >It seems that the increasing use of authority files in library >systems is a recognition of this approach, and I wonder whether >it is time to recognise it explicitly as a fundamental >principle. Instead of just creating a file of records for >bibliographical items, we create files for works, physical >manifestations of works, people, organisations, places, >subjects, events, and whatever other entities we need. The links >may be implemented as "joins" within the structure of a >relational database, or as SGML hypertext links, or in other >ways, such as the MARC 76x - 78x tags. >.... >...AACR and the MARC format are not adapted to this structure. >Instead of just rules about forms of name, do we need rules for >the creation of "person", "organisation", and "place" records, >each of which which may have may additional attributes? >Could these records of entities other than books be shared in >the same way as bibliographical records are now, independently >of their links to any bibliographical records? Within the life >of AACR3 is it likely that such files will be held centrally and >read and updated over the Internet as required, rather than >having to be copied to local systems? >There is nothing new in all this, but it does seem that it calls >for a change of viewpoint, making the record for the >bibliographic item just one among many types. Do other people >agree? I would agree strongly. This could perhaps be viewed as being based upon augmenting our traditional authority records? This approach should provide maximum flexibility, which is essential in a time of rapid change in "publishing". It could thus extend the useful life of the next edition of AACR, which will have to serve in a future which is to likely bring us accelerating rates of change. It could also increase the user-friendliness of AACR for our colleagues in museums, galleries, archives or any other entity concerned with inventory and accessibility of collections of artifacts. If so, it would surely serve the customers who are likely to be increasingly impatient of the barriers dividing such entities and their collections. Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:40:02 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Role of AACR and MARC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Monday, September 29, 1997 It might be useful to attempt to define the role AACR and MARC are intended to have. An initial, imperfect offering follows: AACR specifies rules for description (based on ISBD) and non-subject access points. MARC identifies cataloging and authority data for subsequent computer processing--including many data elements AACR does not mention such as subject headings, classification numbers, fixed fields, etc. Neither deals with sorting. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:12:09 -0700 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: AACRCONF Coordinator Organization: NLC-BNC Subject: Re: Another archival perspective MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Sat, 27 Sep 1997 17:32:33 -0500 Elisabeth D Spanhoff wrote: [in response to] > > > > > >Could these records of entities other than books be shared in the same > >way as bibliographical records are now, independently of their links to > >any bibliographical records? Within the life of AACR3 is it likely that > >such files will be held centrally and read and updated over the Internet > >as required, rather than having to be copied to local systems? > > Michael Heaney appeared to be thinking along those lines in his 1995 > article, "Object-Oriented Cataloging," Information Technology and > Libraries (September 1995), if I read him right. > Yes, indeed I was, although I mentioned the lack of acceptance of AACR2 among the archival community only in passing. I do feel that AACR2's claim to be equally applicable to (and by implication equally suitable for) all classes of cataloguable material -- a claim repeated in at least one of the papers for this conference -- simply does not bear up under scrutiny. Another obvious example is the failure to provide in AACR2 a "guaranteed" access point for the place depicted on a map, an attribute which is the essential characteristic of any map. Other areas have been voiced on this list -- the difficulties associated with AV material, the conflicts implicit in the treatment of sound recordings vs scores -- most of which derive from treating a complex secondary object (the manifestation) as primary. Rather like chemistry before the discovery of elements. Mike Heaney Associate Director (Service Assessment, Planning and Provision) University Library Services Directorate University of Oxford michael.heaney@ulib.ox.ac.uk --- End Forwarded Message --- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:25:00 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Disipio Mary F." Subject: Content versus Carrier Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Please note that the following conference paper is now available on the JSC Web site: Content versus Carrier by Lynne C. Howarth ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:58:13 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: WATTERS@MYRIAD.MIDDLEBURY.EDU Subject: Re: main entry Responses seem to center around the "being able to get to the record from any and every access point", which seems to me a given. Displaying simply from the 245 on in ISBD punctuation is also mentioned. So that covers the individual record display. But what about the display of a list of records? In my system, if the name I search under is a 700, I get to the record, but, if I get to 2 records or 50 records, I get to a list and that is presented in order of main entry. That is, the software no longer has to deal with how I got there, just with the thing itself. Programmers tell me listing under the entry I retrieved by would be more complicated. And still there's the bit about referring to another work. I have a book about the play No exit. I can get to the play by any access point (Sartre, No exit, Huis clos.English), but I can ONLY get to the book ABOUT it by Sartre or Huis clos. So, in this no-main-entry world, would we make three entries? If it were a work about Tillich's systematic theology would we make additional entries under every subject Tillich's work was assigned? Do we have better "work" or authority records so any access point takes you to a central place where you can connect to all these access points for the original work. Etc. Just wondering, Cynthia Watters Catalog Librarian Middlebury College watters@myriad.middlebury.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:33:37 +1000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Giles S Martin Subject: Re: Access Points In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sorting is definitely an issue if headings/access points can be in non-Roman scripts. There is no standard filing order for Unicode/ ISO10646 characters, partly because there is no international agreement, even within scripts. Even the French and the Germans sort the extended Lartin alphabet differently -- the differences are much greater when you look at how the Chinese and Japanese sort Han characters. Furthermore, some scripts have different filing orders within a particular culture. Japanese dictionaries can be organised by the order of the katakana or hiragana characters, by stroke number of the Han characters, or by the traditional Chinese radical in the Han characters. However, in spite of the problems, sorting is useful, becase of the advantages of browsing when you are unsure of the exact heading you are looking for. What you would need as a minimum would be: (1) Transliteration of headings into the normal script of the library's users -- which for the Anglophone world would be the Latin alphabet, presumably without diacritics. The headings could then be sorted in accordance with the rules of that script. (2) Sorting of headings which are not in the normal scrip[t of the library's users in the appropriate way for that script. So you would have Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, etc., indexes for headings. In addition, you might need some language specific indexes for idiosyncratic languages like Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Giles #### ## Giles Martin ####### #### Newcastle ################# New South Wales #################### Australia ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) ## [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside Australia, the area code is now (02).] On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Dan Kniesner wrote: > I think Jim Agenbroad's proposal that certain name authorities should have a > nonroman script form is both timely and thought-provoking. [matter deleted] > How these names would be sorted in an online catalog is another problem that Jim > mentions. Most library system vendors have figured out how to sort together > ascii data regardless whether it's in upper case or lower case, so I guess they > could figure out how to sort Unicode data that is outside the ascii range. > Without some computerized transliteration tables, however, or without access > records that could serve a transliteration purpose, it's hard to imagine how > online catalogs could do it. Or should we even worry about it? Is it a > nonissue? Those catalog users who are nonroman-oriented would simply have to > learn how Unicode sorts? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:41:28 UT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Thomas Brenndorfer Subject: Re: main entry -----Original Message----- From: International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR On Behalf Of Marianne Vespry Sent: Monday, September 29, 1997 2:59 PM To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Re: main entry At 08:59 27/09/97 +1000, Giles S Martin wrote: >In AACR a "standard citation" would be the uniform heading for a >work, consisting of either: > (1) The heading for the person or organization solely or >chiefly responsible for the work, plus the uniform title for the >work, or It is seldom possible to discern who is chiefly responsible when more than one author's name appears on the document, let alone when there is corporate responsibility. The student did the work, but the professor put his name first? The head politician or bureaucrat signed, but the names of those who wrote it are omitted? We have to fall back on what person(s) and/or organization(s) is/are credited on the document. Why, then, make these "priority decisions" at all? Unless attributions are clearly spurious, treat all the personal and/or corporate names as access points in the database, i.e. enter them in the record. (Well, maybe not all. Et al. is a useful escape.) The "standard citation" that I find in lists of references in the textbooks on my shelf starts out with all the authors, e.g. Smith, Brown and Jones (1997) Title..... Why should our "standard/main" format show only one author above the title? Similarly, if a document is produced by the World Bank and UNDP, why should we decide that the name of only one of these organizations should appear above the title? Anyone who knows anything about inter- (or intra-) organizational politics shudders at the idea of implying priority among institutions who will work together ONLY if equality is assumed (even in cases where such equality is merely a polite fiction). Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net [] On the issue of corporate main entry, the corporate body is only designated as main entry if the work is "about" the corporate body. When the topic is not the corporate body itself, then the title is the main entry. Corporate authorship is not much of a problem in AACR2. I think that an element of the main entry concept that has not been emphasized is its efficient and economical nature as a heading to define a specific entity (in AACR, we identify works -- the citation forms you have indicated seem rooted in the need to identify items only). Suppose we take yourself as an entity, and construct a series of access points: vespry@ican.net home address work phone number Vespry, Marianne Marianne Vespry, contributer to Listserv discussion birthdate Are these then all equal? What if we want to identify *uniquely*, *quickly*, and *efficiently* the >>main entity< From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Re: Access Points In-Reply-To: Jim Agenbroad wrote on Sept. 25: >>Instead I would propose that persons and corporate >>bodies have an established form of their name in >>every script that their name appears in works in a >>particular library or is likely to be sought by readers >>of a particular library and references to these from >>others in the same script. CANMARC records often contain the main entry in both French and English (in two 110s in the case of a corporate body). A letter code following the indicators indicates the language. Added entries are also often in two languages, again with the language letter codes following the 710 indicators. Some libraries delete the duplicate fields, others program to use the appropriate one for their working language using the letter code. It seems to me that nothing would prevent the same method being used to transcribe and code entries in other scripts, granted the ability of utilities and local systems to handle those scripts. If other fields are also to be in both scripts, we would need to restore the obsolete 241, and create additional fields, or made 245, 260, etc. repeating with letter language codes. It is difficult to picture how AACR could provide for such a practice without reference to MARC. Consider how much easier it would be to say "130" or "240" rather than the less precise "uniform title". In terms of sorting, some scripts have their own "alphabetical" order, e.g., Korean Hankul. The Japanese syllabury also has a prescribed order. For Chinese ideographs, stroke number sorting would be the most universal, understood in China, Japan, Korea, and the west. It is important, I think, before embarking on such a new development to very carefully explore what has been done, and others' experience in doing it. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:46:11 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Variety in display Comments: To: vespry@ICAN.NET In-Reply-To: <199709291858.OAA20827@mail0.tor.acc.ca> >If the necessary elements, including the ACCESS POINTS, are >included in the record, with each element cited in the way >specified in AACR, records can be displayed and/or printed in >whatever FORMAT is suitable for the intended audience, and from >time to time in different formats depending on the expected >audience/use. As Gorman pointed out, the ISBD was a major international effort which established a standard not only for the transcription of information, but for its display. A 260$b"The Committee" displayed without the preceding 245$c doesn't help anyone. The 700 Festschrift honouree or legal case defendant, labeled "author", displayed without the 245$c doesn't help anyone. I find nothing wrong with the ISBD wheel, and see no reason to reinvent it. If bibliographic data is displayed in the ISBD order with the prescribed punctuation, no labels (often misleading) are needed to identify its parts. If that standard were followed, it would be much easier for catalogue users to move from library to library. I fondly remember the days of the card catalogue, when I could walk into *any* library in North America, Europe, and many in Asia, open a drawer, and *know* what I was seeing. If we are truely concerned with internationalization, we should avoid monolingual labels, just as ISBD substitutes "/" for the former North American "[by]". Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:53:56 +1000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Giles S Martin Subject: Re: Access Points In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The CANMARC format has had to deal with a bi-lingual country, and has done so in a way which makes a great deal of sense in a country where the official languages are English and French. However, it doesn't make so much sense outside that context. AACR is an international code, although it was desighned for the English-speaking world. Therefore, in the AACR world outside of Canada, you don't have a simple situation like that in Canada. (Although Canadians may not think their situation simple, it is simple, partly because it has been made part of their legal system. In Australia, Britain, and the U.S. there is no official language: English is at best the de facto main language, but in each country oyther languages have various degrees of official support, such as Welsh in Britain and Spanish in the U.S.) To achieve the same functionality in an internationally shared format, you would need to provoide some sort of coding for two things: the language of the heading, and whether the heading was an "official" name of the organisation. You would also want to do this in the authority record for the organisation, rather than in the bibliographic record, unless you did not have a system with adequate authority control. AACR gets around this by giving priority to English -- a solution which would not be acceptable in Canada, and which would also not be acceptable outside the English-speaking world. Giles #### ## Giles Martin ####### #### Newcastle ################# New South Wales #################### Australia ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) ## [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside Australia, the area code is now (02).] On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, J. McRee Elrod wrote: > CANMARC records often contain the main entry in both French and English > (in two 110s in the case of a corporate body). A letter code following > the indicators indicates the language. Added entries are also often in > two languages, again with the language letter codes following the 710 > indicators. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:01:40 +1000 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Giles S Martin Subject: Sorting of non-Roman scripts (Was: Re: Access Points) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Stroke number sorting is widely understood in East Asia. The problem with it is that Unicode/ISO 10646 has used what is called "Han unification", in which varosant forms of the same Chinese (Han) character are treated as the same. The most obvious problem are the "simplified" characters, used in China but not in Taiwan, where ther simplified character usually has many fewer strokes than the traditional character. There are also some variations in hanji used in Japan as compared to the corresponding Chinese character which affect the number of strokes. However, this is digressing a little from AACR, except for the basic point: Filing order can become very complex when you move away from the English language, and include other languages and other scripts. Giles #### ## Giles Martin ####### #### Newcastle ################# New South Wales #################### Australia ###################* E-mail: ulgsm@dewey.newcastle.edu.au ##### ## ### Phone: +61 2 4961 1972 (International) ## [Note that the telephone numbers have just changed. From inside Australia, the area code is now (02).] On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, J. McRee Elrod wrote: > In terms of sorting, some scripts have their own "alphabetical" order, > e.g., Korean Hankul. The Japanese syllabury also has a prescribed order. > For Chinese ideographs, stroke number sorting would be the most > universal, understood in China, Japan, Korea, and the west. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:00:54 -0400 Reply-To: Arlene Taylor Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Arlene Taylor Subject: Re: Role of AACR and MARC In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, James E. Agenbroad wrote: > Monday, September 29, 1997 > It might be useful to attempt to define the role AACR and MARC are > intended to have. An initial, imperfect offering follows: AACR specifies > rules for description (based on ISBD) and non-subject access points. MARC > identifies cataloging and authority data for subsequent computer > processing--including many data elements AACR does not mention such as > subject headings, classification numbers, fixed fields, etc. Neither > deals with sorting. And following on these definitions one might add that SGML encoding is another means for encoding cataloging and authority data for subsequent computer processing. And the Dublin Core provides an element set into which cataloging data may be placed. This is why it is important not to tie AACR up with MARC. **************************************************** Arlene G. Taylor ** Associate Professor Department of Library and Information Science School of Information Sciences University of Pittsburgh ** Pittsburgh, PA 15260 e-mail: taylor@lis.pitt.edu ** voice: 412-624-9452 fax: 412-648-7001 ** http://www.pitt.edu/~agtaylor **************************************************** "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly." --Richard Bach ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 21:01:31 -0400 Reply-To: mac@slc.bc.ca Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "J. McRee Elrod" Organization: Special Libraries Cataloguing, Inc. Subject: Howarth paper Howarth in her paper "Content versus Carrier" means by content what others have called work, and by carrier what others have called the physical item. Adding to the two-tier record suggested by the "Multiple Versions Forum Report" of the 1990 meeting in Airlie, Virginia, Howarth recommends a four-tier hierarchical record: First tier would be the much discussed work record, including access points associated with the work. Second tier would be authority records, presumably for access points in both First and Third tier records. Third tier would be manifestation records, including access points associated with the manifestation. Forth tier would be item records. Howarth admits that this would "essentially reorder existing areas of descriptive cataloguing", i.e., abandon ISBD. Occam's razor anyone? While Howarth states that "where interpretation or use of an item is dependent on its physicallity, it will be important to capture and describe those characteristics ... for example is readability of electronic resources based on different operating systems ...". But she makes no suggestions for expanding the scope of the collation to include a specific material designation to even go so far as to identify an electronic resource as such. Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:39:53 +0100 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Helen Buhler Subject: Re: main entry In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:58:17 EDT." <199709291858.OAA20783@mail0.tor.acc.ca> Marianne et al, >At 14:09 26/09/97 +0200, Donald Pisani wrote: > >>Hello AACR-Friends, > >> I haven't been following all of this discussion, but I would >> like to make a suggestion: Why don't we just rename the >> main-entry "first-among-added-entries" (-: and then leave >> it at that? > >A different suggestion: Why don't we forget the word "entry" >(which was something typed on a catalogue card) and use the >phrase "access point" 8-) ? > >>We are going to have to have some sort of filtering rules >>for added entries and they will imply that some entries are >>more important than others. > >Why? The most important access point is the one the searcher >(librarian, customer) is using at the moment. If I'm searching >for a title, it is the "main" object of my search; similarly with >an author, a corporate entity, or whatever. You can't know what >will be "main" to me, except that it is likely to change from one >to another of the possible access points according to my >knowledge and my task at hand at a particular moment. Why should >you care? Provide the access points, and let the users get on >with their searching. > [Remainder snipped to save space and reading time] I absolutely agree. We no longer make the old Panizzi-style 'main' and 'added' entries with full details of the work given only in the 'main' entry, so why keep the name? And, too, if we provide the access points that a searcher is likely to look for, they ought to be able to find what they are looking for. So, which access points, and how do we make them available in a form under which they can be found? Authority control comes in here surely, at least until we have systems whereby you can search under a form of heading and be taken automatically to the records you want even if they are in fact listed under a different form of that heading (which is one for the programmers). Thank you for some sound common sense! Helen Helen Buhler, The Templeman Library, The University, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NU. Fax: +44 (0)1227 827107 or 823984 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:17:32 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "James E. Agenbroad" Subject: Non-Roman Sorting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Tuesday, September 30, 1997 I think in this area the first two questions the Conference (or JSC?) could consider are: 1. Should a future AACR include rules for sorting as some on this list have suggested? and, 2. Should a future AACR include rules for making non-roman access points as I have suggested? If both were answered "Yes" then one would logically ask should AACR also have rules for sorting some or all non-roman access points? If so, rather than start with CJK writing systems one might begin with more alphabetic scripts such as Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic. Hebrew, Armenian and the various Brahmi-based South and Southeast Asian scripts (Tibetan, Tamil, Thai and in between). Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:34:02 -0500 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: "Kevin M. Randall" Subject: Re: main entry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:58 PM 9/29/97 -0400, Marianne Vespry wrote: >A different suggestion: Why don't we forget the word "entry" >(which was something typed on a catalogue card) and use the >phrase "access point" 8-) ? The term "entry" does not apply only to catalog cards. It's also commonly used to refer to individual items in an index, such as in the back of a book. All of our "access points" (1XX, 24X, 7XX, etc.) do in fact create "entries" in the online catalog. Perhaps the emoticon at the end of the above paragraph implies the suggestion was tongue-in-cheek, but it does seem that we are really getting much too hung up on the terminology. The meanings of words change over time, and by now I would think that nearly everyone, when they hear someone say "main entry", *knows* that what is being talked about is the heading, not the card(s) in the cataloging containing the entire description, tracings, etc. And when they hear someone say "added entry", they know that what is meant is the 246, 730, or whatever else is giving an added access point; I highly doubt they think of the card in the catalog that only refers them to another card somewhere else in the catalog where they can find a description of the item. >The most important access point is the one the searcher >(librarian, customer) is using at the moment. If I'm searching >for a title, it is the "main" object of my search; similarly with >an author, a corporate entity, or whatever. You can't know what >will be "main" to me, except that it is likely to change from one >to another of the possible access points according to my >knowledge and my task at hand at a particular moment. Why should >you care? Provide the access points, and let the users get on >with their searching. Of course I do not care one bit what access point is important at any given time for any given person. Designating one access point as the "main entry" does not negate the importance of the others, nor does it keep them from functioning (as the argument above would almost seem to suggest); if it did, wouldn't we just then eliminate all the others? We include all of them *precisely* because we *do* know that a single entry into the record is not sufficient. But the need for the additional access points does not negate the need for the main entry. >Let's simplify. We are not making catalogue >cards any more; let's move away from the constraints that the >card imposed upon us. But these "constraints" were "imposed" on us long before the card catalog. Even if we were not making catalog cards any more (several people on this list have testified that some of us still are), the concept still applies to the catalog no matter its form. >A bibliographer or compiler of footnotes is choosing a FORMAT for >his/her list. You have to being with something (everything has >to be somewhere) so you begin with what you care about. In a >scholarly list the citations typically begin with the names of >scholars and/or the institutions in which they work. But if >there is a handier way to group to save space, they may e.g. >begin with a series entry. A list of picture books for pre- >schoolers, on the other hand, might better be arranged by titles; >most parents don't know the authors of their children's favourite >bedtime books. We can't predict what is going to be primary; it >changes from bibliography to bibliography; and in the final >analysis it is not our concern. Our concern is to provide easy >access from all reasonable identifiers of a work The main entry concept does nothing whatsoever to impede "easy access from all reasonable identifiers of a work." The main entry concept is deeply ingrained in western society. Alphabetical arrangement by primary author is not limited to scholarly works. Bibliographies (in nonfiction works in general, not only "scholarly" ones) tend to arrange the entries by the first named author (*even if* there are more than one). Bookstores nearly always arrange books by author; I have been in some that arranged by title, and it is not a pleasant experience. >If we provide all reasonable access points, they will find it. >"Main entries" don't help users; they have never heard of such a >thing. Fine-tuning something that is completely irrelevant to >them is NOT the way to help our customers. They are looking for >particular authors, titles, corporate entities, works on a topic >of current concern. If we do our jobs properly, they will find >the pertinent items in our databases. Perhaps the normal library users do not know the term "main entry", but they certainly know the concept. It is by no means irrelevant to them. How would a "main entry"-less catalog work? If a record needs a reference to, or from, another work called "Bulletin", how is that reference going to be given? The title "Bulletin" alone is incredibly insufficient; for example, it brings up 3211 entries in the catalog at Northwestern. Serials catalogers already know the pain of having to make up uniform titles in order to properly relate works in the catalog. Music is a classic example of the need for main entry, and has been brought up countless times on this list (and strangely continues to be ignored by those proposing the abolition of main entry). For example, how would access be provided in a record containing several works by different composers? I seem to remember reading a suggestion to simply give entries for the titles and entries for the composers, but how would that help? Without a mechanism for associating each title with each composer, it would be little better than the current web search engines, and the user would have to wade through very many irrelevant records to find the proper one(s). I had been encouraged to read the support for main entry in some of the conference papers, but it's frightening to see how many posts have reacted against it. I am still hanging on to my hope that the conference participants will keep their heads and endorse this concept which is so basic to the library catalog structure. Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-7637 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 13:48:49 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Elisheva Schwartz Organization: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Subject: Re: Non-Roman Sorting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Perhaps this has been brought up before, but aren't we confusing cataloging rules with OPAC and/or bibliographic utility features? I don't see that AACR2 anywhere _restricts_ non-roman access points. RLIN does (and OCLC does so even more), so those of us who are RLG members are constrained to assign English-language subject headings ( a departure for us), but we could, in theory, use a Yiddish or Hebrew system in an OPAC with vernacular capacity according to AACR2. With regard to sorting, I would rather see filing rules developed by specialist groups in the various languages, rather than attempting this as part of AACR. Those OPAC's which allow vernacular input (for example the Aleph system in use in Israel) already have an up-and -running filing system. I can't see any Aleph library readily switching over to an AACR-mandated system--what would be the point? Even in Roman alphabet languages in the United States we have competing filing systems developed by native speakers--any filing system for use by specialized libraries would have to take their needs into account as well as resolve issues of variant orthographies, non-standard variations, etc. (A widely-accepted thesaurus of subject headings in each of those languages would also be needed, of course.) Is this really the purview of a _cataloging_ code at all? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 21:51:38 UT Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Thomas Brenndorfer Subject: Howarth paper -----Original Message----- From: International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR On Behalf Of J. McRee Elrod Sent: Monday, September 29, 1997 9:02 PM To: AACRCONF@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Subject: Howarth paper Howarth in her paper "Content versus Carrier" means by content what others have called work, and by carrier what others have called the physical item. Adding to the two-tier record suggested by the "Multiple Versions Forum Report" of the 1990 meeting in Airlie, Virginia, Howarth recommends a four-tier hierarchical record: First tier would be the much discussed work record, including access points associated with the work. Second tier would be authority records, presumably for access points in both First and Third tier records. Third tier would be manifestation records, including access points associated with the manifestation. Forth tier would be item records. Howarth admits that this would "essentially reorder existing areas of descriptive cataloguing", i.e., abandon ISBD. Occam's razor anyone? Mac __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ [] In reading Howarth's paper, I had recollections of numerous comments fellow staff members have made about the number of catalog records for the same work. Intuitively, the staff seems to have picked up on the same division in the description that Howarth promotes. For example, having multiple records for the same work, but published in different countries, or even in different formats, such as large print, makes no sense to many staff members and patrons. What is appealing is the "work" and then the copy record, where the collection code or call number would provide the necessary information to distinguish large print from regular text. Those various fields in ISBD denoting various bits of information about the particular physical manifestation mean little to these users. The staff and the public want access points laid out, as well as subject headings and summary notes (the newly switched on 520 field is extremely popular -- for most people, this field is what is meant by "description," not the fields describing the physical aspects of the item). In other words, many users already think along the lines outlined in Howarth's paper, regardless of the current form of cataloguing records. Tom Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library thomasb@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 19:09:03 -0400 Reply-To: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" Sender: "International Conference on the Principles and Future Dev. of AACR" From: Marianne Vespry Subject: Re: Main entry - an obsolete concept? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 23:16 26/09/97 +0100, Robert Cunnew wrote: In article <199709260352.XAA06548@mail0.tor.acc.ca>, "H. Arthur Vespry" (actually Marianne Vespry) writes >>If anyone still needs to be convinced that the main entry is an >>albatross around our necks, a few bad-tempered words on the >>subject follow. >Essentially I agree with you, although I think it's more of a >fly than an albatross. I think it's part of a general feeling >that an automated catalogue should be just that: a card >catalogue that lives inside a computer. Why? When we (a number of colleagues in the 1960s and 1970s, including my husband) set our to "automate" our libraries (including the IDRC Library in Ottawa), we decided that the key was not to automate what we had, but to automate what we wanted to have. We didn't want (would be tempted to say that nobody who has ever struggled with the beast wants) a card catalogue. What we wanted (and still want) is access to our collections, defined in terms of : Quick and easy access; User-friendly access; Multiple access points; Ability to combine access points (Boolean access) in ways that were not necessarily foreseen when the work was catalogued; Ability to print out search results, special lists, bulletins, bibliographies, on demand and with a variety of formats; Remote access. Needless to say, we didn't get all that immediately, but we were looking forward, and eventually we got there. I started my career in a large university library. We cataloguers could of course find anything in the card catalogue, but we believed that even the reference librarians could not use the card catalogue very effectively. Faculty and students (poor benighted souls)? Well, they were generally grateful if they found something useful, and sometimes they could get help. I was a good cataloguer, who could find anything in the catalogue, quickly and easily. Like most of (all?) my colleagues, I had an intense love-hate relationship with the card catalogue. And the day I could provide equivalent access another way (not to speak of superior access) I stopped making catalogue cards. Why would one want a virtual card catalogue hidden in a computer? >>Would cataloguers be fired if we no longer needed them to >> produce main entries?... >>We have to send our best and brightest out >>to meet our customers. But enough, that is a separate topic! >I can't go along with this. Yes the main entry is an outdated >concept but assigning main entry is surely a small part of a >cataloguer's work. We get to a delicate topic here -- de-skilling. When you don't have to bother about main entries, much more of the work can be done by technicians. >And don't let's denigrate the back room. With or without main >entry we need specialists to create and maintain professional >catalogues. Agreed. >There is nothing more noble about sitting at a counter all day >doing other people's research for them. Agreed. It isn't about nobility. It's probably completely boring for my family physician to listen to my flu symptoms and tell me to rest and drink lots of fluids. A nurse could do it as well; my grandmother could do it better. It's about giving service, about being seen to give service. It's about being there, looking out for the serious problems among all the trivial ones. Marianne Vespry vespry@ican.net