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At the Bibliographic Standards Committee meeting in San Antonio, I tried
to summarize what is going on with the rules for chief source of
information in AACR2. Here is a more definitive version, with lots
of quoted material. Remember that much of this is in draft and has
not yet been accepted by JSC.<br>
<br>
<font face="Verdana">The report “Revising AACR2 to Accommodate Seriality”
recommended that the rules for sources of information in the various
chapters be used to determine the prescribed source for the title and
statement of responsibility and edition areas for continuing
resources.<br>
<br>
The Joint Steering Committee rejected this approach because “it makes the
rules too complex. In addition, it is concerned that it perpetuates
the class of materials concept which Tom Delsey’s work has shown to be
flawed. JSC believes that the chief source of information for all
bibliographic resources should be the whole resource, using the source
that provides the most complete information for the area being
described.”<br>
<br>
The following is a draft of the revision of rule 12.0B prepared by Jean
Hirons:<br>
<br>
<b>12.0B. Sources of Information<br>
<br>
12.0B1. Basis of the description</b> [<i>NEW</i>]<br>
<b><i>Serials. </b></i> Base the description of a serial on the
first issue or, failing this, on the earliest available issue.
Because remote access serials may not be organized in issues and the
issues, when present, may or may not contain the relevant bibliographic
information, base the description of a remote access serial on the entire
site at a particular point in time.<br>
<b><i>Integrating resources.</b></i> Base the description of an
integrating resource on the latest iteration of that resource, with the
exception of the date of publication.<br>
<br>
<b>12.0B2. Chief source of information </b>[<i>significantly
revised</i>]<br>
</font>The chief source of information for <b><i>printed serials and
loose-leafs</b></i> is the title page[1] or the title page
substitute. The title page substitute for an item lacking a title
page is (in this order of preference) the analytical title page, cover,
caption, masthead, editorial pages, colophon, other pages. Specify
the source used as the title page substitute in a note (see
12.7B3). If information traditionally given on the title page is
given on facing pages, with or without repetition, treat the two pages as
the title page.<br>
Use the colophon as the chief source of information for an oriental
nonroman script printed serial if the colophon contains full
bibliographic information and the following conditions apply:
<dl>
<dd> a)<x-tab> </x-tab>the page standing in
the position of a title page bears only the title proper<i>
<dl>
<dd>or</i><x-tab> </x-tab>b)<x-tab> </x-tab>the
title page bears only a calligraphic version of the title proper<i>
<dd>or</i><x-tab> </x-tab>c)<x-tab> </x-tab>the
title page bears only a western-language version of the title and other
bibliographic information<br>
<br>
</dl>
</dl>For <b><i>loose-leaf services</b></i>, when there is more than one
title page, choose one as the chief source according to the following
guidelines:<br>
a) If the title pages present the loose-leaf in different aspects
(e.g., as an individualitem and as part of a multipart item), prefer the
one that corresponds to the aspect in which the resource is to be
treated.<br>
b) If the loose-leaf has title pages in more than one language or
script, choose the title page that is in the language of the main part of
the loose-leaf.<br>
<br>
For the chief source of information for <b><i>direct access electronic
continuing resources</b></i>, see rule 9.0B1.<br>
The chief source of information for <b><i>remote access electronic
continuing resources</b></i> is the source that contains the most formal
presentation of the title. This may be the resource’s home page,
pages associated with the first issue, or other pages in the
resource.<br>
<br>
<b>12.0B3. Prescribed sources of information</b> [minor
revisions only; not quoted here]<br>
<br>
==== end of quoted material ====<br>
<br>
<b>NOTES:<br>
<br>
</b><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>1. </font>This draft
introduces a distinction between “Basis of the description” (first vs.
latest issue) and “Chief source of information” (title page vs
???). This makes it clearer than the present rule that these are
separate decisions that the cataloger needs to make.<br>
<br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>2. </font>Since
continuing resources can be in any physical format, the basic rule for
chief source is to consult rule X.0B in the relevant chapter.<br>
<br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>3. </font>Treating the
entire resource as the chief source isn’t always sufficiently
informative, so the rule still talks mostly about specific sources.<br>
<br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>4. </font>A new rule for
chief source of information has also been approved by JSC for Chapter
9. This rule reads:<br>
<br>
<b>9.0B1. Chief source of information.</b> The chief source
of information for electronic resources is the resource itself.<br>
Within the resource itself, take the information from formally presented
internal evidence (e.g., title screen(s), main menus, program statements,
initial display(s) of information, home page(s), the header(s) to the
file(s) including “Subject:” lines, encoded metadata (e.g., TEI (Text
Encoding Initiative) headers, HTML/XML meta tags, etc.) and other
identifying information internal to the file(s)). When the
information in these sources varies in degree of fullness, prefer the
source that provides the most complete information.<br>
If the electronic resource is unreadable without additional processing
(e.g., compressed file, printer-formatted file), take the information
from the resource after the resource and its file(s) have been processed
for use.<br>
If the information required is not available or is insufficient, take it
from the following sources (in this order of preference):<br>
<dl>
<dl>
<dd>the physical carrier or its labels (for direct access resources)
<dd>printed or online documentation or other accompanying material (e.g.,
publisher’s letter, “about” file, publisher’s Web page about an
electronic resource) (for direct or remote access resources)
<dd>information printed on a container issued by the publisher,
distributor, etc. (for direct access resources)<br>
<br>
</dl>
</dl>[rest 9.0B1 as written]<br>
<br>
==== end of quoted material ====<br>
<br>
Please let me know if you have any questions; I'll answer as best I
can.<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>John<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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