<html>
<body>
Following is the response of the Bibliographic Standards Committee to RDA
Chapters 6 and 7. The response was developed and written by current BSC
members Alex Thurman and Eduardo Tenenbaum and immediate ex-BSC member
Larry Creider. It was approved by the BSC membership on August 3, 2007
and submitted to CC:DA on August 6, 2007.<br><br>
Randal Brandt, Chair<br>
RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee<br><br>
<br>
<b>Bibliographic Standards Committee Task Group Response to RDA Chapters
6-7<br>
</b> <br>
<b>Overall assessment<br>
</b> <br>
The RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee Task Group (TG) shares the
confusion expressed by many RDA-L contributors over how catalogers are
intended to use chapters 6-7, given that the draft consists almost
exclusively of optional guidelines whose specific use would have to be
further established by national or network rule interpretations.
What effect will designating almost all access points as
"optional" have on the ability of institutions to share
bibliographic records through utilities? We are glad to see provisions
for designations of roles and relationships but concerned that if these
are merely optional and the transcription of statements of responsibility
also becomes optional (per earlier RDA chapter drafts) then records will
be created with access points whose relationship to the work in question
is unknown.<br>
<br>
The sole "required" guideline from chapter 6 is to provide an
access point for at least one creator (6.3.1) and/or originating body
(6.3.2) associated with the work. Providing access to all other
persons, families, and corporate bodies associated with a work is
optional. The possibility that a work may not have an identifiable
creator or originating body (the situation currently known as "title
main entry") is not mentioned. Moreover, the guidelines for actually
creating the access points (whether required or optional) are deferred to
Part B of RDA. Similarly, the sole relationship between resources that
chapter 7 requires recording is that between a manifestation and the work
that it manifests (7.3.2). All other relationships are optional. Again,
guidelines on how to name related resources are deferred to Part B.
Forcing catalogers to flip (or click) back and forth between Parts
A and B in order to create access points is unnecessarily
convoluted.<br>
<br>
The TG presumes that the existence and placement of chapters 6-7, which
have no direct equivalent in AACR2, derive from the JSC's intention to
have all the FRBR user tasks (identify, select, find, acquire) covered in
Part A. If transcribing statements of responsibility becomes optional, as
earlier RDA chapters have suggested, then identifying the creator(s) and
contributor(s) responsible for works, expressions, etc., must be
addressed with access pointsso access ends up being covered in both the
Description (Part A) and Access (Part B) halves of RDA. The BSC would
certainly prefer that transcribing statements of responsibility not
become optional. With creator identification thus restored to the realm
of Description, any necessary material in Chapters 6-7 could be reunited
with the Part B guidelines for Access. (Our remaining comments will not
assume this happy outcome but rather respond to the draft as is.)<br>
<br>
Chapters 6 and 7 are both quite lengthy, but do not contain much direct
instruction to catalogers on how to catalog an item in handso what do
they do? Our sense is that they laboriously translate familiar
bibliographic entities and situations into the terminology and structure
of FRBR, even though catalogers will likely continue to create
bibliographic records for manifestations and authority records for works
and expressions for the foreseeable future, rather than creating distinct
records for each of the four FRBR group 1 entities. The TG admires this
ambitious and intellectually challenging effort and applauds its
underlying intention to improve our organization and display of
bibliographic roles and relationships for our usersbut library users
will not realize these benefits if RDA proves so burdensome for its own
users (i.e., catalogers) that it fails to gain the wide acceptance
enjoyed by its predecessor, AACR2. <br>
<b> <br>
General comments<br>
<br>
</b>Many of the significant issues surrounding the draft of chapters 6-7
are mentioned in the JSC's memo accompanying the draft, and our comments
will try to address these issues in the same order in which they are
presented there.
<ul>
<li>The JSC reminds reviewers that RDA is to be primarily a web-based
product and that explains the apparent redundancy of many of the
guidelines; a future "concise display" option will alleviate
this situation. Such a disclaimerasking that we evaluate the specific
guidelines comprising a web-based standard using a printed standard
(i.e., the draft)makes commenting on RDA quite difficult. The TG
recommends that if the JSC is primarily creating an "online
tool," than the constituencies should be evaluating drafts that
demonstrate RDA's text in the context of its functionality and user paths
using formats such as wire frames or other visual representations. And if
a more streamlined and readable print version is also planned (or is
achievable by printing out a "concise display"), then we would
appreciate the opportunity to see and respond to drafts in that format
too.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The TG regrets the removal of any discussion of the "primary
access point" from chapter 6. The thrust of chapter 6 is that an
access point is required for at least one creator and/or originating body
of a work but that access points for all other creators and contributors
are optional. No explanation for this distinction is given, and such an
explanation obviously should include a discussion of the notion of the
"primary access point," even if the instructions for choosing
it are deferred to Part B (although moving all of the content of ch. 6-7
to Part B is preferable). Although the primary access point
discussion was removed from the chapter, many of the remaining
guidelines, such as the several provisions for "additional access
points" in 6.1.3, still continue to imply the concept. In
particular, the awkward footnotes to 6.3.1 and 6.3.2 stipulating that
"if there is more than one creator/originating body responsible for
the work, only the access point ... commonly named first is
required" could also be avoided by a simple direct discussion of the
need for a primary access point. Such a discussion should also make clear
that providing access points to all creators is preferable, even if not
required. These footnotes' requirement that catalogers make reference to
some indeterminate convention from outside the work -- its
"common" name -- is genuinely mystifying and unsatisfactory.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We are grateful for the elimination of "the distinction between
creators and collaborators" if by this it is meant that the
"rule of three" is being retired. Being able to provide access
points for as many of the people attributed responsibility for a work on
a title page or other relevant source as the cataloger judges appropriate
is particularly important for special collections cataloging. This is
another reason that the footnotes stipulating that only one creator need
be given an access point are disappointing (and confusing in the context
of the many supplied examples that appropriately include multiple access
points for multiple creators).
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The TG is neutral about the removal of the special instructions for
musical works and art works but the resulting effect of moving all the
musical and art related examples into 6.3 is to make the example list
seem extremely long and redundant.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We strongly regret the removal of the special instructions for
academic disputations and their replacement by examples which are
contrary to the provisions of cataloging codes dating from the 19th
century through AACR2. The example in 6.3.1.1.1 treats Storr as the
creator when the praeses Kies is most likely the actual creator. The
example in 6.3.4.1.1 treats the probable creator, Schurtzfleisch, as an
"other person ... associated with the work." The praeses
generally set the topic and the organization and content of the academic
dissertation/disputation. There are still hundreds or possibly thousands
of these dissertations that remain uncataloged, and they should be
cataloged in a manner consistent with all those cataloged previously, in
order to avoid confusion and needless time-consuming maintenance.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The TG supports the JSC's decision to retain the special instructions
for legal works, religious works, and official communications. Many of
these works, such as creeds and liturgies, do not fit well with either
the creator or originating body model, and are better off handled with
special instructions. These types of literature are sufficiently
distinctive that the instructions are needed to avoid mistakes and
thereby facilitate record sharing without extensive modification and
correction. As virtually all libraries need to provide access to these
sorts of materials, RDA should provide informed guidance rather than
ignoring their distinctiveness or referring catalogers to specialist
manuals.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We are very pleased at the inclusion in RDA of sections encouraging
designations of role. The BSC website
(<a href="http://www.folger.edu/bsc/">http://www.folger.edu/bsc/</a>)
includes a link to our thesaurus of relator terms, and hopes that RDA
will both mention the existence of this thesaurus and consider its
contents while creating the future RDA appendix of roles. The placement
of the designation of role guidelines at 6.2 is problematic, however, as
the designation of role "element" can only be applied once an
access point has been created, and all the guidelines for choosing access
points appear later in the chapter. Perhaps a subsection about
designation of role could be integrated into 6.3, and the examples
indicating roles integrated there too for increased visibility. We
believe that designations of role are valuable both for modern works and
special collections and should be encouraged more forcefully in RDA.
Obviously requiring designations of role in all cases would be
impractical, but rather than simply offering catalogers the option to
include role information without comment, RDA should provide a few lines
of context on when designating roles is particularly useful or important,
such as for early printed resources. The TG notes that such special
instructions for early printed resources appear in earlier RDA chapters
but not in ch. 6-7, and regrets this absence.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The inclusion of the treatment of originating bodies at 6.3.2 is
preferable to omitting these important guidelines, but the lack of direct
mention of the concept of primary access point is damaging.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Chapter 6 from its title onward makes recurrent use of the phrase
"persons, families, and corporate bodies," seemingly according
each equivalent conceptual weight. The assignment of separate sections to
creators (6.3.1) and originating bodies (6.3.2) seemed at first to us
(and likely to other future RDA users) to incompletely mirror this
three-part division, with persons covered by 6.3.1 and corporate bodies
covered by 6.3.2 and no separate section for "families."
Looking more closely, we see that the term creator is intended to include
persons, families, and corporate bodies, and the term "originating
bodies" merely refers to a subset of roles involving corporate
bodies. This situation is awkward, firstly because it will mislead some
users into thinking all corporate body guidelines are to be found in the
originating bodies section, and secondly because the responsibility of
families for works is sufficiently complicated that it does require
specific guidelines. At times the actions of families in being
responsible for works are closer to the categories of corporate
responsibility (i.e., "originating bodies") than to those of
individual persons. For example, the creation of family papers fits
better under the rules for corporate origination (particularly rationales
"a" and "b"). Many of the constituencies replying to
the Library of Congress' family name proposal found the corporate body
model more appropriate to families than the personal authorship model,
and this fact should be reflected in the rules for determining
responsibility for an entry, as well in the formulation of access points
for family names.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The organization of chapter 7 according to the taxonomy developed by
Tillett and the FRBR group 1 entities is intellectually impressive but
not yet clearly relevant to the efficient cataloging of items in hand. We
wish to emphasize that the JSC should strive to make RDA not simply an
erudite extension of FRBR-ology but also useful for catalogers.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The TG would like to see RDA's treatment of the recording and
designation of relationships (as well as its treatment of roles) contain
more context about the value of such information in particular
situations, rather than simply being an undifferentiated
"option."
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The TG agrees with the recommendation of the JSC's "Examples
Group 2" that the access point examples in chapter 6 should use the
authorized form from the LC/NACO Authority File, and finds the cited
reasons for why this was ruled out unconvincing. However, if RDA can't
use controlled names (from other sources in addition to LC/NACO if such
exist and are deemed important) including dates in the access point
examples, then the uncontrolled names as used in the examples in the
draft are preferable to the other five options listed in the JSC's memo.
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A recurring frustration associated with the separation of guidelines
and examples according to their FRBR group 1 entity level is that the
parenthetical explanations of the particular cases include full
statements of responsibility and thus often include creators or
contributors who are not given access points in the accompanying example
because their roles are different and addressed elsewhere. At the least
it should be clearly stated somewhere that the examples should not be
understood to provide sufficient access to all the accompanying supplied
information. What would be more useful, particularly in the context of an
online tool, are links to full record examples, which would show how all
of the names included in a statement of responsibility were variously
represented (or not) by access points.
</ul><b>Specific comments<br>
</b> <br>
<b>6.1.1.2<br>
</b>
The alternative sources of information listed as points a), b), and c)
should be clearly identified as being in order of priority.<br>
<br>
<b>6.1.2.1<br>
</b> In
6.1.2.1a and 6.1.2.1b, it is made clear that the name of a person, family
or corporate body associated with a resource appears in a record only in
combination with a transcribed or otherwise explicit indication as to the
connection between the name and the resource. In 6.1.2.1c, however, there
is no mention of required justification for a recorded access point. This
must be clarified to avoid the possibility of records bearing unexplained
name access points.<br>
<br>
<b>6.3.0.2<br>
</b>
re: "provide access points ... for persons, families, and corporate
bodies associated with each of the works in the aggregate resource."
The term aggregate resource should receive a fuller definition here and
in a glossary. FRBR refers to anthologies, monographic series, and
archival collections as "aggregate entities" -- does this
guideline imply that each of the authors included in an anthology
receives an access point? We believe that would certainly improve access
to such materials, but can that really be the intention here when the
following page contains the footnote to the effect that a work with
multiple authors need only cite the first author?<br>
<br>
<b>6.3.1.0.3<br>
</b>
re: "may be considered to be a creator of the compilation if the
selection, arrangement, editing, etc., of content for the compilation
effectively results in the creation of a new work." This requires
further clarification as to what does and doesn't qualify as a "new
work," perhaps with examples. We would also appreciate a definition
of "compilation" -- is it a collection of two or more works,
three or more works, or what? Does it matter whether the compiled works
have the same author or different authors? These questions will affect
the rules about choice of primary access point as well.<br>
<br>
<b>6.3.1.1.1<br>
</b>
The plethora of examples is overwhelming. Numbering the examples would
improve reference to individual examples by practitioners and scholars.
<br>
<br>
<b>6.3.1.1.1</b> [6-14]<br>
It
would be helpful to add under the sub-subheading "person, family, or
corporate body responsible for creating a new work based on a previously
existing work" a reference to see 7.5.1 so that catalogers will be
able to see quickly how the creators of the source work are to be
handled, since they are not given access points here.<br>
<br>
<b>6.3.3</b> & <b>6.3.4<br>
</b>
The phrase "persons, families, and corporate bodies" appears
consistently in the plural form in every heading and subheading (all
guidelines with up to 3 digits) with the exception of the subheadings for
6.3.3 and 6.3.4these should also be pluralized.<br>
<br>
<b>6.3.3.0.2<br>
</b>
This reference seems unnecessary.<br>
<br>
<b>6.3.4.1.1</b> [Lindemans example]<br>
Lindemans is identified here as the "founder, main contributor,
editor & webmaster" of a web site. Would she not more
appropriately be treated as a "creator" than included here as
an "other person associated with the work"? <br>
<br>
<b>6.3.4.2.2<br>
</b>
This afterthought "Exception," "for persons, families, and
corporate bodies who are the subject of a work, see X.X." would be
more useful if moved to the Scope section, 6.3.4.0.3, and should there be
fleshed out to, "for guidelines on providing access to persons
..." <br>
<br>
<b>6.4.1.0.3<br>
</b>
re: "For expressions consisting of a primary work accompanied by
commentary, etc., illustrations, additional musical parts, etc., the
writers of commentary, etc., illustrators, composers of additional parts,
etc., are considered to be contributors." When a cataloging rule
contains four uses of "etc." it is not so much providing
guidance as dismissing the subject. If breaking down access point roles
according to FRBR group 1 level is worth doing, then it must be done more
precisely than this.<br>
<br>
<b>6.4.1.1.1<br>
</b>
re: "provide an access point(s) for a contributor" Change to:
"provide access points for contributors."<br>
<br>
<b>6.5<br>
</b>
Providing access to names associated with the manifestation, i.e.,
printers, publishers, booksellers, is especially important for early
printed resources, yet there are no early printed resource examples given
in 6.5.1 ("producer"), 6.5.2 ("publisher"), or 6.5.3
("distributor"). Moreover these roles were at times
interchangeable for early printed resources, so a note advising caution
with such resources, preferably alerting users to the existence of
DCRM(B), would be appreciated.<br>
<br>
<b>6.5.0.2<br>
</b>
re: "if the resource contains two or more manifestations, provide
access points ... for persons, families, and corporate bodies associated
with each of the manifestations in the resource." Please add an
example of such a situation -- it is difficult to conceive.<br>
<br>
<b>6.6<br>
</b>
This guideline applying to access points for names associated with the
item stipulates three such roles only (owner, custodian, finder) and does
not have a guideline for "other" roles associated with the
item. We would like to see the addition of an open-ended guideline 6.6.4
for "other persons, families, or corporate bodies associated with
the item." Examples of such roles for early printed resources might
include binders or illustrators -- these are not frequently known, but
large bibliographic surveys of the binders of incunabula, for example,
are underway now (see the work of Scott Husby at Princeton Univ.)<br>
<br>
<b>6.8.2.2.1<br>
</b> If
this Buddhist catechism has the status of a creed, that should be
indicated someplace.<br>
<br>
<b>7.3.2.0.1c<br>
</b> In
this example the publisher should read "Gallimard" not
"Callimard," per OCLC.<br>
<br><br>
BSC TG members:<br>
<br>
Laurence S. Creider, New Mexico State University<br>
Eduardo Tenenbaum, Princeton University<br>
Alex Thurman, Columbia University (Chair)<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
__________________________<br>
Randal Brandt<br>
Principal Cataloger<br>
The Bancroft Library<br>
(510) 643-2275<br>
rbrandt@library.berkeley.edu<br>
<a href="http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/" eudora="autourl">
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu<br>
</a></body>
</html>