<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Wingdings;
panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Wingdings;
panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.apple-style-span
{mso-style-name:apple-style-span;}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=WordSection1>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>On the whole I am shy of contributing to the DCRM(B) list because
I am afraid of being shouted down – but I would like to support
everything said in the email below.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Heroes of bibliography trailblazed to get the shortest form that
was clear and internationally understandable (another way of phrasing the end
of Richard’s first paragraph). The rare book cataloguing community –
and also, incidentally, the antiquarian bookselling community and the academic
community – show through having adopted these conventions the belief that
they achieved it. Why destroy it?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>I’d go beyond everybody understanding ‘p.’, and
like to ask how people come to rare books. If they’ve done a Master’s
course in an academic subject – which I suggest is a typical British way
in – they’ll have learned standard abbreviations for formats.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Re the mass of verbiage: rare book catalogue records are likely to
contain a lot of words anyway through a preponderance of general and
copy-specific notes which add research value and sometimes essential
information. If there are extra unnecessary words in the descriptive area of
the record, will the reader reach the notes – or will his eye glaze over?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Also: rare books, especially of the hand-press period, are an
international, not a national heritage. Certainly in my library I have
far more early printed books published in languages other than England and
countries outside the British Isles than I do STC/Wing items. Of course we have
notes in our own language, that’s inevitable, and the advanced nature of
Anglo-American catalogues makes English a default language anyway. But spelling
out “unnumbered leaves” etc reduces internationality by having a
language element which isn’t necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Re uniformity: by becoming uniform with RDA by spelling everything
out we in fact lose uniformity with ESTC and with printed bibliographies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Perhaps we need to think about our users, and why we do what we
do. What would the leading lights of the Bibliographical Society of America
think of the proposed spellings out?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Karen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Dr Karen Attar<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Rare Books Librarian<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Senate House Library, University of London<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Senate House<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Malet St<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>London<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>WC1E 7HU<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>Tel. 020 7862 8472<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'>The University of London is an exempt charity in England and Wales
and a charity registered in Scotland (reg. no. SC041194)</span><b><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> dcrm-l-bounces@lib.byu.edu
[mailto:dcrm-l-bounces@lib.byu.edu] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Noble, Richard<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 26 August 2010 04:57<br>
<b>To:</b> DCRM Revision Group List<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [DCRM-L] BYU's 1st RDA/DCRMB record<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Re: "2 unnumbered pages,
iv pages, 1 unnumbered page, iv-xvii pages, 3 unnumbered pages, 348, that is,
332 pages, 6 unnumbered pages, 24 pages, 2 unnumbered pages."</span></span><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>It
goes a bit beyond "I don't like it", though I'm glad for the moral
support. It's really that people who don't care in the first place will be
confirmed in their intention to pay no attention whatever to such a mess of
verbiage; whereas the people who do care about these sometimes vital details
and want us to communicate them clearly and succinctly will, in their justified
frustration, think of us as perfect fools. Who on earth that deals with books
at all is incapable of understanding "p."? For the love of Mike,
these conventions are a triumph of sorts: simple and elegant tools that took us
a long time to develop.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>I've
engaged 25 groups of people at Rare Book School, so far, in the art of describing
complex bibliographical phenomena as clearly and simply as possible, and in
this respect RDA is obtuse and altogether retrograde. It's not
simplification--it's patronizing. "The poor dears won't understand unless
we spell it all out". Or is this the best way to make us stop accounting
for this information? It <i>does</i> look bad; well then, don't do it at all.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>It
may have been true that "one of the principles underlying DCRM [is that]
the rare rules won’t depart from the general rules unless there is a rare
materials reason to do so". We need to revisit just what that principle
really means. Our proper work is dealing with the difficult cases,
and we can't do our work properly with such clumsy tools. In the absence
of that work, dealing with such materials as we do, FRBR will be a perfect
sham.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>Sorry
for the rant. I hadn't realized that despair comes in such small packages.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-family:"Courier New"'>RICHARD
NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY<br>
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-3384 : <a
href="mailto:RICHARD_NOBLE@BROWN.EDU" target="_blank">RICHARD_NOBLE@BROWN.EDU</a>
</span><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 6:55 PM, Robert Maxwell <<a
href="mailto:robert_maxwell@byu.edu">robert_maxwell@byu.edu</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D'>Some thoughts on
Richard’s thoughts </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F497D'>J</span><span lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span
class=apple-style-span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.5pt;color:#1F497D'> </span></span><span
lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D'>2 unnumbered pages, iv pages,
1 unnumbered page, iv-xvii pages, 3 unnumbered pages, 348, that is, 332 pages,
6 unnumbered pages, 24 pages, 2 unnumbered pages.</span><span lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D'> </span><span
lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D'>I agree that this RDA result
is awful and I don’t like it. However, again, there isn’t any rare
materials reason why the general rule shouldn’t be applied to rare
materials, and remember that that is one of the principals underlying DCRM (the
rare rules won’t depart from the general rules unless there is a rare
materials reason to do so). “I don’t like it” doesn’t
cut it as a reason for differing. We will no doubt under our rare rules
continue to insist that every leaf be counted, which will differ from RDA for
rare materials reasons, but there is no rare reason that we can insist on different
<i>conventions</i> for counting (e.g. “unnumbered” instead of
bracketing) the pages we <i>do</i> choose to count.</span><span lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>