Proposal for labeling DCRM rules

[JAIN FLETCHER]

Hello all,
     Now for something completely different.  I want to discuss further 
my ideas about the labeling of the DCRM rules.  This came up in some of 
the music task group's preliminary discussion.  We wondered if the 
rules we were making were going to exist as an entity unto itself (as, 
say, the MLA's Sheet Music Guidelines), or part of a larger whole (as 
AACR).  We see AACR as a good model, with its introduction, its overall 
rules (Ch. 1), its separately numbered chapters for each kind of 
format, its rules on abbreviations, numbering, its glossary and its 
index.   We see this model as having too many advantages not to 
advocate that we go with it for DCRM.  The best reason for this is that 
we could avoid a certain amount of duplication of effort.  As we know, 
most of the chapters of AACR2 are not as long as Ch. 1, because Ch. 1 
states the fundamental rules, then the rest of the chapters zero in on 
how those rules fit the format.  (Of course, DCRB doesn't have anything 
equivalent to this-only the rules for books.  Still, I believe it would 
be possible for these to act in the same way for DCRM as Ch. 1 does in 
AACR.)
     The Music Task Group has already decided that its rules are going 
to need an introduction and a glossary.  In the case of the glossary, 
it would be good simply to add our words to a whole (added along with 
the special terms for serials, maps, etc.)  This would avoid having to 
repeat certain terms from other existing glossaries in ours (not to 
mention, avoiding having 4 separate glossaries for DCRM).  As to our 
own introduction, we would need to see how everyone else's 
introductions are looking to decide whether the introduction we are 
writing can be incorporated into a single one for all the formats or 
whether the "chapter" we are writing should have its own.
     In advocating that the separate rules in DCRM be considered 
"chapters" a la AACR2, the next obvious question is how to distinguish 
those chapters.  We could number them, but if done consecutively (e.g., 
Ch.1 - books, Ch. 2 - serials, Ch. 3 - maps, Ch. 4 - music), the 
numbering would not correlate to AACR2 and this could be confusing to 
people using both sets of rules.  A way of avoiding this is to adopt 
AACR's chapter numbering (e.g., Ch. 2 - books, Ch. 3 - maps, Ch. 5 - 
music, Ch. 12 - serials).  This would have the advantage of correlating 
to AACR, but would be awfully silly-looking by itself.  To avoid all of 
this, we believe that the best way to distinguish the chapters would be 
to use the ISBD designation for the format as the chapter headings 
(i.e., monographs, cartographic materials, printed music, serials).  
The rules themselves would be preceded by the acronyms for these 
formats, would proceed to the number for the "area" designation, a 
capital letter for subsections of the areas and finally, consecutive 
numbering for the rules within each area and subsection (in other 
words, exactly like AACR, with the exception of the way in which those 
are preceded: with chapter numberings). We have already begun this for 
the music chapter (PM1A1, PM4C3, PM5B15).  Whenever referring to the 
rules as a whole, the chapters would also be distinguished with the 
acronym (e.g., DCRM(M), DCRM(CM), DCRM(PM), DCRM(S)).
     We have already found these distinguishing labels to be valuable.  
For one, the Music Task Group is referring to existing rules and rule 
interpretations, in order to be sure that we aren't proposing anything 
contradictory to them.  These include AACR2, Ch. 5, the LCRIs, the 
Music Cataloging Decisions (MCD), the Sheet Music Guidelines (SMG), not 
to mention DCRB itself for the invaluable foundation it has given us.  
We are also looking at the Serials draft to see how they have solved 
certain issues.  Having a way to distinguish among them concisely in 
our communications has been exceedingly useful.  This will only become 
a larger problem when these rules are finalized and "the world" starts 
using them.  But to mention one quite practical issue, when we advocate 
specifying the rules used in the 040 $b of our bib record, don't we 
want to make it quite clear the format we've followed (e.g., $b 
dcrm(pm))?  I see a great potential value in this.   In addition, it 
looks as though this idea is going to become more of a possibility for 
AACR3, as well, if I understood correctly what John Attig was saying at 
our meeting this summer.  In fact, I have already noticed this for 
electronic resources: we've been asked on listservs to review ISBD(ER), 
but haven't I also noticed some people referring to AACR3(ER), as well?
     Please think about this proposal carefully.  It may seem early to 
come to this kind of decision, but I don't think so, given that we've 
found it valuable to use the designation already.
                          Thanks, Jain



Jain Fletcher 
Head, Monographic Cataloging Section
Research Library - UCLA