Proposal for labeling DCRM rules

[Robert Maxwell]

I think these are good ideas; I do have a further suggestion. One of the
really fine aspects of AACR2 is that the subnumbers of each chapter
correspond pretty precisely to the same subnumbers in every other chapter.
If we could work out a numbering system so that a rule in the general
chapter carries the same number as its equivalent more specific rule in the
material specific chapters, I think that would be more than handy. Are you
doing that more or less with the music rules development?

Bob

At 08:22 AM 8/26/99 -0700, JAIN FLETCHER wrote:
>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
>
>
>
>
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Robert L. Maxwell
Special Collections and Ancient Languages Cataloger
6428 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 378-5568
robert_maxwell at byu.edu
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