DCRB & MARC Format

[Patrick Russell]

Hi all:

1) NAF authority record is fine for Chekhov.  However, the purpose of the
740 in the BIB record is to trace the title as title so that one could
search directly on "Uncle Vanya" as distinct from "Cherry orchard." This is
standard LC style for accomplishing this.  Some local systems, however,
index $t's in the title index as well as the author index, so the 740 would
in that situation be superfluous.  Also, "Key word" searching in some
systems would do this. 

2) 561: I think the point about "from point of creation to final ownership"
is further evidence that this field is intended primarily for archival
records, or for such items  medieval codex manuscripts, therefore not
particularly suited for rare book data referred to as "provenance,"
complete or incomplete.  I do not intend to imply that "provenance" of rare
books is not important; it often is vital in interpreting the significance
of a particular copy. The rare book use of the term "provenance" is simply
different, implies some different things, from the archival use.

3) 541: This field might also be used.  However, "Immediate source of
acquisition" is not necessarily the last owner in the sense generally meant
by "provenance" in Rare Book circles.  It could be a dealer, an auction, a
purchase from a catalog, a gift received through a second party. Archivists
sometimes use "provenance" to refer to this kind of information.  Also,
much of the information in this field is of a private nature.  I would not
want to display to the public (or pass on to a utility) such information as
price, dealer, in some instances donor (it may be "anonymous") and the
like.  Seems to me this field is primarily acquisitions information.  My
concern is that RBMS should address the issue of how "provenance" (book
ownership, presentation, signed data) should be handled so that it can be
mutually shared.  The present situation does not help sharing such "public"
data.  For instance, Bancroft's use of a Holdings Field called PRV for such
data means that, although we display it to the public, the data does not go
to OCLC, which does not accept Berkeley's holdings format (it does go to
RLIN, since RLIN accepts Berkeley's holdings format)

4) 590 could be used.  But again, if data is to be shared, then there needs
to be a commonly accepted field in which to do this.

5) 500: Now it happens that the MARC format specifically illustrates this
500 field with copy/location specific data, such as provenance.   Current
practice indicates that this is not very popular in the real world.  Why? I
don't know as far as others are concerned.   I do know specifically why
Berkeley does not use 500 for copy/location specific data: it creates a
major display problem in the online catalog. It doesn't use 590 partly for
the same reason.   

6) So, one thing I would like to see discussed in due course is sharing of
copy/location specific data  through LC and/or Utilities MARC.  This would
include identifying easily the library/copy concerned, and a mutually
agreed upon ideal "spot"  (590?) for recording such sharable data in a
mutually agreed sub-fielded style.  We need to be clear as to why, as an
ACRL committee we do or do not support a particular field, why and why not.
 If DCRB is going to move in the direction of a MARC-tagged manual, that is
all the more reason to do so.

Patrick

At 12:30 PM 1/26/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Patrick et al.
>
>I'm putting my responses in between ** so you can distinguish them. 
>
>6. 740 : There is a beautiful example of a valid 740 in MARC Formats:
>
>	100 1  Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich,$d1860-1904.
>	240 10 Vishnevyi sad.$lEnglish
>	245 14 The cherry orchard ; Uncle Vanya /$cAnton  Chekhov.
>	700 12 Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich,$d1860-1904.$tDiadia Vania.$lEnglish.$f1969
>	740 0   Uncle Vanya. 
>
>************************************
>Instead of doing a 740 on the bib here, I would use the English title in
the uniform title *authority* record:
>
>	100 10 Chekhov, Anton ... $tDiadia Vania. $l English
>	400 10 Chekhov, Anton ... $tUncle Vanya
>
>(NAFL86115391already exists and looks like this.)
>
>**********************************
>	 
>Provenance: why would one want to use a distinct field for the "last or
>only known owner" before item reached a repository?  561 does trace
>ownership history, but if all the ownership history there is to trace is
>the known fact that the item  bears Gertrude Stein's bookplate, then it
>appears to me one might record it  in 561.  It seems to me that the basic
>issue (at least what I intended to raise) is:  is 561 intended primarily to
>record "ownership and custodial history" of archival material (as I happen
>to think it is), or, as my examples try to do, should it be used for the
>somewhat different "rare book" concept of provenance of individually
>cataloged printed items?  My examples of 561 could equally well have been
>tagged "500" (per several good examples in LC MARC Formats).  I did not use
>590, since I view this as a "locally defined field."  At Berkeley, we have
>two such "locally defined fields: "PRV" and "BIB"; I gather that some
>libraries put in 590 all of the information which Berkeley currently splits
>between PRV and BIB as in the following example:
>
>	PRV Signed on t.p. by Adam Smith, with the bookplate of J. P. Morgan.
>	BIB   Bound in blue morocco, gilt.
>
>Thanks for this input. 
>****************************************
>Yes, Huntington usage of 590 for provenance or any other copy-specific
information is the equivalent of UCB's PRV and BIB. As for 561 for all
formats, that would be fine with me, but as the field is currently defined,
it specifically says from point of creation to current ownership. As long
as it says that, I don't see how I can use it with very incomplete
provenance info. 
>
>There is, however, field 541 for the immediate source of acquisition which
I suppose libraries could be using for books. Maybe some do. It is a
formatted note and would require one parcelling the statement into
subfields. Not the end of the world to do, but I think it would be nice to
allow libraries to continue to use 590 for any copy-specific info they want
to state, including provenance. 
>
>As for just 500, one can use $5 with it too. I have not done so myself,
however, unless there was a question in my mind about the
copy-specific-ness of the element I'm describing (e.g. $5 on the back of a
501 for a "with" item I'm not sure is copy-specific or universal). I don't
think there's any rule about that, just what I do and what libraries I've
worked at do. I run into so many records that use 500 (without $5) for
no-question-about-it copy-specific info, and it drives me just a tad daff
(daffer than usual, i.e.).
>****************************************
>--Elizabeth A. Robinson
>  Principal Rare Book Cataloger
>  Huntington Library
>  erobinson at huntington.org
>
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