[DCRB-L] Re: WG3: Machine press issues

[Deborah J. Leslie]

Excellent work, Manon! Please excuse my sometimes rambling comments--I'm working out what I think as I write. 

p. 2, on the issue of whether to give printers, publishers, and booksellers equal priority. 

The reason they are regarded as equal in importance and treated that way in the imprint for hand-press books is that those functions were not well-defined nor even well-differentiated. That changes, however, by the machine-press era, by which time the publisher clearly carried prime importance, and printers (stereotypers, &c.) were secondary players. That is one argument in favor of treating machine-press books differently than the earlier ones. However, is it not the case that this same solidification of function and the primacy of the publisher is in fact represented in imprints? My point is to wonder if we were to treat later imprints the same as earlier ones, how much difference there might be in transcription and the contents of the respective elements of field 260. 

Let's back up and consider why an agency might want to use DCRB for machine-press materials. (May I call them 19c as a shorthand?). It is of course because the artifact (or carrier) is considered to carry significance quite apart from the content. Otherwise AACR2 would do just fine. So in considering what kinds of adaptations we should make to DCRB for 19c books, we need to take into account both the characteristics of 19c books as well as the underlying reasons a more faithful and detailed physical description might be desired. 

One of the principles of DCRB transcription is to convey the content, although not necessarily the form, of what is being transcribed. This is why we permit little or no transposition, abbreviation, abridgement, or modernized spelling. However, we also try to give true  and relatively complete information about the elements we've decided to transcribe. Thus our correction of false imprints or erroneous dates; thus the permission to populate the 260 with subfields from different sources within the publication. 

It seems to me that we need to decide which is more important for 19c works: is it the representation of an item as it represents itself (priority or even exclusion given to the chief source for imprint transcription). If so, then an argument for making a note about printers &c. not appearing on the chief source is more compelling. If we are more concerned with providing true and complete information, then everything ought to go in the 260. And if the latter, we might still decide whether to use the manufacture subfields, or whether to provide multiple "publisher" statements. 

On Manon's second major issue to be resolved, on whether the rules need to make a stand on when to create new records, she is right that it is in the bailiwick of WG6. DCRB already does take some implicit stands, such as transcribing the label data covering an original imprint, rather than the other way around. This presumes a separate record for different issues. The rule on recording impression dates, too, presume a separate record for different impressions. The addition of the 19c to DCRB will force us to get off the fence. 

My first impulse is to state that new DCRM records ought to be created for each different edition, issue, and impression (as far as it can be determined). But doesn't that complicate the recognized need for more choices in applying DCRM, such as minimal-, core-, and collection-level in addition to full-level? Perhaps not, but we must keep that in mind.

Deborah J. Leslie
Chair, RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee
Head of Cataloging
Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capitol St., SE
Washington, DC 20003
202.675-0369
djleslie at folger.edu
www.folger.edu