[DCRM-L] Re: Proposed response on 21.27

[lcreider at lib.nmsu.edu]

Great job!  You've pulled the discussion together elegantly and, I think, 
strengthened it.  I've got one suggestion about phrasing:

"One order-bringing factor does exist with them, however: in nearly all cases 
each person named is given a functional designation." "Order-bringing" is 
perhaps good German, maybe not so good English. How about:  One feature common 
to almost all of these disputations provides a solution to this confusion: each 
name on the title page is normally accompanied by a term indicating the 
person's role in the disputation.

It might also be useful to indicate that this is not a small problem that 
catalogers will never encounter.  It will continue to be a problem for 
catalogers of foreign language materials.  

Larry Creider


Quoting Robert Maxwell <robert_maxwell at byu.edu>:

> Below is my proposed response to the JSC proposal on 21.27, based on the
> discussion of Thursday and Friday. I need to send this in by some time
> this afternoon, so if you have any comments, please do not hesitate! I
> apologize for the tight turnaround time.
>  
> Bob
> 
> Robert L. Maxwell
> Special Collections and Ancient Languages Catalog Librarian
> Genre/Form Authorities Librarian
> 6728 Harold B. Lee Library
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> (801)422-5568 
> 
>  
> 
> To:       Mary L. Larsgaard, chair
> ALA/ALCTS/CCS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access
> 
> From:   Robert L. Maxwell, chair, ALCTS/ACRL Task Force on Cataloging
> Rules for Early Printed Monographs
> 
> RE:       Response to 5JSC/Chair/5, Special rules in Chapter 21
> 
> The proposal to simplify or eliminate AACR2 21.27, the rule controlling
> entry of academic disputations, is of concern to the rare materials
> community as represented by the ALCTS/ACRL Task Force on Cataloging
> Rules for Early Printed Monographs and the membership of the DCRM-L
> list, a discussion group whose main focus is the forthcoming revision of
> Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Books. 
> 
> AACR2 21.27 concerns entry of acadmic disputations, a not uncommon genre
> previous to the nineteenth century. Academic disputations were a sort of
> precursor to the modern thesis examination, in which a student is
> examined by faculty previous to being granted a degree. However,
> although the acadmic disputation involved questioning on a (usually
> book-length) written work, this work was not equivalent to the modern
> thesis because it was not usually written by the student. Rather it was
> normally written by someone else, often the examiner himself, and the
> student (or students) were expected to defend or contend with its
> positions during the examination.
> 
> The title pages of these works are often confusing. One order-bringing
> factor does exist with them, however: in nearly all cases each person
> named is given a functional designation. The person being examined may
> be called the respondent or the defendant, or sometimes even "auctor", a
> Latin word usually translated as author, but in this case perhaps more
> accurately rendered "spokesman" or "agent." Title pages of academic
> disputations also name the person who is presiding over the examination,
> the "praeses." This person may or may not be the author of the text
> being used as the basis of the examination.
> 
> The cataloger needs help in interpreting these title pages. If-at least
> for purposes of work citations-RDA continues to maintain the authorship
> principle, a bedrock of AACR2, consistent guidance is needed to
> determine who will be considered the author in these cases. Since title
> pages of academic disputations do not explicitly say who the author is,
> AACR2 simply made a decision, based on experience with these books and
> the research reflected in the studies cited in footnote 6, that the
> praeses is to be designated the author in the absence of strong evidence
> to the contrary. The rare materials cataloging community as polled at
> this time is comfortable with maintaining this presumption.
> 
> We do not see how the rule could be simplified much further than it
> already is without making a confusing situation more confusing. A
> minimum of explanation (as found in the paranthetical phrases in the
> body of the rule) of what these works are is needed to help the
> cataloger understand what is going on. The rule clearly states who is
> given the primary access poing and who is given other access points. And
> the rule gives guidance for what to do in the unusual case where no one
> is named praeses. It might be a good idea to bring the first sentence of
> the footnote up into the rule itself, since this is an obvious pitfall.
> 
> We note that although this rule would pertain almost exclusively to
> early printed materials cataloging, RDA cannot depend on the main
> specialist manual to give guidance on this matter since DCRM(B), the
> successor to DCRB, deliberately does not include rules on choice of
> access points or formation of headings. Rare materials catalogers
> understand and accept the need to integrate their records into catalogs
> (and authority files) containing records prepared under the general
> cataloging rules, and therefore do not wish to introduce specialist
> rules for access points.
> 
> The task force and others did suggest that the works cited in the
> footnote are very valuable and, as they are in the public domain now, it
> might be useful and feasible to create PDF files of these
> articles/chapters and link them to RDA.
> 
>