[DCRM-L] Title and Statement of Responsibility Area

[David Woodruff]

I agree entirely that it's usually helpful to retain qualifications.
Clearly I should have picked a less illustrious bunch than the Royal
Society for my example!
The question, though, is when it's possible to drop qualifications, and
my argument is against the change from DCRB's "grammatically necessary"
to "grammatically inseparable." The two phrases may have been intended
as equivalent, but I feel a significant difference. In a construction
like "John Smith of the Royal Society," "of the Royal Society" depends
on "John Smith" and cannot be transposed to some other position. It is
thus grammatically inseparable. But it is not grammatically necessary,
and could be dropped without disturbing the grammar of what remains.
In a construction like "scritto dal padre Zamboni," however, "dal padre"
is grammatically inseparable, but also grammatically necessary to make
the syntactic connection between "scritto" and "Zamboni." It can't be
dropped where "of the Royal Society" can, even though both are
inseparable. I think the concept of "grammatically inseparable" as
introduced in 1B1.1 works perfectly well in explaining when
transposition is impossible, but it doesn't seem relevant to omission.
I'm lookiing forward to your handbook on best practices!
>>> "Deborah J. Leslie" <DJLeslie at FOLGER.edu>  >>>
DCRB's default instruction was to omit, using the mark of omission, all
qualification, &c., except in certain circumstances. DCRM(B) is neutral
on the subject. Officially, it neither encourages nor discourages,
although in the examples we have tried to be encouraging by including
all data connected with a person's name. Compare:
DCRB (1G8): Generally omit from the statement of responsibility such
qualifications as initials indicating membership in societies, academic
degrees, statements of positions held unless: 
a) the elements are necessary grammatically or b) the elements are
necessary for identifying the person or are useful in establishing a
context for the person's activity (initials of religious orders,
phrases, or adjectives denoting place names, etc.) or c) the statement
of responsibility represents the author only by a pseudonym, a
descriptive phrase, or nonalphabetic symbols.
DCRM(B) (1E8)
Qualifications such as initials indicating membership in societies,
academic degrees, and statements of positions held may be omitted from
the statement of responsibility, using the mark of omission, unless:
a)	the qualifications are grammatically inseparable
or	b)	the qualifications are necessary for identifying the
person or are useful in establishing a context for the person's activity
(initials of religious orders, phrases, or adjectives denoting place
names, etc.
or	c)	the statement of responsibility represents the author
only by a pseudonym, a descriptive phrase, or nonalphabetic symbols.

The point of all this is that there are certain circumstances under
which qualifications &c. may *not* be omitted. They are the same
conditions given in DCRB. Best practice will dictate that "John Smith of
the Royal Society" be transcribed in full (and as a cataloger and a
teacher of catalogers, I've always encouraged liberal use of exception
b), but it is permissible for a cataloger to transcribe "John Smith ..."
DCRB's "grammatical necessity" is less clear than "grammatically
inseparable," especially since DCRB would mandate the latter
transcription, and we know with certainty that DCRB was not trying to
get at something different (the revision of BDRB into DCRB is within
living memory)
General comment: There are a number of permitted practices in DCRM(B)
that would not be recommended as best practice for those attempting deep
cataloging of rare materials. It is largely impossible to tell which
from which in DCRM(B) itself. After all this is finished, I plan on
writing a DCRM(B) companion or manual for application, which will make
that distinction. (There, I've said it. Now I have to do it.)
__________________________________________
Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.
Chair, RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee
http://www.folger.edu/bsc/index.html
Head of Cataloging, Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capitol St., S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003
djleslie at folger.edu || 202.675-0369 || http://www.folger.edu   

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of David Woodruff
Sent: 18 September 2006 14:58
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: [DCRM-L] Title and Statement of Responsibility Area

1E8 a). First sentence reads: Qualifications such as initials indicating
membership in societies, academic degrees, and statements of positions
held may be omitted from the statement of responsibility, using the mark
of omission, unless:
a)  the qualifications are grammatically inseparable
Why should it matter if qualifications are grammatically separable or
not? In "John Smith of the Royal Society," "of the Royal Society" is
inseparable, but it can easily be dropped, leaving "John Smith." DCRB
has "unless a) the elements are necessary grammatically..." which may be
getting at something slightly different. Perhaps cases were the author's
name is connected syntactically to the rest of the sentence through the
words for the position held.