[DCRM-L] ESTC and the revision of SCF

[Elizabeth Robinson]

Richard posed these examples:

English short title catalogue (ESTC)
Incunabula short-title catalogue (ISTC)

Maybe that is an option, folks? A full form followed by the current citation form in parentheses. (Actually ISTC is presently qualified by RLIN or BLAISE, but that is beside the current point.) This is not a perfect solution, but a keyword search of ESTC on a 510 would pull up both

510 4_ $a English short title catalogue (ESTC), $c [blah blah]

and

510 4_ $ ESTC $c [blah blah blah}

etc.

to suit the "knowledgeable". And until we clean up all the bib records (if we do), steer the "ignorant" to the acronym for a secondary search on said.

Perhaps the parenthetical acronyms would only be used for those current citations that presently are acronyms only or surname(s) only? The ones that are hopelessly cryptic to the uninitiated. 

What do you think?

Elizabeth A. Robinson
Team Leader
Rare Book Cataloging Team
Special Materials Cataloging Division
Library of Congress



--- On Wed, 9/10/08, Noble, Richard <Richard_Noble at brown.edu> wrote:

> From: Noble, Richard <Richard_Noble at brown.edu>
> Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] ESTC and the revision of SCF
> To: rbrandt at library.berkeley.edu, "DCRM Revision Group List" <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 10:10 AM
> In an ideal world, the 510 field would function as in ISTC,
> with its
> choice of expanded or condensed references to accommodate
> those in the
> know and those not--and those who need a reminder. SCF
> would be the
> underlying public and technical reference database, not
> just another
> proprietary professional grimoire.
> 
> The market we address necessarily includes (as Donald
> Farren rather ...
> sternly reminded us) users who may have reason to consult
> resources
> outside fields in which they are expert at the acronymic
> level. In most
> cases it is possible to provide an author keyword or two
> and enough of
> the title (without abbreviations and over-concern about
> length) to
> indicate the nature of the reference and to serve as the
> basis for a
> reasonably precise catalog/database search.
> "Adams" and "Evans" and
> "Sabin" really must give way to something a bit
> more self-explanatory
> and less likely to produce about 112,000,000 Google hits
> (result from
> search on "evans"). These traditional citations
> may unite the
> cognoscenti who receive the posher sale catalogs, but they
> separate us
> even from our colleagues the next desk over.
> 
> In such cases as ESTC or ISTC, surely we can extend this
> principle to
> formulate the reference as, e.g. "English short title
> catalogue (ESTC)"
> or "Incunabula short-title catalogue (ISTC)",
> both of which phrases I
> just cut, pasted, and lower-cased from those websites. (And
> since it's
> possible in some such cases, we might encourage the use of
> the 856 field
> or other linking device(s) to take users to the database,
> or even the
> particular entry.)
> 
> There will be work involved in revising catalog records,
> though I
> suspect that many (most?) institutions that make use of
> such references
> can globally update phrases in specific fields (MARC hath
> yet its uses).
> I do believe that it would be worth the effort, if only to
> preserve a
> little longer our ability to provide this information at
> all, in the
> face of those who urge us to "get over ourselves"
> and, I guess, throw
> over our more educated users.
> 
> RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY :
> BROWN
> UNIVERSITY
> PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 :
> RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU