[DCRM-L] ESTC and the revision of SCF

[Noble, Richard]

These particular parenthetical additions to the spelled-out forms are
meant to provide confirmation that the spelled-out form does in fact
correspond to a well-known initialism that will frequently be
encountered by itself--not unlike RES, PBSA, SB, and other such journal
abbreviations that function as shibboleths to the uninitiated. They are
also self-explanatory: to a reasonably intelligent user of bibliographic
records it's pretty obvious that "ESTC" must be a short form used as an
alternate designation. It's rather like incorporating information from
an "abbreviated references" section in a book, in a context of a
database record where a link out may be problematic, depending on what
ancillary utilities may or may not be available.

I imagine citations in this format might be a bit puzzling in other
cases, e.g.

510 4  Adams, H.M.  Catalogue of books printed on the continent of
Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries (Adams), $c ... Or maybe ...
("Adams")

Which might better be (in the spirit of Elizabeth's suggestion)

510 4  Adams (Adams, H.M.  Catalogue of books printed on the continent
of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries)

[By the way, better perhaps than the forms I borrowed from the websites,
would be

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

That "ISTC (RLIN)" and "ISTC (BLAISE)" business exemplifies the problem
with a resource available to the public only in printed form (i.e. SCF),
since both(?) are obsolete and neither made much sense to normal people.
On the other hand, I hope Donald Farren is at least sympathetic with
catalogers' need to include data about their data *somewhere*, so that
other catalogers might have a clue about information sources, etc.]

This project isn't going to be easy, and I really DO wish the 510 could
toggle between expanded and condensed forms--perhaps by way of an added
subfield, say $e, for "expanded citation form". (How many years would it
take to talk the average vendor into making proper use of that? How many
years before "average vendor" makes no sense?)

RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN
UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 :
RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU 

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of Elizabeth Robinson
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 12:50 PM
To: rbrandt at library.berkeley.edu; DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] ESTC and the revision of SCF

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