[DCRM-L] 046 - Incorrect or BCE dates

[Deborah J. Leslie]

I'm grateful to John* for resurrecting this issue. I remember at the
time being disappointed in the result, because the MARBI proposal that
John Attig and I wrote requested a new date type, 'x', with the
incorrect and the correct dates recorded in the fixed fields. The
problem, of course, was that if there was an incorrect date involving
multiple dates, the fixed fields could not be used. In retrospect, using
field 046 (which had been already defined as field for additional date
coding) was a good choice. At the time, however, the utility and local
system I was using didn't index 046, so it seemed like a defeat and so
never publicized the change or recommended its use.

 

I plan to implement use of 046 at the Folger; I don't know yet if our
Voyager can or does index it, but it's time to take my own medicine:
don't make cataloging decisions based on limitations of current systems.
What is needed is not keyword indexing of the 046, but date indexing. I
echo John in hearing how other people's local systems treat dates in
046. 

 

__________________________ 
Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S. 
RBMS Chair 2009-2010 | Head of Cataloging, Folger Shakespeare Library 
201 East Capitol St., S.E. | Washington, D.C. 20003 | 202.675-0369 
djleslie at folger.edu | http://www.folger.edu <http://www.folger.edu/>  

 

*For those who don't know, John Lancaster was on the original RBMS
[Bibliographical] Standards Committee and instrumental as the committee
first wrote Genre Terms and developed from there. He is retired from
Amherst College and is doing some volunteer rare book cataloging, and so
is immersing himself in DCRM(B). We are lucky to have him on board.

 

 

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of John Lancaster
Sent: Wednesday, 09 September, 2009 08:56
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: [DCRM-L] 046 - Incorrect or BCE dates

 

I've only recently become aware, as a result of conversations with Glenn
Patton of OCLC and Deborah Leslie of the Folger,  of the availability of
the 046 field for the recording (and in OCLC at least, indexing) of
incorrect dates of publication (e.g. the date on the piece is printed as
1599, but the work was actually published in 1610) and B.C.E. dates (as
well as other dates of perhaps less interest to this community).

 

Although the field has clearly been around for some time, I and others I
have been in touch with have been either unaware of it, or only dimly
aware, and in any case not using it.  Deborah has suggested that a note
about it might be of general interest.

 

OCLC's implementation is set out in Bibliographic Formats and Standards:

 

http://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/0xx/046.shtm

 

 

The full MARC 21 description can be seen here:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd046.html or, if you prefer the
concise form, here:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/concise/bd046.html

 

The original MARBI approval goes back more than 10 years:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/1998/98-07.html  The most recent
discussions of expansion were in 2002, with links backward:

 

http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2002/2002-03.html

 

 

I'd be curious to know whether the field is indexed in local systems,
and if it's in general use.  I know I'll be using it from now on.

 

Thanks.

 

--

John Lancaster (jlancaster at amherst.edu)

P.O. Box 775

Williamsburg, MA 01096-0775

413-268-7679

 

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