[DCRM-L] BSR/Rare Books

[Lenore Rouse]

Stephen I think you meant [S.l. : s.n., date] (place : manufacturer, 
date) in your last paragraph, but I completely agree with your 
suggestion that this be allowed, clarified, or at least seriously 
considered. It would probably be useful in the Graphics rules and 
perhaps others that don't come to mind. Whether forbidden or not, I 
suspect the practice has been resorted to in the pragmatic belief that 
transcribing something is always better than nothing.
Lenore

Stephen A Skuce wrote:
>
> My take on this is that there's a rule missing from DCRM(B), and its 
> absence really hits those of us working with 19th- and 20th-century 
> publications.
>
>  
>
> 4A6.2.2 states in part,
>
> "if the manufacturer is known not to be the publisher … and the 
> identity of the publisher can be determined or reasonably surmised … 
> supply the name of the publisher … in square brackets and transcribe 
> the manufacturer statement as such according to the instructions in 
> 4E, 4F, and 4G."
>
>  
>
> What we need is a rule 4A6.2.3: for when the manufacturer is "known 
> not to be the publisher," but the identity of the publisher CANNOT be 
> determined.
>
>  
>
> For me there's a disconnect here: If we can "reasonably surmise" the 
> identity of an unnamed publisher, then the name of some insignificant 
> jobber whose name appears in tiny type in the colophon of a 1910 
> publication is relegated to parentheses at the end of the publisher 
> area.  Sounds good to me; that's precisely what the $ efg and the 
> parentheses are for.
>
>  
>
> But if, for the next title in our cataloging backlog, we cannot guess 
> who the publisher was, then that very same jobber -- essentially, an 
> Edwardian era Kinko's -- is suddenly elevated to the status of 
> publisher. To put it another way: we "know" the manufacturer is not 
> the publisher. But we transcribe it as the publisher anyway?
>
>  
>
> The information in 4A6 does a very good job of noting the sometimes 
> subtle, sometimes nonexistent distinction between publisher and 
> printer in the hand-press period. For the machine-press period it's 
> also very clear, except that there it's saying something else: that 
> the difference between publisher and printer became distinct and 
> meaningful, and mere printers "came to be subordinate." So why should 
> we, in effect, pay attention to 4A6 only part of the time?
>
>  
>
> The problem hits us when we catalog modern publications, where a 
> manufacturer is a manufacturer … except when he isn't because we ran 
> out of rules.
>
>  
>
> Deborah is right that there is no provision at all for [S.l. : s.n., 
> date] (place : publisher, date) in DCRM(B). I wish there were an 
> explicit provision.  The question now is whether we can apply a more 
> generous reading of the rules that are there. Does the want of a rule 
> imply that a practice is forbidden? (I really am asking a question; I 
> don't think it does, but I don't know in this case.)
>
>  
>
> Stephen
>
>  
>
>

-- 
Lenore M. Rouse
Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections
Adjunct Professor, School of Library and Information Science
The Catholic University of America
Room 214, Mullen Library
620 Michigan Avenue N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20064

PHONE: 202 319-5090
E-MAIL: rouse at cua.edu