[DCRM-L] BYU's 1st RDA/DCRMB record

[Zinkham, Helena]

Framing the discussion in terms of when and where it makes sense to continue abbreviations sounds like a good approach -- which parts of the catalog description, which audiences, which materials.

>From my visual materials cataloging perspective related to DCRM(G), spelling out abbreviations in catalog records is the way to go.  Such Latin-based abbreviations as s.l., s.n., and  n.d. are cryptic for many people trying  to find pictures. Even the abbreviation "col." for color has puzzled at least one art historian as well as the general public.

I bring this up now because the reasons for DCRM(G) to move away from abbreviations might well support continuating some abbreviations when describing rare books.  Flip the key words in the following ideas, and they match many of this thread's points on behalf of keeping abbreviations in such areas as statement of extent.

* Graphic materials cataloging is relatively RECENT -- there's no long tradition of description to be consistent with and no large body of users versed in standard collation vocabulary.
* Physical description of visual materials is BASIC & BRIEF relative to the complexity of full collation statements; we're usually cataloging single items or summarizing groups of related material.
* Picture cataloging is trying to communicate with a very DIVERSE AUDIENCE (K-12, doctoral students, documentary film makers, family historians, etc.) more than a specialized audience.
* DCRM(G) cataloging involves  a wide range of materials that are also described by other communities without using abbreviations (e.g., art museums,  archives, photo stock agencies, collectors).  We're accounting for everything from 15th century portrait engravings to 21st century comic book drawings; from American Civil War photographs to born-digital contemporary news stories.

That was a long way of saying that DCRM(B) may well have rare material reasons to differ from RDA and continue abbreviations in collation!   For DCRM(G), we have picture related reasons to step away from abbreviations.

Helena Zinkham
Library of Congress
Prints & Photographs Division
hzin at loc.gov


From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Noble, Richard
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 10:13 AM
To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] BYU's 1st RDA/DCRMB record

Well, yes, I've been addressing the whole range of conventions by which we're able to compress our notation to something readable at a glance and easy to compare with other descriptions.  I simply cited "p." rhetorically, as the ultimate point of absurdity to which these rules would reduce us. Nor do I think that RDA does the "general" public any favors, in this particular area: nobody talks this way.

I am, of course, very much in agreement with Karen Attar, that this discussion actually concerns many more people than those in the tight little world within which RDA cooked this up. Especially as a member of the BSA Publications Committee, I am appalled at so gross a departure from conventions that we share with many constituencies. I think it may be time to take this discussion to exlibris-l and perhaps sharp-l. I would be happy to draft a succinct and, I promise, dispassionate posting to exlibris-l, specifically concerning the statement of extent, with reference also to possible effects on signature and collation notes.

RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-3384 : RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU<mailto:RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Deborah J. Leslie <DJLeslie at folger.edu<mailto:DJLeslie at folger.edu>> wrote:
I tend to agree with Richard that the statement of extent horror in RDA goes well beyond not liking it. It is nearly unintelligible. Perhaps the rare book reason might be that we are committed to a more thorough statement of the physical artifact as the artifact expresses itself.

Much more than spelling out "p.", it's the lack of square brackets that makes the statement nearly impossible to parse.

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>] On Behalf Of Noble, Richard
Sent: Wednesday, 25 August, 2010 23:57

To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] BYU's 1st RDA/DCRMB record

Re: "2 unnumbered pages, iv pages, 1 unnumbered page, iv-xvii pages, 3 unnumbered pages, 348, that is, 332 pages, 6 unnumbered pages, 24 pages, 2 unnumbered pages."

It goes a bit beyond "I don't like it", though I'm glad for the moral support. It's really that people who don't care in the first place will be confirmed in their intention to pay no attention whatever to such a mess of verbiage; whereas the people who do care about these sometimes vital details and want us to communicate them clearly and succinctly will, in their justified frustration, think of us as perfect fools. Who on earth that deals with books at all is incapable of understanding "p."? For the love of Mike, these conventions are a triumph of sorts: simple and elegant tools that took us a long time to develop.

I've engaged 25 groups of people at Rare Book School, so far, in the art of describing complex bibliographical phenomena as clearly and simply as possible, and in this respect RDA is obtuse and altogether retrograde. It's not simplification--it's patronizing. "The poor dears won't understand unless we spell it all out". Or is this the best way to make us stop accounting for this information? It does look bad; well then, don't do it at all.

It may have been true that "one of the principles underlying DCRM [is that] the rare rules won't depart from the general rules unless there is a rare materials reason to do so". We need to revisit just what that principle really means. Our proper work is dealing with the difficult cases, and we can't do our work properly with such clumsy tools. In the absence of that work, dealing with such materials as we do, FRBR will be a perfect sham.

Sorry for the rant. I hadn't realized that despair comes in such small packages.

RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-3384 : RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU<mailto:RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>
On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 6:55 PM, Robert Maxwell <robert_maxwell at byu.edu<mailto:robert_maxwell at byu.edu>> wrote:
Some thoughts on Richard's thoughts :)

2 unnumbered pages, iv pages, 1 unnumbered page, iv-xvii pages, 3 unnumbered pages, 348, that is, 332 pages, 6 unnumbered pages, 24 pages, 2 unnumbered pages.

I agree that this RDA result is awful and I don't like it. However, again, there isn't any rare materials reason why the general rule shouldn't be applied to rare materials, and remember that that is one of the principals underlying DCRM (the rare rules won't depart from the general rules unless there is a rare materials reason to do so). "I don't like it" doesn't cut it as a reason for differing. We will no doubt under our rare rules continue to insist that every leaf be counted, which will differ from RDA for rare materials reasons, but there is no rare reason that we can insist on different conventions for counting (e.g. "unnumbered" instead of bracketing) the pages we do choose to count.

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