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

[Hillyard, Brian]

Dear all

Allison Rich's first observation can be developed further.  At a time of
decreasing rather than increasing cataloguing resources, we do need to
think carefully about how we use those precious resources.  Like
Allison, one of my main concerns is to address backlogs and provide
access to all our rare books through the library's OPAC.  For pre-1801
items the OPAC probably has about 125,000 records for original items
which could of course all be described as non-RDA.  I certainly wouldn't
consider diverting resources to some programme of revising the
pagination statements in all these records: quite frankly I can't see
that ever being done.

But above and beyond these 125,000 records for original items, there are
now all the records for ECCO and ECCO2 items which, like many other
large research libraries, we have loaded into our catalogue (that's only
one example: there are many other sets of MARC records that some
libraries have loaded into their catalogues).  These are not going to
change unless somewhere along the line somebody is going to be prepared
to pay for it, and who would that be? (I might also add that if ESTC
decided not to follow RDA for its 300 fields, I can't see those
contributing new items to ESTC wanting to express 300 in one way for
their own catalogues and in another way for ESTC, any more than I can
see those of us deriving records from ESTC wanting to change the 300 in
downloaded records in order to conform to RDA.)

In terms of post-1800 material, I suppose that we will see records for
new publications being created in accordance with RDA, but in any large
research library with a strong retention policy, it will be many many
years before the number of RDA records overtakes the number of AACR
records.  It would be very interesting to know if the JSC worked out any
projections for this. I have read what John Attig writes about "user
convenience".  That's a big topic for discussion, but one quick question
would be: was the JSC looking at user convenience in (say) 2050 and
balancing that against the patchwork of catalogue records that users
will be faced with in the meantime? Or what exactly were the JSC's
thoughts about this?

Brian

Dr Brian Hillyard
Rare Book Collections Manager
National Library of Scotland
George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EW
E-mail: b.hillyard at nls.uk
Direct dial: +44 (0)131 623 3889
Fax: +44 (0)131 623 3888
P please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of Allison Rich
Sent: 26 August 2010 22:30
To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] BYU's 1st RDA/DCRMB record

Hello All:

I have been reading and absorbing all the RDA discussions about the 300 
field.

Aside from Echoing Deborah Leslie's and John Attig's statements about 
the ungainliness what the 300 field would like
in an RDA record from the prospective of the rare books cataloguer, I 
have several other observations to list.

1) In an age of shrinking staffs and budgets, this will create A**more 
work** for a cataloguer who is already time-pressed to create
full level DCRB records which are useful and meaningful for a 
researcher. The additional work is needless, when it can
be stated so much more succinctly. I can tell you it will create 
immeasurable more work for me, when I am now the only rare books
cataloguer remaining on staff. The JCB is dedicated to inputting the 
best and most complete records possible for its holdings and I will
continue to uphold that tradition, otherwise I would never have chosen 
to do what I do. At a library like the JCB who has such a large
backlog of material and now only one person to do it, well, you can 
image it makes me extremely discouraged ....

2) The square brackets around unnumbered pages and leaves is an elegant 
data-style convention that becomes ungainly when
converted into the user friendly mode of spelling it all out. It's 
succinct, and doesn't require many additional brain cells to
absorb a data construct.

I am not afraid of change, but what I do have a difficult time trying to

comprehend is, at least in the case of the 300 field, is how
user-friendly becomes actually dumb-downed. In this day and age when so 
few libraries bother to put full level DCRB records into
OCLC either in a master record or an institutional record, there will 
indeed be many more non-scholars consulting and using our
records. However, should we not give them some credit to understand a 
simple data construct such as the square bracket?

That's just my two sous,
~Allison


> The statement of extent in DCRM(B) contains two kinds of information:
> what the resource says about itself (the pagination or foliation), and
> what is true about the resource (the accounting of every leaf in a
> book). I can see making the argument that the accounting for
> unpaginated/unfoliated leaves that are not inferred to be part of a
> sequence is in fact supplied by the cataloger and comes from outside
the
> resource.
>
> And I must say, how can this statement:  
>
> "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."
>
> *possibly* be easier to understand than the current practice by
> *anybody*, even if they don't quite know what the brackets mean in
> statements of extent?
> _________________________ 
> Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S. 
> RBMS past chair 2010-2011 | 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 
>   
********************************
"Outside of a dog, 
a book is probably man's best friend,
and inside of a dog, 
it's too dark to read. 
- Groucho Marx"

Allison Rich
Catalogue Librarian
John Carter Brown Library
Providence, Rhode Island
Allison_Rich at brown.edu

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