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

[bethwhittaker at ku.edu]

Deborah is too kind. I did not misunderstand. Rather, I took the opportunity to jump up on my tiny soapbox and rant a little. And I'm going to do it again!

Of course we have researchers who need those kinds of details. They also need better wireless in our reading rooms, more support for teaching with original resources, and, if you're somewhere other than the Folger, they also need a way to find examples of lesbian vampire fiction in languages other than English. Or photographs of African American military from the Korean War wearing civilian clothes.
I don't have a dog in this fight, thank goodness. I remain conflicted about RDA while managing at the same time to keep myself ignorant of its development. I just worry that we are losing sight of the forest for the trees.

Rant over! I'll now leave the discussion to people who still catalog rare materials for a living.

Beth M. Whittaker
Head, Spencer Research Library
University of Kansas
785-864-4275

Sent from my mobile, so please forgive my typing.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Deborah J. Leslie" <DJLeslie at FOLGER.edu>
Sender: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:52:48 
To: DCRM Revision Group List<dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Reply-To: DCRM Revision Group List <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] BYU's 1st RDA/DCRMB record

If Beth misunderstood my point, I expect others do, too. I included the
query to show that there are some readers who do care about such
details, not that the catalog record should have been able to answer her
question before it was asked. The larger implicit point is that although
perhaps the majority of end-users don't care about how many pages there
are, numbered or unnumbered, but that there are some who do, as well as
those of us who are responsible for buying, inventorying, and making
collections available. If in your library, you're buying only for
content and it doesn't matter which edition, issue, or printing you
have, maybe having an accurate page-count doesn't matter, either. 

 

But then I have to ask the question: if that's the situation, why
catalog with DCRM(B)? 

 

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of Whittaker, Beth M
Sent: Friday, 27 August, 2010 12:30
To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] BYU's 1st RDA/DCRMB record

 

At the risk of sounding like a penny-pinching administrator, I would
argue that the situation Deborah outlines below is one that NO amount of
standardized MARC cataloging can easily explain. There will ALWAYS be
oddities in printed books that require direct questions beyond what it
is the catalog record, no matter how complex. 

 

Might catalogers' time be better spent creating records which do not
*lie* about what is in the book, but do not attempt to explain every
possible detail? A follow up question from a researcher, perhaps
requesting additional clarification or to have something scanned, might
take less time, even if it happens every few years, than hours of
agonizing over how to represent the document, how to abbreviate it, how
to pay for the education to know how to abbreviate it, etc.

 

Of course, in an ideal world, our records could link to some of this
additional information much more easily. In my lifetime, I hope!

 

Beth


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