[DCRM-L] DPC: remove card catalog vocabulary from general instructions on notes in 7A1.4

[Robert Maxwell]

The original proposal said: "There will be one week for discussion, after which time BSC members will vote." I think this is a good plan (as clarified by Erin, that discussion is for everyone on the list, and the vote is for BSC members). In the case of this first proposal, the cart appears to have gotten before the horse--it looks as though BSC members can start voting today, before discussion has even begun? A proposed rule revision might be changed as a result of discussion, no? I suggest that in the future the link to alaconnect for voting should be sent out after the week's discussion is over and the proposer has had a chance to revise the proposal if necessary.

Here's my comment on the proposal below. It seems to me 7A1.4 wasn't intended to instruct the cataloger to make a note to justify all added entries, but rather to draw attention to the special indexes kept by special collections--that seems to be the whole point of the rule, so removing references to the special files bothers me. In any case we've never needed to justify subject added entries, which I believe would include genre/form. I'm also concerned that if we're looking forward to harmonizing with RDA, RDA doesn't require that added access points be justified. I anticipate the argument (which I myself made with respect to RDA) that users may be confused when they follow an entry to a record and don't see a note explaining why they got there; but that argument applies to rare and non-rare materials alike, so I'd be hard pressed to argue that there was some rare reason why our rules need to differ from the general rules on this point. 

Erin is right, we may perhaps no longer keep special (separate) files of these things, but we do keep separate *indexes* based on the added access points in the catalog record, so a simpler "fix" for this (if one is needed) would be to substitute "indexes" for "files": "Notes may also be made to justify added entries intended for special indexes of personal or corporate names, titles, genres/forms, physical characteristics, provenance, etc." (I'd be happy to see "genres/forms" removed from the list, though--first, genre/form is no longer all that "special" I'm happy to say, in part thanks to the rare cataloging community's aggressive use of it--lots of non-rare catalogers are using genre/form nowadays; second, I'd doubtful that they (655 fields) need to be justified in the description.)

Happy Thanksgiving to my U.S. colleagues and worldwide--as I sit here at home enjoying music streaming to me digitally (from the Library otherwise closed for the holiday), thanks to the wonderful and amazing technological advances of the last couple of years, I hope we can all think of many things we're grateful for, including the privilege of discussing changes to cataloging rules in an atmosphere of friendship and collegiality :-)

Thanks,
Bob


Robert L. Maxwell
Head, Special Collections and Formats Catalog Dept.
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568
________________________________________
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Erin Blake [EBlake at FOLGER.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 8:05 PM
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: [DCRM-L] DPC: remove card catalog vocabulary from general      instructions on notes in 7A1.4

Discussion of proposed change to DCRM text:

Issue: DCRM(B) and DCRM(S) 7A1.4. both say "Notes may also be made to justify added entries intended for special files of personal or corporate names, titles, genres/forms, physical characteristics, provenance, etc." The reference to "special files" implies separate sections of a card catalog.

Proposed change: remove the reference to "special files." Revised wording would be "Notes may also be made to justify added entries for personal or corporate names, titles, genres/forms, physical characteristics, provenance, etc."

BSC members have one week to vote on this proposed change at http://connect.ala.org/node/118529 (poll closes December 1 at 9:01pm CST).

Apologies in advance: I fear this is too minor a change to bother the whole List and BSC with, but I didn't want to start with something that seems to be a Big Deal.

Thanks,

   EB.

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Erin C. Blake, Ph.D.  |  Curator of Art & Special Collections  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 E. Capitol St. SE  | Washington, DC 20003-1004  |  office tel. (202) 675-0323  |  fax:  (202) 675-0328  | eblake at folger.edu  |  www.folger.edu