[DCRM-L] RDA BSR for rare materials, August 27 revision

[Lapka, Francis]

Dear DCRM-L,

The task group thanks everyone who submitted comments on the draft of the RDA BSR for rare materials, and also thanks those who participated in last week's straw poll. Please find attached the latest revision, which includes changes informed by responses to the straw poll. The TG has removed the elements for 2.2 (Sources of Information) and 4.5 (Restrictions on Use), while leaving the language of 3.4 (Extent) unchanged.

The discussion period thus concluded, we will now submit the revised draft to the BSC for its consideration. Jane Carpenter will soon be in touch with the BSC list to offer instructions for voting (via ALA Connect) on whether or not to approve the BSR in its current revised form (i.e. the "clean" copy attached).

As a reminder, here is a summary of important changes incorporated into the previous draft, and retained in the present version:

The biggest change to this revision is the inclusion of a Rare Materials instruction corresponding to the first alternative offered at RDA 1.7.1 General Guidelines on Transcription<http://access.rdatoolkit.org/1.7.1.html>. This alternative reads as follows:
If the agency creating the data has established in-house guidelines for capitalization, punctuation, numerals, symbols, abbreviations, etc., or has designated a published style manual, etc., (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style) as its preferred guide, use those guidelines or that style manual in place of the instructions given under1.7.2<http://access.rdatoolkit.org/document.php?id=rdachp1&target=rda1-804#rda1-804>-1.7.9[Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: http://access.rdatoolkit.org/images/rdalink.png]<http://access.rdatoolkit.org/document.php?id=rdachp1&target=rda1-890#rda1-890> and in the appendices.[Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: http://access.rdatoolkit.org/images/lcpslink.png]<http://access.rdatoolkit.org/document.php?id=lcpschp1&target=lcps1-734#lcps1-734>

At 1.7.1 in the BSR, we offer this instruction :
Use Descriptive Cataloging for Rare Materials as the "designated published style manual" in place of the instructions given under RDA 1.7.2-1.7.9 for transcribing punctuation, numerals, symbols, abbreviations, etc.

Instructions in elements 1.7.2-1.7.9 also treat transcription issues concerning capitalization, diacritical marks, symbols, spacing, and inaccuracies. The alternative at 1.7.1 allows us to legitimately bring DCRM in to areas of the RDA BSR that had, in our recent discussions, caused us all some discomfort. Of course the Bibliographic Standards Committee may still elect to edit DCRM rules concerning transcription, perhaps to bring them more in line with RDA, but by pointing to DCRM as our preferred guide for transcription style, this part of the BSR will remain valid.

Other items of note:

*         The revision retains the instruction to code records "rda" and "dcrmb" (or "dcrms") in 040 $e. This coding is necessary to identify records that follow the rare materials departures from the general BSR. We hope that the revisions presented in this draft may ease the reservations of those who might have previously felt uncomfortable with this double coding.

*         The revision removes the exception for pre-1500 material, while encouraging the cataloging of such material to the fullest extent possible.

*         The revision now instructs catalogers to record ("Generally ...") all distribution and manufacture statements. In so doing, it goes a step beyond the existing AACR2 BSR for rare books.

A number of revision suggestions concerned elements that apply to the entire (unified) BSR, rather than just rare materials provisions. These include all of the following issues, which we will include in our report to PCC. These elements, however, remain unchanged in the present revision.

*         Based on feedback from our community, the TG thinks that the FRBR column in the BSR table introduces unnecessary complexity without adding sufficiently useful information. The WEMI level of each element is already clear from the title of each section of the table. Furthermore, the frequent use of "M" (for manifestation) in the present table may be confused with the use of "M" (for mandatory) in the AACR2 version of the BSR.

*         If the FRBR column is retained, may we dispense with the abbreviations "C," "F," "P," and "PL" at the head of the table? These don't seem to be used in the document.

*         Some members of the TG, and some of our constituents, have strong concerns about the navigability of a unified BSR. A unified BSR may make it easier to maintain the integrity of instructions across formats, but it may also make the document unwieldy to use. The TG hopes that PCC can develop a user-friendly presentation for the unified BSR. We recommend that such presentation gives the user the option to filter the unified document by material type (i.e. to show only those elements relevant to a single format).

*         2.12.16 ISSN of subseries: Include "(T)", depending on outcome of ALA proposal to JSC.

*         2.13 Mode of issuance: In a unified BSR, the 007 could be any of the allowed codes, not just "m".

*         6.9 Content type: As with mode of issuance, this element could contain a number of additional elements in the context of a unified BSR.

*         6.22 Signatory to a treaty, etc.: This element needs to be filed in correct numerical order in the BSR table.

*         Category of material: Note implies that 007/00 is only required for microform textual monographs.

*         Form of item: The MARC encoding given only applies to books, serials, and music; for graphic and cartographic material "form of item" is 008/29.


For the TG,
Francis Lapka


_________________________________
Francis Lapka, Catalog Librarian
Yale Center for British Art, Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts
1080 Chapel Street, PO Box 208280, New Haven, CT  06520
203.432.9672    francis.lapka at yale.edu<mailto:francis.lapka at yale.edu>

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