[DCRM-L] Printers' widows

[Kathie Coblentz]

Thanks to Ted for the helpful reply, and thanks to Robert Maxwell for
explaining that the "printers' widows" clause came originally from the
LCRI (in 2002), and was written by the BSC. (It has been re-written
for the LC-PCC PS, with a considerable loss of clarity.)

The concrete example that led to my overanalysis of the PS is this:

lccn # no2009079894, Veuve Bordelet, -1773.

This NAR was originally created under AACR 2 in this form (in 2009),
and has recently been updated  by the British Library.

When the record was originally created, no information was provided
about Mme. Bordelet's personal name, though it was readily available
in the only source cited, the CERL online thesaurus, which was last
changed in 2004 and gives her maiden name (Marie-Jeanne Largentier) as
well as full details of her two marriages to printers.

The record was updated earlier this year in the Great Wave of Change
to convert the death date from d. 1773 to "-1773," but was otherwise
untouched from its creation until August 9, 2013. On that date the BL
added a 670 citing the wonderful title of a 1760 legal document that
gives us her maiden name and the full names of her two husbands, as
well as the names of her daughter by her first marriage and her
son-in-law (she was apparently in bankruptcy and the document relates
to the identification of her debts).

Armed with that information, the BL cataloger added 400s from her
maiden name and her two married names. One existing 400 was changed
(surely erroneously): "Bordelet, Marc,1697?-1754, widow of" has become
"Bordelet, Marc, widow of  1697?-1754" (the husband's dates have no
place here).

But it seems that both under AACR 2/LCRI and RDA/LC-PCC PSS, the
preferred form of her name should be her personal name, and
specifically the latest form of her personal name, the name she bore
in her second marriage: Bordelet, Marie-Jeanne. (See RDA 9.2.2.7 for
the "change of name" guidelines.)

Am I thinking clearly here? Thanks for your input.
--------------------------------------------------------
Kathie Coblentz, Rare Materials Cataloger
Collections Strategy/Special Formats Processing
The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
5th Avenue and 42nd Street, Room 313
New York, NY  10018
kathiecoblentz at nypl.org
My opinions, not NYPL's

>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ted P Gemberling <tgemberl at uab.edu>
> To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
> Cc:
> Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 17:43:22 +0000
> Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Printers' widows
>
> Kathie,
>
> I think you might be overanalyzing this. I think the LC-PCC PS is basically giving us permission to follow three different practices depending on how much information we have.
>
>
>
> 1.)    If we know the real name of the widow, we enter by that name.
>
> 2.)    If we know her husband’s full name but not hers, we set it up as a “phrase in direct order” (in other words, in the order we find it on the title page), with a reference with his name in inverted order, followed by “widow of.”
>
> 3.)    If we don’t know his full name, we set it up with the phrase in inverted order as, say, “Cuthbert, Widow,” with a reference in direct order as “Widow Cuthbert”
>
>
>
> I’ll admit I was a little surprised by #3, because I expected the use of direct order there, as in #2, also. Apparently they’re following RDA 9.2.2.9.3, “Persons Known by a Surname Only,”
>
> using inverted order. When you have that little information about someone, I suppose the surname is the most distinctive thing about them.  But since in both cases you’re including a 400 for the other form in the authority record, you are not really losing any information by choosing direct order or inverted order as the established form. A user will be able to retrieve the name by either “widow” or Cuthbert. That shows the importance of authority records.
>
>
>
> At any rate, I think it’s clear that the three scenarios are distinguished by how much information we have about the person. In #1, we have the widow’s full name; in #3, we only have her husband’s surname.
>
>
>
> I think you can read between the lines and assume that if we knew from reference sources what her husband’s given name was, we would use #2 even if that name wasn’t given on the title page.
>
>
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> The more information we have, from any source, the more likely we are to use #1.
>
> Ted Gemberling
>
> UAB Lister Hill Library