[DCRM-L] FW: OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication

Tue Nov 12 07:16:09 MST 2013

Yes, I do think it would be worth making a response, especially since they are asking. Francis, are you willing to pull from the messages below and draft something this week? 

Annie Copeland 
Penn State 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Francis Lapka" <francis.lapka at yale.edu> 
To: "DCRM Users' Group" <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu> 
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 4:22:48 PM 
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] FW: OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

Cynthia Whitacre (OCLC) asked for comments by November 15. Is this issue of sufficient concern to merit a collective (RBMS?) response? 

Francis 

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Noble, Richard 
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 5:01 PM 
To: DCRM Users' Group 
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] FW: OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

Re Erin's post below and OCLC's remark: " 

In the past, when the same content was published in two countries (UK publication and US publication for example), it often came out at different times and may have had bibliographic significance. We are not so certain that is the case today." 

Though the dcrm... codes may mean what they mean, might it not be possible, given the close correspondence of full rda and DCRM treatment, to invoke the code as protection from unwarranted conflation--as if what it actually signifies is "We mean this manifestation, not that one, darn it!" 

It can be significant even with popular titles. Think of the silent editing that sometimes goes on between UK and US editions--e.g. most famously, in recent times, editions of the Harry Potter books. OCLC love lowering their expectations of users, as an opportunity to coarsen the database that claims to be a "World"Cat. If you think you know what they want, why should they know otherwise? 

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY 

BROWN UNIVERSITY :: PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912 :: 401-863-1187 

< Richard_Noble at Br own.edu > 

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 4:01 PM, Erin Blake < EBlake at folger.edu > wrote: 

Same here (though I'm at home with a cold, so this is only my opinion: haven't canvassed the rest of the Folger). It's not the "rare" that makes precision important for our post-1830 material, it's the "special" -- for example, we have Shakespeare's dog : a novel / by Leon Rooke in the vault even though it's a popular novel first published in 1983. It's the Folger's mission to preserve and provide scholarly access to material from Shakespeare's era and Shakespeare-related material to the present day. 

Because RDA does away with AACR2's mandatory abbreviations and silent omissions, we're comfortable using it instead of dcrmb for mass-produced books, but it does mean that we'll be using a code that would not signal "rare" to OCLC. 

Erin. 

---------------- 
Erin C. Blake, Ph.D. | Interim Head of Collection Information Services and Cataloging | Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20009 | eblake at folger.edu | office tel. +1 202-675-0323 | fax +1 202-675-0328 | www.folger.edu 

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Sprochi, Amanda K. 
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 1:39 PM 
To: DCRM Users' Group 
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] FW: OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

I would agree. Also, the 1830 cut off date does not reflect Americana. 

New records here for rare materials will have the correct $e for rare materials cataloging but our older records certainly don’t and we wouldn’t want those merged in OCLC under the rules proposed here. 

aks 

Amanda K. Sprochi 
Health Sciences Cataloger 
J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library 
106 HSL 
1 Hospital Dr. 
Columbia, MO 65212 
(573) 882-0461 
sprochia at health.missouri.edu 

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Margaret F. Nichols 
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 11:19 AM 
To: DCRM Users' Group 
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] FW: OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

FWIW: my supervisor in the Library’s cataloging dept. asked for feedback on this thread, so here’s what I wrote: 

My own preference would be for option A) (continuing with the current policy). The distinction between “rare” and “non-rare” materials is a slippery one, since as time goes on, materials that are not currently considered rare will become rare. Also, there are plenty of works that are post-1830 and may not have been cataloged using rare book rules (so they don’t have 040 $e bdrb, dcrb, or dcrmb), but that are of great rarity and/or historical significance, so that the distinction between editions published in different places will still matter very much to a lot of researchers. One example might be different editions of Joyce’s Ulysses. 

Another consideration is that editions published in different places really are different editions. They may have many textual differences that are not indicated at all on the title page. The difference in imprint may be the only clue in the catalog record that they are not the same text. 

I don’t feel confident about rendering a verdict concerning e-resources, but I do think that the argument that their place of publication should be disregarded because “ Records for remote electronic resources, are often created by content providers through automated means, and careful checking of the actual publication is often not done; thus the accuracy of place of publication may be meaningless in many records for electronic resources” is weak. If the content providers are sloppy about place of publication, that’s a good reason for them to clean up their act, not a good reason for us to muck things up further by ignoring place of publication altogether. 

My two cents, 

Margaret 

___________________________________ 

Margaret F. Nichols 

Rare Materials Cataloging Coordinator 

Cataloging & Metadata Services in RMC 

2B Kroch Library 

Cornell University 

Ithaca, NY 14853-5302 

Tel. (607) 255-3530 * E-mail mnr1 at cornell.edu 

From: Sotelo, Aislinn [ mailto:asotelo at ucsd.edu ] 
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 6:37 PM 
To: DCRM Revision Group List ( dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu ) 
Subject: [DCRM-L] FW: OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

See the below messages. 

I had the same question as Francis when I saw this message and I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts about this. 

I know that at my institution many of our Special Collections records are not coded as bdrb, dcrb or dcrm[x] and fall after the cut-off date to be considered rare, yet records that accurately represent their publication information is nonetheless important. 

Aislinn 

Aislinn Sotelo 

Head, Special Collections Technical Services |The Library | UC San Diego | ( 858-534-6766 | * asotelo at ucsd.edu 

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [ mailto:BIBCO at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV ] On Behalf Of Whitacre,Cynthia 
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 10:31 AM 
To: BIBCO at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV 
Subject: Re: [BIBCO] OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

Hello Francis: 

That’s an excellent question. 

Currently we protect and do not merge based on both date of publication criteria and/or coding in the 040 subfield e to define “rare”. 

Dates: 

For cartographic materials, anything pre-1900 is considered rare (based on the recommendation of MAGIRT). 

For all other materials, it is pre-1830. 

The codes in 040 subfield e that would prevent us from merging are: 

bdrb or dcrb or dcrm[x] (i.e., any $e code beginning with the letters dcrm) 

We’d welcome input on this criteria also. If there are other codes we ought to add to this list to define “rare”, please let us know! 

Cynthia 

Cynthia M. Whitacre 

Manager, WorldCat Quality & Partner Content Dept. 

OCLC 

800-848-5878, ext. 6183 

whitacrc at oclc.org 

From: Lapka, Francis [ mailto:francis.lapka at yale.edu ] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 11:25 AM 
To: Program for Cooperative Cataloging 
Cc: Whitacre,Cynthia 
Subject: RE: OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

Cynthia, 

As you note, “ Distinctions like this will continue to matter for rare books. ” 

For option B— Modify the current policy to allow the merging of records (and matching of records) with different places of publication for non-rare materials if everything else matches )—how would OCLC define “non-rare materials”? 

Thanks, 

Francis 

_________________________________ 

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 

Please note: The Study Room is closed due to the Center’s refurbishment project, and access to the collections is limited and by appointment only. Requests for materials from Prints and Drawings and Rare Books and Manuscripts should be made at least two weeks in advance by e-mailing ycba.prints at yale.edu . It is expected that normal services in the Study Room will resume in early January 2014. 

From: Program for Cooperative Cataloging [ mailto:BIBCO at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV ] On Behalf Of Whitacre,Cynthia 
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 9:57 AM 
To: BIBCO at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV 
Subject: [BIBCO] OCLC matching/merging question for BIBCO: place of publication 

Hello BIBCO Colleagues: 

This is an admittedly long message, but please read all of it, as your opinion and thoughts are requested. 

OCLC is contemplating making a change in our “when to input a new record” standards as published in Bibliographic Formats and Standards Chapter 4, as well as in our internal merging standards for what is considered a duplicate. We’d like your help in reaching a decision. The element in question is the place of publication. 

Currently in Chapter 4 of BFAS ( http://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/input.html ) under 260 subfield a (we know we need to add 264 to this) we list some instances where minor differences in place are acceptable for considering the records to be the same. However, the basic statement says that “differences in the place of publication justify a new record.” 

One of the reasons we have traditionally NOT merged “duplicate” records when everything else is the same is when place of publication differs. Here is what our current internal merge instructions say: 

260 

Subfield $a guidelines 

· Records may be considered duplicates for merge even with the absence or presence of the subfield a. 

· Always match 1 st place of publication. 

Examples: 

· New York matches New York, Toronto 

· London, Orlando matches London, Toronto 

· New York does not match Toronto, New York 

· New York, Bombay does not match Bombay, New York 

Note: Places of publication within the same country are considered a match and justify a merge. 

· New York, Chicago matches Chicago, New York 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

For example, look at these 3 publication statements from 3 WorldCat records for the same title: 

264 1 Cheltenham, UK : ǂ b Edward Elgar, ǂ c [2013] 

260 Cheltenham : ǂ b Edward Elgar, ǂ c 2013. 

260 Northampton, Mass. : ǂ b E. Elgar Pub., ǂ c 2013. 

Under our current OCLC criteria for place, we would merge the first two but not the third (assuming everything else matched). 

Looking at the cataloging codes, here’s what AACR2 says: 

1.4C5. If two or more places in which a publisher, distributor, etc., has offices are named in the item, give the first named place. Give any subsequently named place that is given prominence by the layout or typography of the source of information. If the first named place and any place given prominence are not in the home country of the cataloguing agency, give also the first of any subsequently named places that is in the home country. Omit all other places. 

And, RDA says: 

2.8.2.4 

More Than One Place of Publication 

If more than one place of publication is named on the source of information, record the place names in the order indicated by the sequence, layout, or typography of the names on the source of information. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Our thinking, in random order: 

· It has always seemed that cataloger’s judgment is at play regarding what gets recorded, no matter which code is in use. 

· RDA gives a bit more leeway than AACR2. In our discussions, we are of two minds regarding this. 

· In the past, when the same content was published in two countries (UK publication and US publication for example), it often came out at different times and may have had bibliographic significance. We are not so certain that is the case today. 

· Many reported duplicates and perceived duplicates exist in WorldCat because of the policy of not matching places of publication in different countries when everything else matches. 

· End users really don’t care about these distinctions when it comes to obtaining the content and find the multiple records confusing 

· Records for remote electronic resources, are often created by content providers through automated means, and careful checking of the actual publication is often not done; thus the accuracy of place of publication may be meaningless in many records for electronic resources. 

· Distinctions like this will continue to matter for rare books. 

So, we are left with some choices: 

A) Continue with the current policy, and require different WorldCat records for different places of publication 

B) Modify the current policy to allow the merging of records (and matching of records) with different places of publication for non-rare materials if everything else matches. 

C) Stick with the current policy for tangible resources, but allow matching/merging of records for different places of publication for records for remotely-accessed resources only. 

D) Another alternative entirely; suggestions welcome! 

We would welcome discussion and input on this matter. Which of the choices, A, B, or C do you prefer? If you prefer D, please suggest the alternative that you have in mind. We have asked BIBCO colleagues, since we believe this is a larger issue with records for monographic materials rather than with records for continuing resources. Please share your thoughts on the BIBCO list. If you prefer to send a message directly to OCLC, send it to askqc at oclc.org , as that will go to the appropriate people. We welcome comments through November 15, as we will be discussing this again at OCLC the week of November 18 to try to reach a decision. 

Thank you! 

Cynthia M. Whitacre 

Manager, WorldCat Quality & Partner Content Dept. 

OCLC 

800-848-5878, ext. 6183 

whitacrc at oclc.org 

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