[DCRM-L] Printers' widows, once again

[Kathie Coblentz]

Does everyone remember the fruitful discussion we had on the topic of
printers' widows about a year ago? The original question concerned how to
interpret the rather confusingly worded LCC-PC PS for 9.19.1.1, the section
on "Printer's widows" (sic, and the confusion begins here; surely it's a
rare printer who has more than one widow?)

That PS was derived from an earlier LCRI (from 2002), which was more
clearly worded but still left some room for interpretation. Basically, we
came to the conclusion that there are three possible cases, each with a
different format for use in constructing the authorized access point:

1) A widow's personal name is known either through usage in resources or
through reference sources: use format [Widow's surname, widow's forename].
Example: Ruremund, Catherine van
2) A widow's personal name is not known and she is known only as the widow
of a printer whose personal name is known: use format [Widow of husband's
name] in direct order. Example: Viuda [sic; should be "Vidua"] Gothofredi
Liebernickelii
3) A widow's personal name is not known and she is known only by the term
of address "widow" or the equivalent and a surname: use format [Surname, $c
Widow]. Example: Cuthbert, $c Widow
(Just as an aside, I am unable to determine that there actually ever
existed a book which included in the imprint the words "Printed by the
Widow Cuthbert.")

If a widow's personal name was not known when the AAP was determined, but
was later discovered, that would not provide sufficient justification to
change the AAP to be in accordance with Case 1. However, in the example we
were discussing last year, the widow's personal name was in fact known and
included in the information in the reference source cited when the NAR was
created (which was under AACR 2, and subsequent to the date of the LCRI).
Therefore, the record was changed. (See: Bordelet, Marie-Jeanne, $d -1773.)

In Connexion's version of the NAF, a search for "veuve or widow or viuda or
vidua or witwe" in PN and RDA in Descriptive Conventions today produces a
result of 100. The majority are set up in accordance with Case 1, i.e. the
widow's personal name is known and was used to establish the authorized
access point. There are are only around 20 that are done another way--among
them, I count only 10 where the widow's personal name was in fact known but
was not used for the authorized access point.

When I come across one of these cases now, that is the record is coded for
RDA but the widow's personal name, though known, was not used as the basis
of the AAP, am I justified in changing the AAP?

And just what should be considered a widow's "personal name"? In the case
of French names, in reference sources such as the BnF authority file and
Arbour's Dictionnaire des femmes libraires en France, the ladies are
identified by their husband's name or surname plus "widow of", with their
maiden name added in a note. That is, you do not find a widow's forenames
together with her husband's surname, as in "Bordelet, Marie-Jeanne." BnF
has as AAP "Bordelet, Veuve de Marc (16..?-1773)" and Arbour has its entry
under "Bordelet, Marc (Vve), née Marie-Jeanne Largentier." Are we justified
in preferring the form [husband's surname, widow's forename] when it is a
combination not found in resources nor in reference sources but must be
extrapolated from information in the latter? (The examples found in NAF
today usually use the husband's surname in the AAP, but some have used the
maiden name.)

These queries are inspired by an actual case I have; the name in the
imprint reads "la veuve Pissot." She was the widow of Noël Pissot and her
maiden name was Catherine Bauchon. The form used in the several hundred
resources in World Cat where her name appears as publisher/bookseller is
invariably "la veuve Pissot." She is found in BnF as "Pissot, Veuve de Noël
(16..-1753)" and in Arbour she is listed as "PISSOT, Noël (Vve), née
Catherine BAUCHON." Other VIAF institutions except LC/NAF have "Pissot,
veuve de Noël," "Pissot, Noel, Witwe" or similar. LC/NAF is alone in using
"Veuve de Noël Pissot, -1753"--a form not found in any imprints, and which
would not have been correct under either the LCRI or the LC-PCC PS, if we
have interpreted the text of these documents correctly, since her maiden
name was noted in the record when it was created in 2007.

Would I be justified in changing the AAP to "Pissot, Catherine, -1753",
which would follow the pattern used by the majority of RDA NARs for widows?

I now have serious reservations about whether the LCRI/LCC-PS PS solution
for this problem is really the most appropriate, but that could be a topic
for another discussion. For now, I would appreciate people's thoughts on
the case of la veuve Pissot.
--------------------------------------------------------
Kathie Coblentz, Rare Materials Cataloger
Collections Strategy/Special Formats Processing
The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
5th Avenue and 42nd Street
New York, NY  10018
kathiecoblentz at nypl.org

My opinions, not NYPL's
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