[DCRM-L] Citations in RDA

[Noble, Richard]

I don't think of the item described in the record as the subject of a
bibliographical entry. The subject of the reference resource (which I'll
call a bibliography) cited in a 510 is the body of entities that it
enumerates, identifies, distinguishes, describes, etc. Some bibliographies
are very much concerned with identifying manifestations as such (those
which make use of bibliographical analysis and description); others are
indeed subject bibliographies, and they thus have more to do with works and
expressions than with manifestations *per se *(though I'm not sure that a
work or expression can be said to exist in the absence of a manifestation
of some sort). In either case, the entity that we catalog is not the
*subject* of an individual entry--it is, rather, the *object* to which that
entry points: one is *identifying* the resource that one catalogs by way of
such references.

I'm not quite sure why this matters to me so much. It may have to do with
the perspective that rare materials catalogers bring to  their work, which
I think is vital to any clear understanding of what it is that we catalog:
our concern with the materiality of *all* kinds texts, for the
manifestation of texts as objects in the world. (As I put it to a young
inquirer lately, we pay attention to actual things that actual people
made.) At this stage of developing yet another variation on our approach to
doing this work, I worry that the latent immateriality of "subject"
relationships blurs that focus. What the book is *about* is obviously of
great importance; but what it* is* and *that* it is are equally important,
and I think we're better off regarding bibliographies (discographies, etc.)
as tools for understanding the latter.

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>


On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 2:16 PM, Schneider, Nina <nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu
> wrote:

>  Francis
>
>
>
> Sorry for the long delay in responding. This draft is looking really good.
> In Richard Noble’s email of 8/10, he states: “One cites these resources as
> evidence for establishing WEMI relationships among resources: a matter of
> identification. Treating the "described in/describes" relationship as
> "subject" is accordingly a category error.” Although the language of RDA is
> one with which I struggle, I think that the relationship between the
> bibliographic entry and the WEMI (or the EMI) could be considered a subject
> relationship. The item described/listed in the bibliographic entry is the
> subject of that entry.
>
>
>
> Nina
>
>
>
>
>
> +---------------
>
> Nina M. Schneider
>
> Head Cataloger
>
> William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
>
> 2520 Cimarron Street
>
> Los Angeles, CA  90018
>
> (323) 731-8529
>
>
>
> nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu
>
> http://www.clarklibrary.ucla.edu/
>
>
>
>
>
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