[DCRM-L] Form of citation - 510 field

[Robert Maxwell]

I agree, it does seem to me bizarre that RDA has "compiler" as a relationship designator for this, but at least it is clearly under "creator" (i.e., parallel with "author"), meaning under AACR2 anyway this person would have been given main entry. I'd just as soon we use "author" for this relationship, especially since, as you note, the term "compiler" is much more commonly used in English to mean what the RDA relationship designator "editor of compilation" means.

By the way, with the 2014 RDA revision "editor of compilation" will be done away with, merged with "editor". I think the thinking was the disctinction has been confusing and the benefit of making the distinction not all that great. But as you point out, now there will be continuing confustion with "compiler", which is bizarrely not used for people who compile things like anthologies.

Robert L. Maxwell
Ancient Languages and Special Collections Cataloger
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568

"We should set an example for all the world, rather than confine ourselves to the course which has been heretofore pursued"--Eliza R. Snow, 1842.

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Kathie Coblentz
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 1:49 PM
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Form of citation - 510 field


On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 2:00 PM, <dcrm-l-request at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l-request at lib.byu.edu>> wrote:
1. Re: Form of citation - 510 field (Robert Maxwell)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robert Maxwell <robert_maxwell at byu.edu<mailto:robert_maxwell at byu.edu>>
To: "DCRM Users' Group" <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>>
Cc:
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 19:43:31 +0000
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Form of citation - 510 field
Oksana,

Authors of bibliographies routinely refer to themselves as editors or compilers on the title page. But if you think about what they in fact did, they wrote the bibliography. That is, they are the author (a.k.a. creator in RDA terms). They are neither editing somebody else's work nor compiling a group of works by other persons. They are creating an original work (the bibliography).

Bob

Robert L. Maxwell
Ancient Languages and Special Collections Cataloger
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568<tel:%28801%29422-5568>

Yet RDA, in Appendix I.2.1, specifies the use of "compiler" as the appropriate relationship term for the creator of a bibliography:

"compiler: A person, family, or corporate body responsible for creating a new work (e.g., a bibliography, a directory) by selecting, arranging, aggregating, and editing data, information, etc."

This is apparently why the designator "compiler" isn't available for the situation in which it is most likely to be used by actual human beings, to go with the name of the person who has assembled stories, poems or essays into an anthology. That has to be the awkward "editor of compilation." (See Appendix I.3.1.)

By the way, couldn't "selecting, arranging, aggregating, and editing data, information, etc." be used to describe the activity of any author, at least any author not working in purely imaginative literature? And even they could be said to be selecting and arranging data, I suppose, if only from their own thoughts and dreams.
--------------------------------------------------------
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<mailto:kathiecoblentz at nypl.org>

My opinions, not NYPL's
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/attachments/20140220/373eabe1/attachment.html>