[DCRM-L] item-specific notes: RDA 2.21 and 3.22

[Young, Stephen]

AMEN!

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Noble, Richard
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2015 12:51 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] item-specific notes: RDA 2.21 and 3.22

With regard to local record construction, what difference does any of this actually make? What is the point of minute prescription? The pointillist incoherence that I often see as a result of over-adherence to rules regarding distribution of information and note order can at least be avoided in local notes if one focuses on telling the story.

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br<mailto:RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__own.edu&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=bnQ2ajId5bW6cp72xwjzxOPp5hqgE4w7CO7mVrr9x0A&m=1Iyv4a8i8T48QFvBa90TFmUes0WLrIHg917nywElKe0&s=Jc-fk4_S96qHNh3riMrR0oUWUuYkU1cCY8tts98E-so&e=>>

On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 12:15 PM, Allison Jai O'Dell <ajodell at gmail.com<mailto:ajodell at gmail.com>> wrote:
I agree with Kate.  And I will add that what's important is not the content of the note, but the context of / impetus for the note.

Example -- a note describes a bookplate:
Is this note being used to tell the story of custodial history? = Chapter 2
Is this note being used to describe the physical condition of the item? = Chapter 3


Allison



On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 11:54 AM, James, Kate <kjam at loc.gov<mailto:kjam at loc.gov>> wrote:
Francis,

My problem with this proposal is that these notes do not necessarily fit in the scope of note on item as defined at 2.21.1.1<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__2.21.1.1&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=bnQ2ajId5bW6cp72xwjzxOPp5hqgE4w7CO7mVrr9x0A&m=1Iyv4a8i8T48QFvBa90TFmUes0WLrIHg917nywElKe0&s=8JeesgTMkkRQuPRuv8CtzsZ2jP6zI6eP5xSPUb4MaBs&e=>: “A note on item is a note providing information on attributes of the item.”  There are three attributes of item defined in chapter 2: custodial history of item; immediate source of acquisition of item; and identifier for the item.  2.21 Note on Item is the item-note equivalent of 2.17 Note on Manifestation.  If you look at the sub-instructions in 2.17, you see how they map to attributes of the manifestation like statement of responsibility and publication statement.  The notes in your email are not necessarily indicative of attributes of the item according to 2.18-2.20 so how can you make a notes on them at 2.21?

Some of them, like “Stamp: Château de La Roche Guyon, Bibliothèque” and  “Signed: Alex. Pope” might be part of the custodial history of the item, but you really can’t say without more information.  Since the stamp and signature would have to be done with an applied material like ink, I can see how that would be an item-specific carrier characteristic because the ink is an applied material unique to those items. So if you really wanted to parse it finely, in the case where a book has a stamp indicating its previous owner, the information contained in the stamp is part of chapter 2, and the fact that the stamp appears on this copy of the book only is part of chapter 3.  Splitting things this finely can result in notes that are less friendly to human users.  Take the example “Spine title: Rocque's map of Shropshire” in 2.17.2.3.  Technically, only the source of the spine title, which is the spine, belongs as a note in 2.17.2.3.  The title itself is a variant title, which can be recorded as an attribute according to 2.3.6.  However, the pure approach results in this misleading information:

Variant title: Rocque's map of Shropshire
Note on title:  Title from spine

If we have the ability to constrain the “note on title” to the variant title rather than any other kind of title, e.g., the title proper, this approach works.  And many of us do actually have that ability by using a MARC 246 18, in which the note is generated by the indicator and the variant title is recorded in the 246 $a.  However, not everyone is implementing RDA with an “encoding standard” that can do this, and the JSC wanted variety shown in the examples.  If there is only one variant title, you can do this particular example on a 3x5 card, but once you have multiple variant titles from multiple sources (e.g., spine, added title page, cover), you either confuse your users or you mix your attributes.

That was a bit of a digression so circling back to 2.21 vs. 3.22…

In contrast to 2.21’s “Note on Item”, 3.22, Note on Item-Specific Carrier Characteristics, has a much broader scope: “A note on item-specific carrier characteristic is a note providing additional information about carrier characteristics that are specific to the item being described and are assumed not to apply to other items exemplifying the same manifestation.”  Because “carrier characteristics” is not defined in RDA, you have more wiggle-room about what can be considered a carrier characteristic.  I agree, some of these examples don’t neatly fit into chapter 3, but they don’t fit into chapter 2 as currently written either.

Kate James
Policy and Standards Division
Library of congress





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