[DCRM-L] question about transcribing "very long dates" or "spelled-out and unconventional dates"

[James, Kate]

Hi everyone,

I am asking this strictly out of my own curiosity, not on behalf of the Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress.

I have a question about "very long dates" I'm hoping someone familiar with multiple DCRMs can answer for me.  In DCRM(B) 4D2.3, it says, "If the statement of the date in the publication is very long, substitute for it a formalized statement in square brackets. If the supplied date includes a day/month, use the sequence: day, month, year. Make a note concerning the source and the original form of the statement."  DCRM(C) has this same instruction.  However, in DCRM(G), 4D2.3 is called "Spelled-out and unconventional dates" and it says, "If the date is spelled out or unconventionally expressed, generally transcribe it as it appears. Supply the year in arabic numerals in square brackets."  Then when I looked in DCRM(S), I found nothing about what to do with either "very long dates" or "spelled-out and unconventional dates."

I do not understand the discrepancy in treatment among these various manuals.  DCRM(G) seems to provide the most principled approach because tells you to give the user the date as it appears in the source (which helps with identification of a particular manifestation) and then to supply the year in arabic numerals (which helps users to quickly determine a date of publication).  I don't understand why DCRM(B) 1) describes this as "very long dates" which seems a very amorphous idea and 2) does not allow for both transcribing the date as it appears within the element and supplying modern form in square brackets since this is done for several other date styles like dates in Roman numerals?  I supposed since there is room for judgment about what a "very long date" is, I could decide that "Anno gratiae millesimo quingentesimo septimo die vero decimoctavo Maij" isn't very long and transcribe it as found for a rare book.  However, that seems to be a less standard approach that might result in different copies of the same manifestation at different libraries not being identified as such.

Also, why does DCRM(S) not mention this at all?  It seems like this would come up with rare serials sometimes, so is there another instruction in DCRM(S) that I am missing?

The only principled reason for this discrepancy is that for some reason, a transcribed date of publication is more important for graphic materials than it is for books or cartographic materials.  For anyone who has experiencing cataloging all these types of materials, is that a valid line of reasoning? Or, are the discrepancies a result of the different DCRMs being worked on by different people at different times?  That explains the difference between DCRM(B) and DCRM(G) but it doesn't explain why there is nothing in DCRM(S) or why DCRM(C) is modeled on the older DCRM instead of the newer one.

Thanks for any insights into this issue.

Kate


Kate James
Policy and Standards Division
Library of Congress

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