[DCRM-L] MARC 856 and links to electronic reproductions

[Noble, Richard]

On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 4:23 PM, Fell, Todd <todd.fell at yale.edu> wrote:

> Our catalog ought to describe our particular copy (albeit employing shared
> bibliographic standards), not an idealized version.


I hope it remains understood that the proper basis for description of a
particular copy is "ideal copy" description--not, I should emphasize,
"idealized version", whatever we might take that to mean.

"Ideal copy"--a descriptive category, not a Platonic entity--was an
unfortunate choice of term to designate all those elements of a body of
books that evidence their membership in nested sets called edition, issue
(the basic unit of ideal copy description, and what we basically mean by
"manifestation") and state, the last comprising isolated variations among
copies that do not give rise to separate classification.

In ISBD(A) ideal copy description was mandated as the basic goal of
"antiquarian" cataloging, which requires conscious assessment, based on
more or less research as the situation warrants or allows, to establish
that any one copy is subsumed under a given manifestation, which can also
mean recording variants that correspond to states, in order not to prevent
the creation of false manifestations. This goal is stated, in other words,
in DCRM(B) Introduction, III.1.1. (perhaps wisely avoiding the word
"ideal").

OCLC master records are manifestation records, and those of us who tag them
dcrmb need to be aware at all times of those things which do belong in the
"master record", and those which do not. This goes beyond "shared
bibliographic standards", which are simply devices to support the
application of the underlying principles, and may need the occasional twist
or bend to help us reach the goal.

This may be an over-reaction--but my teaching experience has always been
that "ideal" and "idealized" (or "perfect" or "actually good, unlike this
depressing example of the printer's art") are too commonly mixed up,  and
have to be directly addressed again and again.

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>
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