[DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
Will Evans
evans at bostonathenaeum.org
Wed Apr 4 08:21:54 MDT 2018
I also agree with keeping the square brackets for the many reasons that
have already been stated. And for what it is worth, I’m also in favor of
maintaining the use of [i.e. …] to indicate corrections in the statement of
extent (and [sic] in other areas of transcription). These conventions are
well established, and as Dr. Attar points out, we will likely always have
legacy cataloging containing these conventions.
Best,
Will
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Will Evans, MLIS
National Endowment for the Humanities
Chief Librarian in Charge of Technical Services
Library of the Boston Athenaeum
10 1/2 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
Tel: 617-227-0270 ext. 243
Fax: 617-227-5266
www.bostonathenaeum.org
*From:* DCRM-L [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] *On Behalf Of *Karen
Attar
*Sent:* Wednesday, April 04, 2018 8:56 AM
*To:* DCRM Users' Group
*Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
I agree entirely with this view.
We have been thinking a bit about ease for users. Users must learn to
understand square brackets (if they don’t already) because at the same time
that they are looking at books catalogued by new rules, they will be
looking at books catalogued by old rules in hybrid catalogues and also at
printed bibliographies which employ the convention of square brackets.
Karen
Dr Karen Attar
Curator of Rare Books and University Art
Senate House Library, University of London
Senate House
Malet St
London
WC1E 7HU
Tel. 020 7862 8472
http://research.sas.ac.uk/search/fellow/516/dr-karen-attar/
*The University of London is an exempt charity in England and Wales. We are
committed to achieving a 20% cut in emissions from University buildings by
2015. Please think before you print*
*From:* DCRM-L [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu
<dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Bychowski, Brenna
*Sent:* 04 April 2018 13:47
*To:* DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
*Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
Setting aside the question of [i.e.] and [sic] for the moment, and
returning to the original conversation about using square brackets, I just
want to put in my vote for retaining the brackets. If we take a relatively
straightforward statement of extent, such as:
vi, [3], 10-311, [1] pages
and replace the brackets with “unnumbered pages,” we end up with the more
unwieldly:
vi pages, 3 unnumbered pages, 10-311 pages, 1 unnumbered page
As statements of extent for rare materials can (and do) get significantly
more complicated than that, I think we would quickly enter into a realm
where using “unnumbered pages” instead of square brackets would lead to
more confusion and obfuscation than clarity. Given the nature of our work,
it seems to me that the concision and economy of display that square
brackets give us is useful to keep.
Brenna
--
Brenna Bychowski
Catalog/Metadata Librarian
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Yale University
203.432.4850
brenna.bychowski at yale.edu
*From:* DCRM-L [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu
<dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *William Hale
*Sent:* Wednesday, April 4, 2018 5:35 AM
*To:* DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
*Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
I don’t think I have ever used [sic] in an extent statement, though I do
employ it occasionally in transcribed fields. I use [i.e.] fairly often
when printed pagination is incorrect, as it often is in early materials.
Not to use it or an equivalent in such cases means that the extent
statement will not represent the actual extent of the item, which is highly
misleading. You can of course put the actual extent in a note, but where
does that leave the “granularity of RDA”? And it is making key information
about the item less easy to find, which is the last thing we should be
doing.
--
William Hale.
Rare Books and Early Manuscripts Department,
Cambridge University Library,
West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DR.
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.lib.cam.ac.uk_deptserv_rarebooks_index.html&d=DwMFAg&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=ic4fFhrKj_tnOO1LhvD85wkHXq5V8Ndks3a0JI9pZlc&m=3PdripfKq3B6nwBxYQXt39XD4uOX3qETYFUuBh9xfoU&s=MZ4c5xb5Z8y4YFDui2pV9noyo44R0Ry9i-kFtnQb41E&e=>
Telephone: (+44) (0)1223 333122 <+44%201223%20333122>
Email: William.Hale at lib.cam.ac.uk
*From:* DCRM-L [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu
<dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Robert Maxwell
*Sent:* 04 April 2018 00:25
*To:* DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
*Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
Actually, I think the RDA solution is not to use “sic” at all or any
equivalent, just to copy exactly what is there with no “on the spot”
explanation and then explaining later in a note, if thought necessary. I’m
not sure now often “sic” would be used in an extent statement—maybe if the
numeral being recorded is known to be incorrect?—but I think RDA’s solution
would be to record what’s there and explain in a note if necessary. Which
seems like a pretty “rare materials cataloging” way of doing things, to
represent the item exactly as it represents itself.
Bob
Robert L. Maxwell
Ancient Languages and Special Collections Librarian
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568
*From:* DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> *On Behalf Of *Margaret F.
Nichols
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 3, 2018 3:37 PM
*To:* DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
*Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
I’m a bit skeptical of the idea that an abbreviation of a Latin phrase is
going to be easier for non-English users to understand than an English
phrase is, given that the lingua franca these days tends to be English
rather than Latin. I do agree, though, that it’s hard to come up with a
concise English equivalent for “sic.”
Two cents,
Margaret
_______________________________
Margaret F. Nichols
Rare Materials Cataloging Coordinator
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
2B Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-5302
Tel. (607) 255-9667
*From:* DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> *On Behalf Of *Lapka, Francis
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 03, 2018 12:59 PM
*To:* DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
*Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
I’m pleased to see all the useful input.
On the matter of “i.e.” and “sic”: Would it be fair to say that the users
for a given record describing a rare item are likely to be more
linguistically diverse, compared to the audiences for other resources
described with RDA? If so, is that a sufficient rare materials reason for
deviation – assuming “i.e.” is easier to understand than “that is” for the
non-English audience ? The same linguistic neutrality might be evoked to
justify the use of square brackets instead of “unnumbered.” If the premise
is malarkey, the case for “i.e.” in this context is wobbly.
Francis
*From:* DCRM-L [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu
<dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Kathie Coblentz
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 03, 2018 12:48 PM
*To:* dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
*Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
I completely agree with Bob Maxwell on "i.e.," and I have no problems using
"that is" instead. (It never ceases to surprise me how many educated people
use "i.e." when they mean "e.g.," and vice versa. Or "the other way
around," I suppose I should say.)
However, "sic" is awfully hard to replace with an English word or concise
phrase. Of course RDA gospel calls for omitting it altogether in
transcribing "an element as it appears on the source," and I can go along
with that, as long as there is a note (and/or other title entry)
"correcting the inaccuracy," though in the case of rare materials, I would
not limit that to "if considered important for identification or access."
But in quoted material from other sources, there is no other good way to
call attention to typos, factual errors or other unexpected variations in
the data.
This doesn't really apply to the discussion of Extent of text, since I
can't imagine using "sic" there for any reason, but it might be worth
reflecting on for the rest of the catalog record.
Oh, and for what it's worth: for rare materials, I'm completely on board
with using the square brackets convention instead of "unnumbered," for the
sake of everyone's sanity. I wish RDA would drop "unnumbered" altogether.
Anyone who cares about the distinction between pages with page numbers on
them and pages with no page numbers on them, understands the bracketing
convention. As for the rest, how many noncatalogers even know what
"unnumbered pages" means?
--------------------------------------------------------
*Kathie Coblentz | The New York Public Library*
*Rare Materials Cataloger*
Special Collections/Special Formats Processing
*Stephen A. Schwarzman Building*476 5th Avenue, Room 313, New York, NY 10018
kathiecoblentz at nypl.org
My opinions, not NYPL's
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robert Maxwell <robert_maxwell at byu.edu>
To: "DCRM Users' Group" <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 16:05:50 +0000
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] RBMS PS review Q4: Extent of text
I can just about accept the argument that there is a rare reason for
departing from RDA extent instructions in the matter of bracketing vs.
“unnumbered”—rare book extent statements are much more likely than other
types of extent statements to need to record unnumbered sequences.
However, I do not accept the argument that rare extent statements should
continue to use “i.e.” and “sic” when the rest of RDA practice does not. In
the first place, if 0.4.3.7 justified this it would have justified it for
RDA as a whole—the rare materials community is not the only one that
“commonly used” these forms, *all* communities commonly used these forms
before RDA came along and this was not thought to be a good reason to
refuse to go along with the new instruction. So that argument simply won’t
wash, for me at least. There is no compelling rare materials reason in
those cases why the rare rules should depart from the general RDA rules.
Bob
Robert L. Maxwell
Ancient Languages and Special Collections Librarian
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568 <(801)%20422-5568>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserver.lib.byu.edu/pipermail/dcrm-l/attachments/20180404/0658521a/attachment-0001.html>
More information about the DCRM-L
mailing list