[DCRM-L] Fw: AMREMM and RDA

Mon Apr 30 11:03:51 MDT 2018

Folks,

Here is Gregory Pass's reply, minus a few personal words.  I hope the group finds it useful.

Best,

Larry

Laurence S. Creider

Professor Emeritus

Archives and Special Collections

New Mexico State University Library

P.O. Box 30006

Las Cruces, NM  88003-8006

lcreider at nmsu.edu

________________________________
From: Gregory Pass <gregory.pass at slu.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 1:31 PM
To: Laurence Creider
Subject: Fw: [DCRM-L] AMREMM and RDA

Hi Larry,

My response to the DCRM User's Group bounced, as I thought might happen, because I am not a member. Feel free to pass my response on to the group if you think it a good idea. Otherwise, I am happy to remain in anonymity and not get drawn back into matters in which I am so out of date.

...

Best,

Gregory

________________________________
From: Gregory Pass
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 2:18 PM
To: Laurence Creider; DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] AMREMM and RDA

Dear All,

Thank you for keeping me in the loop. I am pleased to see there is continued interest in ARMEMM and a desire to adapt it to new environments. As always, Larry's is a voice of good sense, experience, and wisdom. I agree with everything he says below. It is a very long while since I cataloged anything, so any advice or opinion I might give would be more of historical value.

In regard to specific MARC fields for notes, it was determined that recommending in the examples section use of a generic 500 note with a header -- e.g., "Binding:" -- was to be preferred for ease over more specific notes, such as a 563 for binding. At the time of publication in 2003, it was felt that generally only archives utilized such fields and that some/many institutions would have difficulty in implementing the more exotic MARC fields in their systems. There was never an intention to preclude the use of more feature-specific MARC fields, although giving the direction under each note to "preceed this note with the heading [X]" does assume the use of a 500 note. It was a compromise.

On expansion of abbreviations, the approach to transcription taken in AMREMM was to follow as closely as possible the common paleographical transcription and text editing conventions employed in the field of manuscript studies. At the time, individual components of a MARC field were to be bracketed individually, although now I understand a single set of brackets suffice. However, in expanding abbreviations of manuscript text, each instance of expansion is bracketed -- the rationale within manuscript studies being that each expansion is the subjective interpretation of the individual reading/transcribing the handwritten text, which ought to be signaled. Because of the complications that can arise in recording contents of multiple works (whole or fragmentary) contained in a single manuscript, an exception was provided in the notes (7A3) either to signal or not to signal expansion of abbreviations, so long as a consistent approach was taken.

I'll leave it there and not dig myself in deeper. I'm happy to answer to the extent I can any questions people might have. Thanks again for keeping me informed of discussions.

All Best,

Gregory

________________________________
From: Laurence Creider <lcreider at nmsu.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 12:44:26 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Cc: Gregory Pass
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] AMREMM and RDA

Sorry I am late to the discussion, but I would like to make a few comments on this thread.  I was involved with the creation of AMREMM and acted as an informal representative to BSC when it was being written and adopted.

Deborah's comments are to the point and excellent.   At this point, I would think that Matt's first and second points might be combined.  Thank you both.

Gregory Pass is the author of AMREMM and should be contacted during any revision process.  I have added his e-mail (gregory.pass at slu.edu) to my reply. He should also be able to point to people who use AMREMM and have the expertise to comment on some of the suggested changes.  On the other hand, the manual was adopted by BSC and was passed by CC:DA.

AMREMM was originally placed outside the DCRM suite.  If DCRM will no longer have an independent existence after the rare materials cataloging desiderata are incorporated into RDA via the BSR and PS (If I have things straight), the question is whether AMREMM should be shoehorned into an inhospitable environment.  The essential difficulty is that RDA and ISBD and library cataloging in general is not designed for the description of unique items.  Take the publication, etc. info.  MSS are produced, and the mss covered by AMREMM rarely have a specific date or place of production on the item itself.  For the most part, scholars have to be satisfied with expert judgment about the script and the codicology.  Frequently, one  counts oneself lucky if the approximate portion of a century or the approximate portion of a country can be identified, e.g. beginning of the 9th century in southern England.

On the other hand, I doubt that putting things into different MARC fields will be a problem, particularly since AMREMM was designed to support MARC cataloging.  MARC has always been a moving target, so to speak.  Similarly, there should be no question about the use of RDA in determining or formulating access points.  Definitions of some fields may be a problem if they do not allow for manuscripts.

I do not think that mss from all periods should be put together.  I don't want to go into detail, but there are different needs and conventions in the way users (mostly scholars) describe and therefore find these items.  BSC already has a manuscripts module for modern materials, and I believe that it was not designed to cover the material in AMREMM.  The fact that the majority of medieval mss are compilations of multiple works only adds to the problem.

I am running out of mental energy and have to be somewhere else, so I will stop here.  I hope my musings are of some help.

Best,

Larry

Laurence S. Creider

Professor Emeritus

Archives and Special Collections

New Mexico State University Library

P.O. Box 30006

Las Cruces, NM  88003-8006

lcreider at nmsu.edu

________________________________
From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> on behalf of Erin Blake <erin.blake.folger at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2018 7:35 AM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] AMREMM and RDA

Except for expanding abbreviations, those examples are all already okay with MARC and DCRM, so I don't think you have too much to worry about. Separately bracketing elements was an ISBD change that was explicitly brought into the DCRM suite with DCRM(G), for example.

Erin.

----------------
Erin C. Blake, Ph.D.  |  Head of Collection Information Services  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20003  |  eblake at folger.edu  |  office tel. +1 202-675-0323  |  fax +1 202-675-0328  |  www.folger.edu

On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 6:39 PM Matthew C. Haugen <matthew.haugen at columbia.edu<mailto:matthew.haugen at columbia.edu>> wrote:
Here is a follow-up question in the meantime; although a record (it seems) cannot be explicitly dual-coded as 040 $e amremm $e rda, I expect that access points would generally now be RDA-compliant; are there any arguments in favor or against allowing other RDA-flavored hybrid practices into $e amremm records not explicitly accounted for in the AMREMM manual?

For example: using 264_0 instead of 260; adding 33x fields; 563 instead of 500 for Binding descriptions; bracketing supplied data in adjacent subfields separately rather than inclusively; expanding abbreviations?

Thank you for your input,

Matt

On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 10:55 AM, Deborah J. Leslie <DJLeslie at folger.edu<mailto:DJLeslie at folger.edu>> wrote:

With a 2003 publication, AMREMM* would be ready for revision, even without the need to reconsider its principles and provisions in light of RDA. A couple of points of interest that put it conceptually outside the DCRM suite:

1.      Although published by the BSC through our parent body ACRL, it has a personal author, Gregory Pass. He consulted widely with the BSC and other groups, and generally (if not always) accommodated our suggestions, but at the end of the day, he is the author.

2.     Gregory's remit was to align scholarly conventions used in describing medieval manuscripts with library descriptive conventions based on AACR2. One of the main deviations in practice is that of main entry. 1.1B6, for example, gives main entries in examples of devising titles, and it is clear that the manuscript as a physical object is the source of main entry.

[Books of hours : use of Rouen]

Main entry under: Catholic Church

Uniform title: Book of hours (Ms. National Art Library. MSL/1902/1654)

Added entry under: National Art Library (Great Britain). Manuscript. MSL/1902/1654

It's sensible that manuscripts of all time periods should be considered together. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

*I can't resist bringing up a quip I made at the time, which I thought was funny but not sure anyone else did. Since the title is Descriptive Cataloging of Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Manuscripts, we missed the chance of acronyming it DECAMREMM.

Deborah J. Leslie | Folger Shakespeare Library | djleslie at folger.edu<mailto:djleslie at folger.edu> |

From: DCRM-L [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>] On Behalf Of Lapka, Francis
Sent: Thursday, 07 September, 2017 08:20

To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] AMREMM and RDA

Thank you Matt for providing a good summary of where things stand. To this I'll add that BSR guidelines for manuscripts are in development. A draft will be shared with this list soon.

In 2018, I expect that the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee will initiate additional activity concerning manuscripts and RDA. At that time, we'll consider options such as those that Matt has described.

Francis

Francis Lapka  ·  Catalog Librarian

Dept. of Rare Books and Manuscripts

Yale Center for British Art

203.432.9672<tel:(203)%20432-9672>  ·  francis.lapka at yale.edu<mailto:francis.lapka at yale.edu>

________________________________

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu>> on behalf of Matthew C. Haugen <matthew.haugen at columbia.edu<mailto:matthew.haugen at columbia.edu>>
Sent: Wednesday, September 6, 2017 4:41 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] AMREMM and RDA

HI Ryan,

I'm not aware of any information on creating RDA-compliant AMREMM records.

The BIBCO and CONSER standard record profiles contain provisions for creating RDA-compliant DCRM records for all of the AACR2-based DCRM manuals, except for DCRM (MSS), though I believe that update is pending.

And the DCRM Task Force had postponed work on manuscript materials of all time periods when drafting the RBMS Policy Statements for RDA-based rare materials instructions, so that work remains to be done for modern manuscripts as well.

I wonder if any of these options might be feasible or desirable for BSC to pursue?

1. Publish an RDA-compliant revision to AMREMM as a standalone manual, like the original.

2. Draft additional RBMS Policy Statements for these materials, that when published along with the rest of RBMS-PS, would supersede AMREMM.

3. Submit provisions to be added to the BSR profile for creating RDA-compliant records using AMREMM as it currently stands, similar to the current arrangement with the other DCRM manuals.

4. Publish its own similar application profile for creating RDA-compliant records using AMREMM as it currently stands,  without going through LC/PCC.

Matt

On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 5:28 PM, Ryan Hildebrand <rhilde at uoregon.edu<mailto:rhilde at uoregon.edu>> wrote:

Dear all,

Can anyone point me to helpful information on creating RDA compliant AMREMM records? I don’t have specific questions at the moment, but would like to understand issues others may have already tackled.

Thanks,

Ryan Hildebrand

Authorities & Special Collections Cataloging Librarian

University of Oregon Libraries

1299 University of Oregon

Eugene OR 97403-1299

(541) 346-1844<tel:(541)%20346-1844>

--

--
Matthew C. Haugen
Rare Book Cataloger
102 Butler Library
Columbia University Libraries
E-mail: matthew.haugen at columbia.edu<mailto:matthew.haugen at columbia.edu>
Phone: 212-851-2451<tel:(212)%20851-2451>

--

--
Matthew C. Haugen
Rare Book Cataloger
102 Butler Library
Columbia University Libraries
E-mail: matthew.haugen at columbia.edu<mailto:matthew.haugen at columbia.edu>
Phone: 212-851-2451<tel:(212)%20851-2451>
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