[DCRM-L] spotting a preface before subfield c in 510s

[Robert Maxwell]

I have also noticed (and been irritated by) this, and until Randy pointed it out, I admit, I hadn’t seen the “entry” guidance buried far down in the instructions. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to add a caption not justified by the source.

What purpose could artificially adding the word “entry” possibly have?

The guidance says:

“Include the term “entry” before the entry number only if needed or desired for clarity. Another term may be used if it seems more appropriate to the resource in question. A number standing alone is understood to indicate an entry.”

This reads to me as though the use of the term, far from being required, is only reluctantly allowed (only if needed for clarity). I can hardly imagine a case where it is needed for clarity, especially given “A number standing alone is understood to indicate an entry.”

The first example after this statement is

Evans, C. American bibliography, entry 2046

Why is this thought to be clearer than

Evans, C. American bibliography, 2046

?

The “if needed or desired” clause guarantees inconsistency in recording these citation numbers.

Speaking from the point of view of the person who maintains these in BYU’s catalog, the addition of a caption that didn’t come from the source messes up our browse (numerical order) listing of the entries in our Citation index.

I think we shouldn’t be adding captions to citation numbers not supported by the source, and I think the “entry” paragraph should be removed from the document.

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 Randal S. BRANDT
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2022 3:47 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] spotting a preface before subfield c in 510s

Hi Nina,

It is an option in the new SCF to use the word "entry". See Working Principles, Numeration, point B: https://rbms.info/scf/working-principles/

I seem to remember that it was either required or strongly encouraged to include that term when SCF first came out. Clearly that stance has been softened since then.

Cheers,
Randy

On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 2:30 PM Schneider, Nina <nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu<mailto:nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu>> wrote:
Hi all,

Recently, I noticed that a few OCLC records coded DCRMB in the 040$e have the word “entry” immediately following the subfield c in the citation/reference note.

So, instead of this:
510 4_ English short title catalogue, ǂc S95920

I’m seeing this:
510 4_ English short title catalogue, ǂc entry S95920

Admittedly, I haven’t been following recent updates with BSC, but I did look at the MARC website at LC and they don’t prescribe the use of the word “entry” and there’s no mention of its use on the RBMS Standard Citation Forms website.

Perhaps this preface is helpful to someone reading the MARC record, but it seems incorrect from a machine-readable point-of-view. Is there a new policy about adding “entry” to subfield c?

Thanks!!

Nina



+----------
Nina Schneider (she/her)
Rare Books Librarian
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California, Los Angeles
2520 Cimarron Street
Los Angeles, CA  90018

(310) 794-5780
nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu<mailto:nschneider at humnet.ucla.edu>
http://clarklibrary.ucla.edu/



--
Randal S. Brandt
The Bancroft Library | University of California, Berkeley
510.643.2275 | rbrandt at library.berkeley.edu<mailto:rbrandt at library.berkeley.edu>
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