Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> > Do you believe that two items with different dates and/or different
> > pagings should be put into the same manifestation? Should a hardback
> > and a paperback be put in together? What if one item's statement of
> > responsibility is slightly different from another? How much variation
> > between items should be tolerated and still be inside the same
> > manifestation?
> If it is convenient to us to do so, and represents the best trade-off
> between staff time and user needs, then, yes--same manifestation. The
> answer to "how much variation between items should be tolerated" is
> not
> an 'existential' one of platonic reality, but is one that can only be
> determined by a practicing community of catalogers with a real community
> of users--it's a question of determining the optimal amount of energy we
> can and should put into it to maximize benefit to our users per
> cataloging time put in.
Convenience is a nice thing, but the community should be considered as well. If we are to begin to interoperate in some way with those who do not share our rules (and this may be the majority of the metadata creators out there), we should be making some kind of system that will allow for other practices, so much as possible. What may be "convenient" for us may be incredibly inconvenient for others--in fact, so inconvenient that they may decide to opt out. If everybody says, "You have to change, but I won't" the entire project becomes pointless.
When talking about the current reality, there is not "a practicing community of catalogers with a real community of users." There are many communities of catalogers who follow all kinds of different rules, but they work with the same materials. There are many communities of users. I believe it is in the interests of all of our users, and in all of our own interests, to work together to make things better for everyone, but that does not mean that I expect everyone in the world to follow what we do. In my experience, one of the biggest problems that arise when cataloging anything is deciding what is a copy and what requires a new record (new manifestation). With electronic resources, the manifestation becomes far more complex. When this is multiplied by multiple rules for determining manifestations around the world, it becomes very difficult to sort out into something coherent and useful that is called a "manifestation."
Expressions and works are different matters--they are normally rather simple to determine among different databases,: although one database may call it "War and Peace," another calls it, "Voina i mir," another calls it "Krieg und Frieden." Transcribing the information from any particular item is normally not that difficult either. But manifestations are different. In cataloging, they have always presented problems, as I have tried to show in previous posts. This is why I am suggesting that the concept be reconsidered.
I would like it if there could be "a community of catalogers." But in the current situation, I think that if interoperability ultimately crashes, one of the primary reasons will be this insistence on a manifestation record, and the manifestation record is a remnant of the card catalog.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Thu Dec 06 2007 - 03:36:26 EST