Weinheimer Jim wrote:
>
> In this respect, I am mulling over and playing with Alex's idea that
(as I read it) one of the main problems is that of gaining a mutual
understanding of the differing concepts. As a practical example, there
is the bibliographical idea of "title proper" and "other title
information" vs. the more popular idea of "title". The first step is
briefly to lay out the differences in the concepts, but then the second
step would be to actually make decisions, i.e. is it really worthwhile
for us to continue the separate coding of 245$a"title proper" and
$b"other title information" or is it so important that we should try to
get others to code them separately?
>
More generally, we need to look at how people and services on the
Web use to refer to and talk about books (or "resources" anyway).
The notion of "title" is not used and understood with any degree of
formal consistency, to begin with. It depends on how long and specific
or unspecific it is, if the author's name is more prominent than the
title itself ("read the new Dan Brown yet?"). And if the "title proper"
is significant, why bother with the rest of the verbiage on the
title page when refering to the book? For Non-book stuff, titles
are difficult to pin down more often than not, and for online resources,
they can get changed any minute - but then, they are referred to by URL.
Automated communication, therefore, can presently depend only on
identifiers. And it does with GBS, for "Find in a library" uses OCLC
numbers. But what happens after that? Do they get to see anything that
resembles what they saw on GBS (or wherever) as representation of the book?
So, when and if people, by whatever happenstance, stumble into libraries
and use their services by whatever automated means, how do we present
results to them? With what language and textual form do we confront them
and offer stuff for downloading or copying or transfer into their
software so they can do something useful with it? That's the question.
Obviously, we cannot use the refined terms concocted for RDA (or AACR
for that matter) at the user interface. OPAC labels, up until now,
and download formats for public use, are differing widely in their
layout, extent and wording. To do something about this is overdue,
but there is no format or even way of talking (see above) about books
that is generally understood and used in all those places where
book information can be found. And RDA, other than AACR (where it
relates to cards), does not bother with the user interface, it deals
just with data elements at the utmost level of abstraction. It does,
however, have a list of core elements, more or less coinciding with
elements that are found most often in our records and that are the
most useful and relevant for talking about the objects they
describe. We should, I think, start from this list of core elements
and turn it into a list of plain language terms to be used as OPAC
labels and such, and implement this widely so it gradually gains
some level of recognition and eventually improve communication
between persons and software, beyond the plain clickable linking by
identifier.
Always, however, readers are not after bibliographic descriptions
but the objects. In FRBR terms, the "obtain" function is what really
matters, and if it takes more than a mouseclick...
B.Eversberg
Received on Fri Jun 25 2010 - 04:13:34 EDT