Quoting "Beacom, Matthew" <matthew.beacom_at_YALE.EDU>:
> FRBR work and expression records could go pretty far to giving
> something like you are asking for, but it is not a sure thing that
> they would have to include dates to unambiguously identify a
> particular work. The date would be a valuable but not a necessary
> piece of information. To justify the need for the date of first
> creation (first conception would not be measurable in any practical
> way), a new generation catalog would need to be specifically defined
> and understood by users as a tool that would do much more than
> current library catalogs do.
I wouldn't say "much more" but at least a step in the right direction.
We present dates to users as searches (from __ to ___) or as facets,
and they have every logical right to think that this is the date of
the WORK, not the date of a particular printing or re-publication. If
someone wants to read something written in 1880, they shouldn't have
to know that the library's copy is a re-publication from 1956. In some
cases the date of publication of an object on the library's shelf is
more significant than the date of the work, but I bet that's the rare
case. Users are more likely to be seeking the work than a particular
manifestation.
In addition, the lack of "original" dates is creating havoc with
digitization projects, including Google's, where many PD texts are
unavailable to be viewed because the publication date of the printed
object is after 1923. I am sure that Google is doing interesting
experimentation with text analysis and will be able to identify those
PD texts separate from any of the content that publishers add to try
to fool people into thinking that the book has a new copyright (it
doesn't, only the preface or added content does).
While there will always be difficult cases, the fact is that we deal
with uncertainty all of the time. We give dates like "19uu" in the 008
or "1860?" in the publication area. In subject headings and even in
name authority records we give ranges that can be guesstimates. That's
still better than not telling the user what we do know about the Work.
Catalog records can include an original title, or "title by which the
work is known." Why couldn't they include the "date associated with
the work"? Plato's personal dates are given as 427-347 B.C. which
gives us a range for works attributed to him. Subject headings have
dates like "Before 800". If that's what we know, why not say it?
I feel like library cataloging has become so focused on the OBJECT
that is being cataloged that we almost forget that there is CONTENT in
the object, and that the point of the object is to convey that
content. I think libraries should be less focused on the object and
more active in helping users learn about the content. (When was the
last time we had a long discussion about subject analysis or
classification?) I don't care if we call it cataloging or subject
access or bibliography, just as long as we do it.
kc
> The by date sorting that you describe is more like a function of a
> subject bibliography. Do we expect a next generation catalog to
> search like Google and perform like Perseus for whatever result set
> we wanted? That sets a high bar.
>
> Matthew Beacom
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan
> [emorgan_at_ND.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 2:49 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] dates
>
> On Jul 26, 2011, at 10:07 AM, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
>
>> I wish a next-generation library catalog would include a field for
>> date, not the date of the publication, but the date the thing was
>> conceived.
>
> I understand the need for a date published in a library catalog, and
> I'm not advocating for one and only one date in a bibliographic
> record.
>
> Instead, I want an additional date denoting when -- in all likely
> hood -- the idea expressed by the creator of the work was
> conceived/embodied. Put another way, I want to sort search results
> from older to new. Find all of Shakespeare, sort by date, and then I
> want to read the oldest one first. Find all things regarding
> New-Platonism, sort by date, and start reading at the end and go
> back in time.
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University of Notre Dame
>
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Tue Jul 26 2011 - 20:52:03 EDT