[DCRB-L] RE: Names of publishers

Thu, 07 Nov 2002 13:57:21 -0500

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Deborah's accustomed to my somewhat non-orthodox thinking,
so she'll just roll her eyes at the following screed: 
In the course of a recent non-library cataloguing project, I rejoiced
several times that the Bodleian cataloguers had elected to transcribe
imprints in full, including addresses--and there they were in the
&quot;WorldCat&quot;. Addresses change over time, and can provide
invaluable evidence for dating undated materials. As records that include
them accumulate in a database, we find ourselves with a historical
resource that Plomer couldn't even have dreamed of. The same applies in
the case of transcribing all names in a conger, rather than the supremely
frustrating &quot;[and 5 others]&quot;. It also applies to the wording of
imprints, in itself a matter of considerable interest; the more we
accumulate, the more we know, and the time to do the accumulating is when
we have the items in hand. We are at that moment in a privileged position
to contribute importantly to historical bibliography. Frankly, as a
bibliographically inclined cataloguer, I've never understood how imprints
differ from titles enough to justify the omission of this information. I
find it intellectually incoherent. 
The whole purpose of DCRM is to address the very different approach that
we take to the marks on the page as historical artifact and historical
evidence. It is different enough to have encountered resistance when the
rules were first being devised--at a time when we were still mostly
producing card sets, before it was clear how much more powerful and
flexible our new forms of data storage and management could be. The
resulting compromises are mostly unfortunate. I am much more interested
in the spirit of DCRM than I am in the spirit of AACR, which properly
serves different purposes in a different context. My hope for the BSC has
always been that it could represent and advance the interests of
bibliographical scholarship, to the extent that the catalogue--in the
widest sense--is itself a scholarly bibliographical resource. We can do
so by at least maximizing a certain permissiveness in the treatment of
&quot;other&quot; information. 
(Peter Blayney has recently remarked rather savagely on the omission of
privilege statements in imprints--it is not a trivial matter. Another
scholar, John Buchtel, recently lamented, on exlibris, the omission of
dedicatees. One might also mention sermon texts, which are supremely
relevant title information. I've also rejoiced when cataloguers include
all the honorifics, degrees, positions, and encomia attached to authors'
names in statements of responsibility: the bibliographic database can be
one of our most comprehensive resources for authority work, after all,
and that purpose is not well served by the cataloguer mania for knowing
just what information to suppress.) 
Of course, anyone who followed the recent autocat thread on the death of
MARC and especially the introduction of databases like XOBIS will suspect
that this is merely a death rattle. 
At 11/7/02&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 12:34 PM, you wrote: 
<blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>As to DCRB conforming with basic
AACR, we might be able to make an argument that it conforms with the
AACR's spirit. Given that precise t.p. transcription is needed for
accurate description and identification of hand-pressed books (or to cite
the FRBR user tasks: &quot;finding, identifying, and selecting&quot;), we
can't cut down there. However, we do generally omit addresses, with the
mark of omission. </blockquote>
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RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN
UNIVERSITY 
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 :
RICHARD_NOBLE@BROWN.EDU</html>