[rak-list] (Fwd) Rule 0.24

[Bernhard Eversberg]

Als Ergaenzung zu der AACR-Debatte hier zwei Stimmen aus der
AUTOCAT-Liste. Es scheint, als habe man mit Verschlimmbesserungen zu rechnen...

        Can someone explain, please, how the new wording of AACR
        rule 0.24 in the 2001 amendments, is an improvement on the
        old?

        I always regarded the old version as a model of clarity
        and good sense. It dealt well with the problem of multiple
        characteristics by telling us 'the starting point for
        description is the physical form of the item in hand'. We
        were thus to avoid the difficulties associated with trying
        to base the description on 'the original or any previous
        form'.

        I do not know quite what to make of the new wording, which
        begins with a list of aspects which it is important to bring
        out, but which gives no guidance as to the order in which
        characteristics should be applied, and ends by referring to
        the well established progression from general to specific,
        which is stated in rule 0.4, as 'a rule of thumb'.
         ...
        Incidentally, I am aware of Matthew Beacom's idea for dealing
        with the multiple formats issue by collocating entries for
        'manifestations' collectively representing an 'expression'. I
        hope that the required research on this will prove successful.

        Philip Davis
        Assistant Librarian
        Redditch Library
        England
        philipdavis4 at hotmail.com
-----------------------------------------------
und J. McRee Elrod ergaenzte:

In my my very unhumble opinion it is not an improvement, but an
obfuscation.  The new wording would never have made its way past 
Michael Gorman as editor, I suspect.                        
A well known concerned cataloguer has expressed to me in private          
(forbidding forwarding) the opinion that the new wording was intended   
to pave the way for "work" records, to represent works plus their           
manifestations, a concept so much in the presuppositions at the Toronto 
Conference.  I've been told by *another* respected authority (also      
forbidding posting) that Michael's essay against that idea at Toronto   
has at least sunk in, and that the danger of such complex records       
incapable of exchange among libraries (whose holdings of manifestations of 
works would vary) is past.  




Bernhard Eversberg
Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, 
D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany
Tel.  +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX  -5836
e-mail  B.Eversberg at tu-bs.de