[rak-list] Re: [RDA-L] Apocrypha

[Armin Stephan]

This discussion about biblical or apocryphal works seems unbelievable to me.

The AACR cataloging tradition concerning these works is an anachronism. 
It was invited many, many years ago for card catalogs. All parts of the 
Bible should be found at one place in the card catalog. (I know this 
system from a German catalog in an university library. This catalog was 
founded in 1912!)

In electronical systems it's no longer necessary to produce such 
unpractical monsters of authority names. (But abbreviations to make them 
shorter??)

The second unbelievable point is, that AACR and RDA use Latin numbers in 
the names of biblical works. No electronical system can handle such 
numbers perfectly.

In Germany we cancelled this cataloging tradition in the eighties, when 
the new rules RAK have been developed.

And now we shall get back these old-fashioned rules ... :-((  I'm very, 
very sad about the JSC discussion and decision. Of course the church 
libraries in Germany tried to get in contact with the national 
cataloging agency. But the problem got lost in the huge RDA discussion.

If You treat the works of the Bible as individual works, You don't have 
the problem of a construction of hierarchical authority names and You 
don' t have the problem to decide if a work is a part of the biblical 
canon or not.


It's problem enough that we have several names for the same work in the 
different confessions and denominations and so a big problem of 
authority control.


Am 10.05.2011 00:34, schrieb Brenndorfer, Thomas:
> The issue of Apocrypha titles has been discussed in the RDA historical documents:
>
> In particular,
>
> http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/5lc8.pdf
>
> http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/5lc8-alaresp.pdf
>
> List of documents at: http://www.rda-jsc.org/working2.html#lc-8
>
> The original proposal included removing "O.T. Apocrypha" from individual titles of the Protestant Apocrypha, but this did not make it into RDA.
>
> Using the Authorized Version list of titles was considered an "arbitrary simplification", "biased", but a "necessary evil". That would mean that Catholic canon books in the Protestant Apocrypha would have "Apocrypha" as part of the preferred title.
>
> I think one needs to draw some Venn diagrams to see what books of the Bible are covered in each set of instructions in RDA:
>
> ******
>
> For RDA 6.23.2.9.2 "For books of the Catholic or Protestant canon, record the brief citation form of the Authorized Version as a subdivision of the preferred title for the Bible" the governing list is the list of books in the Authorized Version, regardless of the Catholic canon.
>
> ******
>
> For RDA 6.23.2.9.4 Apocrypha "For an individual book use the name of the book as a further subdivision", the list is in the Protestant Apocrypha: "1-2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Rest of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, History of Susanna, Song of the Three Children, Bel and the Dragon, Prayer of Manasses, 1-2 Maccabees".
>
> ... meaning "Bible. Apocrypha. Tobit" is the preferred title.
>
> ******
>
> For RDA 6.23.2.6 Apocryphal Books. This is for all that's leftover that is not in the Catholic canon or the Protestant Apocrypha "(i.e., one included neither in the Catholic canon nor in the Protestant Apocrypha)".
>
> ******
>
> Thomas Brenndorfer
> Guelph Public Library
>

-- 

Mit freundlichen Gruessen
Armin Stephan
Jefe de Biblioteca
Augustana-Hochschule / Bibliothek
D-91564 Neuendettelsau
Tel. 09874/509-300
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