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Open discussion of RDA, RDA Toolkit, and related topics

Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

  • 1.  Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 01, 2021 02:57 PM
    I am confused by the elements "jurisdiction governed" and "jurisdiction governed of" in new RDA. In old RDA, the element "jurisdiction governed" (6.21.1.4) is an attribute of or relationship to a work.  In bibliographic records, this is recorded as a relationship to a law, regulation, etc.   "jurisdiction governed" is found in Appendix I.2.2 Relationship Designators for Other Agent Associated with Work.

    Examples in 6.21.1.4:

    District of Columbia
    Jurisdiction governed for Acts of Congress affecting the District of Columbia

    Cuba
    Puerto Rico
    Jurisdictions governed for Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal para las Islas de Cuba y Puerto Rico

    However, in new RDA, the element "jurisdiction governed" has domain Corporate body and range Place.  The definition is "A place that is a jurisdiction governed by a law, regulation, etc., that was enacted by another government."  That would mean something like this ( I think) in an authority record:

    151  District of Columbia
    551 $w r $i Jurisdiction governed of: $a United States

    151 United States
    551 $2 r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a District of Columbia

    Am I interpreting the change to these elements correctly?  I would have expected them to be used this way:

    110 1# United States, $e enacting jurisdiction.
    245 10 Acts of Congress affecting the District of Columbia.
    710 1 $i Jurisdiction governed: $a District of Columbia

    or in a work authority:

    110 1# United States. $t Acts of Congress affecting the District of Columbia
    710 1# $w r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a District of Columbia
    710 1# $w r $i Enacting jurisdiction: $a United States

    Does it make much sense to relate corporate body to place and place to corporate body the way new RDA is doing?

    ------------------------------
    Adam Schiff
    Principal Cataloger
    University of Washington Libraries
    He/Him/His
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 01, 2021 03:35 PM
    That does look odd.  In the old toolkit, the element with this name is clearly a relationship between a law (work) and a jurisdiction (place).  The work would have a relationship to the government enacting the law (creator) and a relationship to the place to which the law applies (jurisdiction governed).

    I think an element relating a government (corporate body) to the jurisdiction which it governs (place) would be reasonable.  But that's not what is being described here.  From the definition in the new toolkit and from it's equivalent in the old toolkit, I would expect jurisdiction governed to relate a work to a place.

    ------------------------------
    Stephen McDonald
    Digital Initiatives Librarian
    Tufts University
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 01, 2021 03:44 PM
    Glad I'm not the only one who thinks it is odd. 

    I did just notice my mistake in my authority example: 

    110 1# United States. $t Acts of Congress affecting the District of Columbia
    710 1# $w r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a District of Columbia
    710 1# $w r $i Enacting jurisdiction: $a United States

    Should be:  

    110 1# United States. $t Acts of Congress affecting the District of Columbia
    551 ## $w r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a District of Columbia
    551 ## $w r $i Enacting jurisdiction: $a United States

    Adam L. Schiff
    Principal Cataloger
    University of Washington Libraries
    Box 352900
    Seattle, WA 98195-2900
    aschiff @ uw.edu





  • 4.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 01, 2021 04:47 PM
    I agree with Adam and Stephen that new RDA seems to have it wrong (or at least needs to explain itself better), but I also point out that a *jurisdiction* is not a *place*. A jurisdiction is a Corporate Body. So in my opinion "jurisdiction governed" should be the relationship between a government (a Corporate Body, the group of persons governing the jurisdiction) and the jurisdiction it governs (a Corporate Body, including all the citizens of the jurisdiction and other persons who are governed by the government).

    A government (jurisdiction) does not govern a Place (the rocks, the rivers, the air--though it may have some sort of control over those things), it governs a group of persons (the citizens of the jurisdiction, and other persons who may also be under its control). The group of persons governed--which constitute a Corporate Body--are subject to the laws enacted by the government; the rocks, rivers, and air--which constitute a Place--are not subject to those laws (a law can't order a rock or a river to behave in a particular way, though the laws may deal with how the persons governed should treat those things). So the range of Place is incorrect, in my opinion. The domain and range should both be Corporate Body.

    The Work itself (the law enacted by a jurisdiction) does not govern a jurisdiction, so I suppose it isn't exactly correct to say that a jurisdiction is governed by a *Work*, and so perhaps the old RDA relationship isn't correct either.

    This is yet another instance of the longstanding problem in cataloging of confusing the two entities (jurisdiction and place), including using the same description (authority record) and authorized access point to describe the two different entities. This confusion continues in the "new" RDA. A jurisdiction is an Agent (a government governs--it exercises agency; the people governed accept the government [whether voluntarily of by force]--another form of agency). A Place is an inanimate object, or an abstract concept, not capable of agency.

    We could simplify things a great deal by admitting that jurisdictions are a type of Agent--Corporate Bodies--and dealing with them in the cataloging rules as Corporate Bodies, separating them from the Place entity.

    Bob

    Robert L. Maxwell
    Ancient Languages and Special Collections Cataloger
    6728 Harold B. Lee Library
    Brigham Young University
    Provo, UT 84602
    (801)422-5568

    "We should set an example for all the world, rather than confine ourselves to the course which has been heretofore pursued"--Eliza R. Snow, 1842.





  • 5.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 03:17 AM
    Colleagues

    This issue was analyzed by the JSC Technical Working Group in 2014. The report to JSC and the responses from constituencies are available at:

    http://www.rda-rsc.org/6JSC/TechnicalWG/4

    As noted, the outcome of JSC discussion was "Accepted in principle. BL, CCC, and DNB will investigate further and prepare proposal for 2015".

    There was no follow-up in 2015, and the recommendations of the report were folded into the 3R Project, with adjustments for the IFLA Library Reference Model.

    ------------------------------
    Gordon Dunsire
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 08:06 AM
    Thank you, Gordon.  I'm glad to see that the 3R project has clarified the meaning of jurisdiction.  The current definition of 'jurisdiction governed' and 'jurisdiction governed of' matches my interpretation of the 'jurisdiction governed' in the original toolkit, with jurisdiction being a Place and government being a Corporate Body.  There may still work left to clarify the distinction between Place and Corporate Body in other documents, such as authority files, but I believe RDA has separated them well.

    But that doesn't resolve the original issue in this thread.  In the original toolkit, 'jurisdiction governed' was an attribute of Work, and the current definition implies that as well.  In the new toolkit, it seems that the domain of 'jurisdiction governed' and the range of 'jurisdiction governed of' should be Work rather than Corporate Body.

    ------------------------------
    Stephen McDonald
    Digital Initiatives Librarian
    Tufts University
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 09:08 AM
    Steven and others

    A work (law) can be related to a place (jurisdiction) using the high-level element Work: related place of work.

    The narrower element (element subtype :-) Work: subject place may be more suitable, but I think there is an unresolved issue as to whether a place governed by a law is a subject of the law (in the bibliographic senses, not the legal sense).

    The issue also surfaces in the element Work: coverage of content.

    The element is 'vanilla' and is not part of any element hierarchy. This is because it needs to be split (as happened with 'jurisdiction') between Place (geographic coverage) and Timespan (chronological coverage).

    No action was taken during the 3R Project to resolve this. The element is treated as an attribute element because it has two potential range entities. This can be resolved by declaring RDA Entity as the range, but then it would be more difficult to distinguish it from the subject relationship elements. To align with the LRM, the element should be deprecated and replaced with two new relationship elements such as 'place coverage of content' and 'timespan coverage of content'. 3R realized that further discussion with official documents communities was required in general, not least because of the uneven treatment of legislatures in RDA as a legacy of AACR2.

    I think the central question for resolving the issue in focus is the nature of the relationship between a law and the jurisdiction to which it applies: is it 'about' (subject) or 'of'? There is a discussion of aboutness and ofness in section 2.3 of Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data.

    Meanwhile, the high-level relationships can be used, especially if the metadata description set includes the more precise relationships between corporate body and place and work.

    ------------------------------
    Gordon Dunsire
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 10:23 AM
    Thank you, Gordon.

    Rephrasing to be certain that I understand correctly:  the domain of 'jurisdiction governed' and the range of 'jurisdiction governed of' should be Work, but we shouldn't use either element anyway because they do not align well with LRM.  Currently they are top-level elements, not part of an element heirarchy as they should be, and there should also be elements for chronological coverage.  Resolving the issues with the elements will require a decision on whether a law is 'about' or 'of' the jurisdiction it applies to.  In the meantime, we should instead use 'Work: related place of work'.  Presumably, when the issue is resolved, the appropriate element will be a narrower element of 'Work: related place of work'.  Is my understanding close?

    ------------------------------
    Stephen McDonald
    Digital Initiatives Librarian
    Tufts University
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 10:33 AM
    Steven

    That's not what I mean. The domain and range of 'jurisdiction governed' is now correct in RDA; the definition needs clarification to remove the ambiguity of work (law) and corporate body (legislature, etc.), after discussion with RDA communities. The current definition includes three RDA entities; it should only be two (Corporate Body and Place).

    What's missing is a fine-grained element that relates Work and Place.

    ------------------------------
    Gordon Dunsire
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 10:39 AM
    I see.  So the current toolkit element 'jurisdiction governed' is not the same as the attribute with the same name in the original toolkit.  Instead, this would be used, for example, in the name authority record for a corporate body which is a government, and the definition needs to be changed to reflect that.

    ------------------------------
    Stephen McDonald
    Digital Initiatives Librarian
    Tufts University
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 10:48 AM
    So, back to my examples, based on Gordon's reply, this is what is expected (below shown in MARC Authority Format as would be done in NACO)?

    151   District of Columbia
    551   $w r $i Jurisdiction governed of: $a United States

    151   United States
    551   $w r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a District of Columbia

    Adam

    Adam L. Schiff
    Principal Cataloger
    University of Washington Libraries
    (206) 543-8409





  • 12.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 10:56 AM
    Adam,

    Here's where we get into the problems of Place vs. Corporate Body that Robert brought up.  To properly reflect RDA, we would need something like:

    151   District of Columbia (place)
    551   $w r $i Jurisdiction governed of: $a United States (government)
    151   United States (government)
    551   $w r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a District of Columbia (place)

    Right now, we don't have separate headings for the Place and the Corporate Body.

    ------------------------------
    Stephen McDonald
    Digital Initiatives Librarian
    Tufts University
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 11:07 AM
    We could also have:

    151   United States (place)
    551   $w r $i Jurisdiction governed of: $a United States (government)
    151   United States (government)
    551   $w r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a United States (place)


    ------------------------------
    Stephen McDonald
    Digital Initiatives Librarian
    Tufts University
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 11:08 AM
    All: 

    At its upcoming meeting in October, the RSC expects to review and polish a charge to establish a new task-and-finish Place/Jurisdiction Working Group to address exactly the problems raised here. Work would begin in January 2022, with an end date of December 2023 (or sooner, depending on the scope of work). If you are interested in participating on this Working Group, please send me an email message (rscsecretary@rdatoolkit.org) to express interest. Glad to see this lively and timely discussion!  Best --  Linda

    Linda Barnhart
    Secretary, RDA Steering Committee






  • 15.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 11:35 AM

    And, in my opinion, the government would be more properly coded in 110, rather than 151.

     

    Robert L. Maxwell
    Ancient Languages and Special Collections Librarian
    6728 Harold B. Lee Library
    Brigham Young University
    Provo, UT 84602
    (801)422-5568

     






  • 16.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 11:45 AM
    I sympathize with the issue that Bob raises, and recognize the difference between jurisdiction (government/corporate body) and place, but do we really want to have two separate entities such as United States (place) and United States (government) and apply them meticulously in our cataloging?  Do users make this distinction?  Practically speaking, this would lead to much confusion I think.  Thinking about this locally, that would mean we would have:

    110  Washington (State : Jurisdiction)
    151  Washington (State : Place)
    110  Seattle (Wash. : Jurisdiction)
    151  Seattle (Wash.) : Place)

    And catalogers would have to be careful applying this.  For example for place of birth and residence of a person:

    100 1# $a Adriaansz, Peter Stewart
    370 ## $a Seattle (Wash. : Place) $2 naf
    370 ## $c Netherlands (Place) $2 naf

    110 2# $a Harborview Medical Center (Seattle, Wash.)
    370 ## $c United States (Place) $2 naf
    370 ## $e Seattle (Wash. : Place) $2 naf

    110 1# $a Seattle (Wash. : Jurisdiction). $b Department of Parks and Recreation
    510 1# $w r $i Hierarchical superior: $a Seattle (Wash. : Jurisdiction)

    110 1# $a Washington (State : Jurisdiction). ǂt Insurance code
    551 ## $w r $i Jurisdiction governed: $a Washington (State : Place)
          Wouldn't the element better be named "Place governed"?

    It will be interesting to see the results of the Place/Jurisdiction Working Group that the RDA is convening.  I'm not sure that the benefits of distinguishing these entities outweigh the drawbacks, practically speaking.

     






    ​​​​​​

    ------------------------------
    Adam Schiff
    Principal Cataloger
    University of Washington Libraries
    He/Him/His
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 02, 2021 12:19 PM
    Interesting questions.  I suppose it might be possible to continue using a single NAF heading for both place and government, using the definitions of the relationships to distinguish which applies in each instance.  But that would be a discussion for LC/PCC.  RDA itself must distinguish them to align with LRM and to have element scopes consistent with the RDA entities.

    ------------------------------
    Stephen McDonald
    Digital Initiatives Librarian
    Tufts University
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 03, 2021 08:56 AM
    Colleagues

    Adam's examples illustrate why the clear separation of Corporate Body and Place, in the context of 'jurisdiction', is useful: "Department of Parks and Recreation" is not a place, afaik :-)

    I agree that "place governed" is a better element label than "jurisdiction governed". I would prefer the term 'jurisdiction' to be avoided in RDA Toolkit because of its double meaning; I think there was discussion on issues in translating it. I assume this will all be taken into account by RSC's group.

    ------------------------------
    Gordon Dunsire
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Oct 09, 2021 03:02 PM
    Gordon,

    I want to come back to this question, thinking I have a better understanding of this element and its inverse now.  Are these proper statements?

    United States is jurisdiction governed of United States. Congress
    United States. Congress has jurisdiction governed United States

    Seattle (Wash.) is jurisdiction governed of Seattle (Wash.). City Council
    Seattle (Wash.). City Council has jurisdiction governed Seattle (Wash.)


    ------------------------------
    Adam Schiff
    Principal Cataloger
    University of Washington Libraries
    He/Him/His
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Oct 11, 2021 05:55 AM
    Adam

    The short answer is yes.

    I think it is interesting to look at how these metadata statements can be processed automatically to infer/entail new statements.

    The statements are:

    1. United States is jurisdiction governed of United States. Congress
    2. United States. Congress has jurisdiction governed United States
    3. Seattle (Wash.) is jurisdiction governed of Seattle (Wash.). City Council
    4. Seattle (Wash.). City Council has jurisdiction governed Seattle (Wash.)

    Statement 1 uses the RDA element "is jurisdiction governed of" with domain Place and range Corporate Body.

    Standard semantic processing of statement 1 infers:

    5. United States is an instance of Place
    6. United States. Congress is an instance of Corporate Body

    Furthermore, the RDA element has the inverse "has jurisdiction governed", so processing can also infer:

    7. United States. Congress has jurisdiction governed United States

    So statement 2 can be inferred from statement 1.

    Applying processing of the domain and range of the inverse element gives:

    8. United States. Congress is an instance of Corporate Body
    9. United States is an instance of Place

    These are the same as inferred statements 6 and 5.

    Apply the same semantic processing to statement 3 (or 4, it doesn't matter which of the inverses is used) generates:

    10. Seattle (Wash.) is an instance of Place
    11. Seattle (Wash.). City Council is an instance of Corporate Body

    and the inverse statement.

    If statement 1 (or 2) and statement 3 (or 4) are valid, then all these other statements are a) valid and b) may be generated by automated processes.

    Finally, this is an opportunity to remind colleagues that RSC is currently initiating a Place/Jurisdiction Working Group to develop the RDA treatment of "jurisdiction".

    ------------------------------
    Gordon Dunsire
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Jurisdiction governed/Jurisdiction governed of

    Posted Aug 03, 2021 11:20 AM
    Another problem with defining something like the United States as an RDA Place entity is that its boundaries change over time. The entity boundary for Place is a change in location, defined as "A delimitation of the physical territory of a place." As a Place, the United States would be a succession of delimited Places and not just one entity.

    I agree with Adam that the shorthand currently in use that defines the United States as a jurisdictional constant synonymous with a fluid concept of place as the area governed has real practical value. Maybe in the case of jurisdictional places,we need an entity boundary more like that for Person. Persons are delimited by place and date of birth and death. A person is not delimited by any single measurement of height or weight. The jurisdictional place could have a date of establishment and of dissolution, and a nomen shared with a jurisdictional government, but should not be delimited as a place by any single geographic area.

    Or borrowing language from the entity boundary for Corporate Body, in the case of jurisdictional places, "The relative boundary of the entity is determined by bibliographic and cultural conventions."

    Stephen

    Stephen Hearn, Metadata Strategist
    Data Management & Access, University Libraries
    University of Minnesota
    170A Wilson Library (office)
    160 Wilson Library (mail)
    309 19th Avenue South
    Minneapolis, MN 55455
    Ph: 612-625-2328
    Fx: 612-625-3428
    ORCID:  0000-0002-3590-1242