Core CC:DA Public Space

Hi Folks:

Short notice, but please comment  on the Religions working group proposal

RSC/ReligionsWG/2024/1

 It is very straightforward and proposes to change the word "church" to "place of worship," and move the instructions for some religious bodies to either a general corporate heading rule or to a community resource area as they deal with a specific religion only.  

Please make any comments  by July 5th--even a yes this looks good is helpful. Thanks.

aks

Hi Folks:

Short notice, but please comment  on the Religions working group proposal

RSC/ReligionsWG/2024/1

 It is very straightforward and proposes to change the word "church" to "place of worship," and move the instructions for some religious bodies to either a general corporate heading rule or to a community resource area as they deal with a specific religion only.  

Please make any comments  by July 5th--even a yes this looks good is helpful. Thanks.

aks

Here are some comments for discussion on the RSC/ReligionsWG/2024/1 proposal: 

-- Recommendation 1

I understand the motivation for, and reasoning behind, suppressing the phrase "church councils" but wonder whether such a suppression could not potentially lead to future confusion for at least some catalogers.  It is true that church councils are a kind of religious body but they are also a relatively impermanent kind of religious body, in that they typically exist for a few years and then are dissolved. In this, they are akin to conferences and are treated as such: see, for example, the LC NAF  records for the First Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constance. Now it is not uncommon in historical works to treat these councils as events as well as religious bodies, and there is good reason to think that that this dual interpretation, as body and event, is pretty widespread in the popular mind. Given this ambiguity in the status of councils, not everybody may think of them as religious bodies (as opposed to events) and so I wonder if it would not helpful to clarify explicitly that they indeed constitute a kind of religious body. For this reason, I propose the following counter-recommendation for wording of the instruction: 

"Examples of ancient or international bodies include religious bodies (including church councils), fraternal and knightly orders, and diplomatic conferences." 

The desire to "de-Christianize" the wording of the RDA Toolkit should never come at the cost of excessive (and potentially confusing) abstraction in the description of entities. 

-- Recommendation 2 

I agree with this proposal. 

-- Recommendation 3 

 I am not troubled by the presence of the adjective "local" in the definition "A corporate body is a religious institution that congregates at a local place of activity" and its removal elsewhere in the instruction. Since the adjective "local" means something like "geographically circumscribed", defining a "place of worship" as "a religious institution that congregates at a local place of activity" seems perfectly appropriate: after all, a parish church, a synagogue, and a Hindu temple all typically are geographically circumscribed as to location. Since the "local" nature of places of worship is established in the definition, there seems no need to include "local" with "place of worship" elsewhere.

-- Recommendation 4 

I fail to see how the current wording of the section on Religious orders and societies in the RDA Toolkit fails to cover cases of non-Christian religions nor do I understand how the proposed option to "Use the official name of the organization" would enhance the coverage of non-Christian religions in this regard. 

Tom 

Hi Folks:

Short notice, but please comment  on the Religions working group proposal

RSC/ReligionsWG/2024/1

 It is very straightforward and proposes to change the word "church" to "place of worship," and move the instructions for some religious bodies to either a general corporate heading rule or to a community resource area as they deal with a specific religion only.  

Please make any comments  by July 5th--even a yes this looks good is helpful. Thanks.

aks