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Open discussion of RDA, RDA Toolkit, and related topics

  • 1.  Relator terms for collection aggregates with expressions by different agents

    Posted 2 days ago

    I created a MARC record for a book that I decided to treat as a collection aggregate, but since the Metadata Guidance Document on aggregates (https://www.loc.gov/aba/rda/mgd/mg-aggregates.pdf) doesn't provide any examples of collection aggregates containing expressions by different agents, I want to make sure that I understood the instructions in this guideline correctly.

    The book contains the complete text of Robert Frost's poem "The road not taken" plus biographical and critical information about Frost (not just about this poem) by another author following the poem. This book is part of a series by the publisher Reading2Connect of readers (for lack of a better term) on different topics designed to help older adults with dementia connect with others through reading.

    Here are a few more details:

    *There is no title page
    *The cover has the title and statement of responsibility presented as: "The road not taken by Robert Frost."
    *The colophon has the title and statement of responsibility presented as: "The road not taken by Susan Ostrowski, MS, MS, CCC-SLP edited by Peter S. Dixon, MD-FACP."
    *The book is only 10 leaves, and the biographical/critical section doesn't take up many more leaves than the poem (4 leaves for the poem vs. 6 leaves for the rest).

    I set up the access point for the aggregating expression as follows:

    130 0_  Road not taken (Reading2Connect)
    245 14  The road not taken / $c by Robert Frost. The road not taken /  by Susan Ostrowski, MS, MS, CCC-SLP edited by Peter S. Dixon, MD-FACP.

    I set up the access points for the two aggregated expressions as follows:

    700 12  $i expression manifested $a Frost, Robert, $d 1874-1963. $t Road not taken.
    700 12  $i expression manifested $a Ostrowski, Susan. $t Road not taken.

    Is this the correct way to use "expression manifested?"

    One more question:

    Since there are currently no relationship labels given on the MGD Relationship Labels page (https://www.loc.gov/aba/rda/mgd/relationshipLabels/index.html) for relationships between Manifestations and Works, Expressions, or other Manifestations, if we want to express these relationships in MARC tracings, should we just use RDA element names as relationship labels?

    Ex.

    775 08  $i reproduction of manifestation of $a ...

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    ------------------------------
    Zahra Gordon
    Cataloger
    New Hampshire State Library
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Relator terms for collection aggregates with expressions by different agents

    Posted 16 hours ago
    Dear Zahra,

    For either collection or augmentation aggregates, catalogers may choose to provide direct access to the aggregated content through access points, or may choose to provide a formal contents note.  I would lean towards viewing this publication as an augmentation aggregate rather than as a collection aggregate, as the primary content is a single poem by Frost, and the essay by Ostrowski is intended to augment and contextualize the text of the poem.  In the MGD for aggregates, there is a comparable example of "An authoritative edition of the novel Persuasion by Jane Austen with associated essays."  
    For direct access to Frost's poem, an author access point in the 100 for Robert Frost, combined with the title in the 245, serves as the value for Manifestation: expression manifested.  
    100 1_ $a Frost, Robert,  $d 1874-1963, $e author.
    245 14 $a The road not taken [...]

    If there were at least two essays in addition to the poem, I would lean towards providing a contents note for the poem and essays. However, since there is just a single essay in addition to the poem, and that essay shares a title with the poem, a formal contents note does not seem sensible here.  The MGD on aggregates, in the section on augmentation aggregates (see page 8), continues by stating that "Descriptions of augmenting content are cataloger's judgment in most cases," and provides some examples that may be useful.  I would thus just include a simple 500 note: 500 __ $a Essay by Susan Ostrowski, leaves 5-10.  Optionally, you can add access points for Ostrowski and Dixon:
    700 1_ $a Ostrowski, Susan, $e writer of supplementary textual content.
    700 1_ $a Dixon, Peter S., $e editor.
    Note that per the MGD Relationship Labels, the PCC will continue to use the 7 original RDA relationships such as "writer of supplementary textual content" which were subsumed in Official RDA into the relationship element "contributor person of text." 

    I hope that helps!

    --Timothy Ryan Mendenhall



    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Relator terms for collection aggregates with expressions by different agents

    Posted 6 hours ago
    Timothy,

    Thank you for this thoughtful response!

    I'll have to think about whether this book might be better treated as an augmentation aggregate. I did consider this possibility, especially since the cover (which is usually given precedence over the colophon as a source of information) presents only the title of the poem and Frost as the author. One reason that I fell back on "collection aggregate" as the safer choice was due to the context of this book in relation to others in the series. For most of the other books in the series, only the title is given on the cover and the title plus statement of responsibility is given on the colophon, so, you could argue that the colophon is actually the chief source (Susan Ostrowski is also the author of most of the books in this series). Also, the description that I gave in my previous post of the commentary in this book was kind of misleading--It includes not only biographical information about Frost and his poem but also commentary about the nature of poetry in general. It occurred to me that given the nature of the text by Ostrowski, its greater length (albeit only two pages), and Ostrowski's responsibility for the series as a whole, someone could just as easily argue that this is a mainly a commentary on poetry by Ostrowski using Frost's poem as an example. Since I could see someone arguing that this could be either a collection aggregate or an augmentation aggregate (and that either work could be considered the augmented work), I decided to prefer to treat it as a collection aggregate per the advice given on page 3 of the MGD on aggregates:

    If an aggregate exhibits characteristics of more than one type of aggregate, apply the guidance in this document in the following order: 
    1. Collection aggregate 
    2. Parallel aggregate 
    3. Augmentation aggregate   

    I should have gone into more detail about my thought process!

    This book is admittedly not a great example, but if what I had been cataloging was clearly a collection aggregate with works by different agents and I did want to include access points for the aggregated expressions, would "expression manifested" be the correct relationship label to use in the access points?

    Thanks again!

    Zahra Gordon



    Original Message