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Re: variant uniform titles (Mitch Turitz) Marcia Tuttle 16 Jul 1996 13:25 UTC

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 04:12:45 -0700
From: Mitch Turitz <turitz@SFSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: varian uniform titles

Rick:
  I appreciate your inclusion of me in this discussion as LCRI 25.5B has
been a sore point for myself over the years as well.  However, I also have
to point out a few things:

* In the past, whenever a proposal such as this has been suggested (and I
am not discouraging you from making a formal proposal to CC:DA to change the
rules, I am just warning you about the opposition), the questions come up:

"Well, what about the titles that haven't been treated this way? Are we
supposed to go back and change all of them?" (My response would be "No"
but then we have the problem of split files and inconsistent treatment).

"Who's going to look at each issue as it's checked in to make sure the
place of publication hasn't changed?"

That is obiously and internal issue, but it does raise the serious issue
of subtle changes which add to the workload of other units (in this case,
the often-neglected serial check-in clerks).  Once we do the cataloging,
we rely on others to bring title changes to our attention.  Is it
reasonable for us to expect them to also look for these subtle changes
which will not be reflected in the title, and possibly not even on the
title page?

"This would mean more successive entry, wouldn't it?"

One of the reasons for preference of place over corp. body as qualifier
was that, under the current LCRI, then you would NOT have to do successive
entry, or additional record maintenance if the (place) qualifier changed.
With virtually any proposalto make the qualifier more "meaningful" the
current LCRI there would be either additional successive entry, or, at a
minimum, additional maintenance to existing cataloging records.  This
generally, raises protests from most catalogers as they are being told to
"do more with less" and face the threats of "downsizing" and outsourcing.
Asking people to do additional work is not a popular idea.

The way this was originally explained to me by Dorothy Glasby some years
ago, was that the choice of uniform title qualifier was just to find
something "unique" to differentiate identical titles.  At the time she had
even proposed using the ISSN as the qualifier, however that had been voted
down and place was chosen as the preferred qualifier.  I think it
was intended to avoid more (successive entry) work for us if possible.

My view on this is that we CAN make any added entries that we see
appropriate, as Rick did in his examples, without a mandate from LC or
AACR2.  I would make a 730 for Serial (Boston, Mass.) instead of a 246
however, just to be consistent with the 130 tag, but if they are indexed
into the same (title) online catalog index, it probably doesn't matter.
If you think an added entry will benefit your patrons, by all means, add
it.  What you do in your local system is your business and does not
mandate that anyone else do the same in their systems.  It's only when
we share records in the large international databases that things start
to get messy. (This is why multiple versions is not a national
standard, yet it is being practiced all over by guerrilla catalogers).

Guerrilla catalogers: a small defensive force of irregular catalogers
making suprise cataloging. <This term was created by Mitch Turitz at
3:39am when he should have been asleep>

-- Mitch

==============================Original Message===============================
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 14:28:54 EDT
From: Enrique E. Gildemeister <EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@uvmvm.uvm.edu>
Subject: Variant uniform titles

There's been a lot of discussion of pros and cons of using place as the
qualifier for serial uniform titles when corporate body and *present * place
of publication is not used as qualifier even though decades may have elapsed
since the serial was issued from it, and the serial is commonly identified
with present place. Many catalogers would prefer some sort of system for
being able to have uniform title "mean" something, like a corporate body
closely associated with the serial.

Feedback please (and this message goes out to Mitch Turitz, who has often
advocated this sort of reform in LCRI 25.5B).

130 0  Serial (New York, N.Y.)
245 00 Serial : $ official publication of the AMA.
246 1  $i Variant filing title $a Serial (AMA)
246 1  $i Variant filing title $a Serial (Netcom)
246 1  $i Variant filing title $a Serial (Boston, Mass.)
362 0  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1937)-
500    Title from cover.
500    Issues for Jan. 1976-   published: Boston, Mass.
550    Issued Jan. 1937-Jan. 1946 by AMA; Feb. 1946-   by Netcom.

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* Rick Gildemeister                                               *
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  _^_                                                 _^_
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-( ___ )
 |   |                                               |   |
 |   |     Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian           |   |
 |   |     San Francisco State University Library    |   |
 |   |     Internet: turitz@sfsu.edu                 |   |
 |   |                                               |   |
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==-( ___ )
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       Rule #2: It's ALL small stuff.