5JSC/Restricted/LC Rep/1/BL Rep Response

5JSC/Restricted/LC Rep/1/BL rep response

4th June 2007

TO: Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR

FROM: Alan Danskin, British Library representative to JSC

SUBJECT: Designation of Roles

BL thanks LC for their paper.

General comment

The hierarchical presentation seems the most useful.

Recommendations

1.  Agreed.

2.  Agreed.

3.  Agreed.

Questions

1.  Specificity. The hierarchy is essential to clarify the scope of terms. A number of terms have similar meaning but are closely identified with specific material types and broad roles such as “creator”, “contributor” are therefore required as nodes within a hierarchy. The hierarchy can also accommodate and contextualise refinements of terms for specialised material. At this level it need not seek to be comprehensive but should at least cover roles defined in MARC / ONIX.

2.  Attributes: This is a good idea in principle.

3.  Glossary definitions: the default should be to define for a general audience, but more specialist terms will require narrower definitions.

4.  Expression: Defining all the possible combinations would not be desirable. The $3 technique appears more extensible, but would not expect it to be widely adopted.

5.  Distinguishing terms. Agree that such qualifications should be discouraged, but can not be prohibited if we are to meet commitment for consistency with past practice.