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Discussion topic: Manuscript Bracketing

Page history last edited by Erin Blake 9 years, 11 months ago

Related: Discussion topic: Manuscripts across DCRM

 


 

Meeting, 2013-10-23

 

Bracketing titles

  • The group agreed with the argument of the DCRM(MSS) document that the lack of pre-packaged descriptions in most manuscripts, and the insignificance of transcription for the majority of the FRBR user tasks regarding manuscripts, satisfies a format-specific reason for departing from the principle of bracketing all information supplied by the cataloger in the so-called transcription areas (1, 2, 4, and 6) of the manuscripts module. This decision does not affect manuscript material in other modules.

 

Notes on source of title   

  • Substantive discussion proceeded on identifying the circumstances in which a note on the source of the title is required / optional. The crux of the discussion centered on DCRM(MSS)'s resistance to requiring notes on source of title. Points made include:
    • Expanded use of cross-format research means that there are an increasing number of unexperienced users of manuscript records, who will be used to other conventions. A minority of them will be interested in and/or confused by the source of titles, particularly if they're unbracketed and un-noted.  
    • A standard, required note in every DCRM(MSS) record on source of title would satisfy the needs of all users of manuscript records.
    • A required note in every record wasn't seen as overly onerous; DCRM(G), for example, requires every record to contain a note on the source of the title.
    •  

Area 2

  • A number of Steering Group members objected to the restriction of Area 2 to manuscripts "mechanically produced at the same time from the same original master, and that bear an edition statement on a formal title page." 
  • Discussion ensued on the difference between a scholarly (or catalogerly) identification of edition, and the role of Area 2 for statements relating to edition or version that appear on or with the piece, or are attributed.  
  • We didn't find any  justification in previous or current cataloging documentation that supports treating statements of version as part of the title.  
    • AACR2 4.2A1.
      Use this area to give statements relating to versions of manuscript works existing in two or more versions or states in single or multiple copies. Examples are different manuscript drafts of a work and filmscripts existing in various versions.
    • RDA 2.5.1.1
      For resources in an unpublished form, statements indicating the version of the work contained in the resource are treated as edition statements. Some examples of a resource in an unpublished form are manuscript drafts or videorecordings that have not been commercially released or broadcast.
    • AMREMM  2. Edition / Version Area
      Use this area only to record explicit statements of edition or version appearing in an item. Do not use to this area to describe the recension of a text within its manuscript tradition--place such information in a note, if desired. If an item was clearly intended as a draft, or if it carries markings indicating that is was a stationer's exemplar (marked "pecia" or "p" in the margin), record this information in a note for origin (see 7B14). It will be very rare that any manuscript will have a true edition or version statement. Use of this area will be very limited. 

 

 

Attached MSWord document: Transcription and Edition Area Issues in DCRM-MSS 20131011.doc

Posted by Elizabeth O'Keefe, on behalf of the DCRM(MSS) editorial group, 2013.10.11

 

The full text of the attached document is reproduced below.

 

The Editorial team met with Deborah Leslie and Erin Blake on Sept. 18 at the Folger to discuss the bracketing issue and the edition area. Reasons for deviating from DCRM practice were discussed, and the team was encouraged to submit a new response giving format-specific reasons for why a mandatory note or brackets should not be required when supplying information in areas identified as transcription areas.

 

Transcription is the prescribed method for describing printed books and other published resources, because these resources come prepackaged with a meaningful description of the resource that is uniform across all copies of a particular manifestation. This description often takes the form of a title page with title, statement of responsibility, and imprint. Transcribing this information is a cost-effective means of creating a description useful for finding, identifying, selecting, and obtaining the resource. It also provides a mechanism for distinguishing between different manifestations of a work. Brackets, or a note, are used to signal information that was not present in the prescribed source for the item, because this is crucial to performing these user tasks.

 

Manuscripts are unique objects, so transcription plays no role in enabling users to distinguish between manifestations. Transcription does not even support the FRBR tasks of finding, identifying, selecting, and obtaining manuscripts. This is because manuscripts typically do not contain a pre-packaged description of the resource. Rarely does the work embodied in a manuscript have a title, let alone a title appearing on a title page. Such descriptive information as exists in the manuscript is usually not formally presented in predictable locations comparable to the title page, t.p. verso, colophon, and preliminaries of a printed book. If present at all, it is scattered throughout the manuscript. Moreover, it is usually insufficient to support user tasks, and must be supplemented by the cataloger with information based on inference and deduction as well as information found in other sources external to the manuscript itself. For example, a reference to the San Francisco earthquake in an undated letter from a survivor, together with knowledge of the history of the event, style of writing, the type of paper used, etc., will support dating of the manuscript to "after 1906 April 18" rather then "after 1989 October 17".

 

Within this environment, requiring bracketing or even a general note to indicate which parts of the description are supplied as opposed to transcribed imposes an unreasonable burden on the cataloger, while providing no benefit to users. The prescribed source of information for a manuscript is the entire manuscript. To determine whether the title, place of production, or date of production actually appears in the manuscript, as opposed to being supplied by the cataloger, the cataloger would have to comb through the entire manuscript, not just the limited number of sources prescribed for printed books. Picture having to do this for every printed book you catalog--in an environment where most printed books lack title pages or colophons--and you can imagine how time consuming this would be (and remember, too, that most manuscripts are unpaginated, so your notes recording where the title or the date came from will have to omit the page number, or require you to paginate the entire volume).

The losses in terms of productivity would not be balanced by benefits to the user. Users do not rely on information transcribed from a manuscript to find, identify, select, and obtain it. Instead, they rely on (actually, prefer) a meaningful description supplied by the cataloger. The description will usually combine information within the manuscript, when present, with information derived from other sources: housing and accompanying material and unpublished and published sources, such as finding aids, inventories, manuscript catalogs, and the like. Since no user task is supported by knowing that part of the description was supplied as opposed to transcribed, there is no need to signal this by using brackets or a note. Notes are appropriate when there is a substantive difference between what appears in the manuscript and the description, or when information supplied by the cataloger requires justification.

 

Edition area:

As a result of the discussion with Deborah Leslie and Erin Blake, the Edition area was reinstated in DCRM(MSS). It is to be used only for manuscripts that were mechanically produced at the same time from the same original master, and that bear an edition statement on a formal title page. It will be used principally for screenplays.

 

 

 

 

Attached MSWord document: Response DCRMMSS re Bracketing 20130813.doc

 

The full text of the attached document is also available below. Please click on "Request to be added to this workspace" if you would like to add comments but are not yet authorized--DJL

 

DCRM(MSS) response to DCRM Steering Group concerning use of square brackets in manuscript cataloging

 

Posted by Elizabeth O'Keefe, on behalf of the DCRM(MSS) editorial group, 2013.08.14

 

DCRM(MSS) is a standard that bridges the bibliographic and archival worlds. It was originally developed at the request of the archival community after the adoption of DACS, an ISAD(G) descriptive standard that replaced APPM. Noting that DACS focuses almost exclusively on manuscript and archival collections, SAA approached RBMS about creating a cataloging standard for individual manuscripts, with the idea that item-level description of manuscripts would benefit from a standard that bridges the gap between the ISBD framework of DCRM and the ISAD(G) framework of DACS. Unlike other DCRM modules, DCRM(MSS) must provide guidance for the creation of both catalog records and finding aid entries. The rules we provide must be acceptable to the archival community, our primary constituency, as well as to rare materials catalogers more generally. Descriptive conventions and principles based on the characteristics of published resources are not necessarily appropriate for the description of manuscripts. For these reasons, DCRM(MSS) does not rely on transcription as a core principle for resource description, nor does it ordinarily prescribe the use of brackets as a convention for indicating non-transcribed information.

 

Transcription is the prescribed method for describing printed books and other published resources, because these resources come prepackaged with a meaningful description of the resource that is uniform across all copies of a particular manifestation. This description often takes the form of a title page with title, statement of responsibility, and imprint. Transcribing this information provides a mechanism for distinguishing between different manifestations of a work and produces a description useful for finding, identifying, selecting, and obtaining the resource. Brackets are used to signal information that was not present in the prescribed source for the item.

 

Manuscripts typically do not contain a pre-packaged description of the resource. Rarely does a manuscript have a title, let alone a title page bearing that title. In addition, manuscripts are unique objects, so transcription, even where a title exists, does not help to distinguish between different manifestations. Users do not expect descriptions of manuscripts to consist of a literal transcription of information from the item, and they do not rely on a description based on literal transcription to find, identify, select, and obtain manuscripts. Instead, they rely on a meaningful description supplied by the cataloger or archivist. Following customary practice for manuscript description, DCRM(MSS) directs catalogers to construct a description based on information within the manuscript, when present, but also derived from other sources: housing and accompanying material and published sources, such as finding aids, inventories, manuscript catalogs, and the like. Information within the item is not privileged over information in other sources when, in the cataloger's judgment, it does not provide a meaningful description. The cataloger may record the presence of this information, if this is judged to be helpful to a user.

 

For these reasons it has been the practice in mainstream manuscript cataloging not to use brackets when constructing a description of the manuscript (brackets are used when quoting, but this is a different matter). Finding aids containing descriptions of individual manuscripts or manuscript groups do not use brackets, nor do published descriptions of medieval manuscripts in standard catalogues and inventories.

 

Brackets were introduced to manuscript cataloging by AACR, a mainstream bibliographic cataloging code that sought to apply bibliographic principles to all formats commonly found in library collections. APPM and AMREMM, manuscript cataloging codes seeking to remain in synch with AACR while providing additional format-specific guidance, also prescribed brackets, but deviated from AACR and from each other in when and how brackets were to be used. APPM required brackets for supplied dates, but not for devised titles that took the form of a genre or form ("Diary", "Will"). APPM also expanded the AACR definition of a prescribed source of information to include finding aids; hence, a title taken from a finding aid need not be bracketed, while a devised title for the same manuscript, if cataloged for the first time, would be bracketed. AMREMM bracketing rules are much stricter than either AACR or APPM: any information in transcribed areas that does not appear within the manuscript in a contemporary hand must be bracketed. With DACS, the standard that replaced APPM, we have come full circle, to a standard that not only does not require brackets for any information in a description but prescribes: "Do not enclose devised titles in square brackets" (DACS 2nd ed., 2.3.3, at http://files.archivists.org/pubs/DACS2E-2013.pdf).

 

We understand the concern about commingling records that employ different bracketing conventions in OPACs and utilities that contain descriptions of both published and unpublished resources. But this horse is long out of the barn. Bracket-free descriptions of manuscripts and cultural objects have for decades coexisted with printed resource descriptions in OCLC and in the OPACs of major research libraries (e.g., Harvard, the Folger, the University of North Carolina, Yale, Berkeley, Cornell, The Morgan Library). Although based on different cataloging conventions, the descriptions achieve the purpose of providing effective access to their respective materials. Manuscript catalogers and archivists have long worked in an environment where bracketing is inconsistently applied, depending on which cataloging code is followed. The adoption of DCRM(MSS), which prescribes bracketing only in a small, well-defined set of circumstances, will ultimately lead to greater overall consistency in manuscript cataloging.

 

The DCRM(MSS) editors believe that the square-bracket issue presents an opportunity for BSC to go beyond providing guidance on rare printed materials and to truly represent all types of rare materials in its standards. This will require flexibility, since different formats have different characteristics, which dictate the policies appropriate to their description. It will also require acknowledging that although cataloging objectives are similar for all the modules, descriptive conventions and principles may vary. The descriptive principles for DCRM(MSS) (see attached excerpt from the latest version of the Introduction) vary in several respects from the descriptive principles for DCRM(B). We believe that the tent of DCRM is big enough to accommodate these principles; the alternative is that DCRM will remain a standard that applies only to published materials. We also believe that we share the essential purposes and goals of the DCRM suite, and that it will be valuable to catalogers to work within a common descriptive framework, although the rules within that framework necessarily conform to the nature of the materials described and the expectations of catalogers and users.

 

The DCRM(MSS) editorial team's charge instructs us to "endeavor to make the rules acceptable to as wide a constituency as possible without unduly sacrificing internal coherence or consistency." Because our natural constituency consists of both archivists and librarians, and our standard was intended as a bridging standard, we are genuinely concerned that DCRM(MSS) will meet with widespread rejection if its rules do not acknowledge longstanding practices in archival description. Unlike other DCRM modules, DCRM(MSS) must blend the practices of two different professions if it is to be widely adopted. If, instead of bridging the bibliographic and archival worlds, it clings to the bibliographical shore, it will fail. It is our hope to make it succeed by truly bridging its two worlds-as an outlier within the DCRM suite, perhaps, but still as an integral part of that suite.

 

 

From the latest draft of DCRM(MSS) (http://mssworkinggroup.pbworks.com/w/file/68201498/DCRM%28MSS%29_20130701_MASTER.doc)

 

III.2. Principles for describing manuscripts at the item level

 

To meet the objectives listed above, DCRM(MSS) relies upon the following six principles. These principles are influenced by the general principles of archival and bibliographic description. For overarching principles relating to the DCRM suite of manuals in general, see the introduction to DCRM(B), III.2.

 

III.2.1. Rules provide guidelines on constructing an accurate description of a manuscript

 

Most manuscripts are not self-describing, and when they are, the information appearing on the item is often illegible, incomplete, misleading, inaccurate, or recorded in an abbreviated or non-standard form. It is generally necessary for the cataloger or archivist to supply a description rather than to only transcribe identifying information from the item. The supplied description is based on a combination of internal and external evidence. The primary elements in a description of a single item manuscript are a title, creator (if known), date (if known), and contextual information relating to its content or physical attributes.

 

III.2.2. Rules provide guidance for describing a manuscript as a unique artifact

 

Manuscripts are unique artifacts. Manuscript description focuses on the nature and purpose of the manuscript as a unique item rather than distinguishing it from other manifestations. Therefore, transcription plays a much smaller role in manuscript cataloging than in the cataloging of published materials.

 

III.2.3. Rules provide guidance for the inclusion of physical descriptions

 

There is no such thing as a typical manuscript. Manuscripts vary widely in their physical characteristics such as material type, medium, support, script, extent, and housing. An accurate physical description is important for finding, identifying, selecting, obtaining, and interpreting manuscript materials.

 

III.2.4. Rules provide guidelines for describing subject matter, genre/form, and biographical, historical or administrative context

 

Manuscripts are often of an ephemeral nature, generally not intended for publication, and frequently separated from the context of their original production. Additionally, the creators or compilers of manuscripts are often unidentified or not well known. Therefore, an accurate description of a manuscript often must include not only elements of bibliographical significance (e.g., subject matter, genre/form), but also the manuscript's biographical, historical, or administrative context.

 

III.2.5. Rules provide for the description of an individual manuscript within different discovery environments ( i.e., finding aids or bibliographic records in a catalog)

 

DCRM(MSS) can be used to create item-level descriptions of individual manuscripts in the form of either elements in a hierarchical finding aid or stand-alone bibliographic records.

 

III.2.6. Rules are adapted from DCRM(B) and DACS

 

DCRM(MSS) draws upon the relevant aspects of DCRM(B) and DACS whenever possible, deviating from them only to the extent required by the fundamental difference between published and manuscript materials on the one hand, and between individual manuscripts and archival and manuscript collections on the other.

 

Comments

Comments (3)

Erin Blake said

at 10:30 am on Aug 15, 2013

I think one of the issues that was giving some people pause was that it can be desireable to describe a manuscript that presents itself as a book the same way that a book is described, so not even having the option of Area 2 for an edition statement was a problem. Deborah mentioned in person that DCRM(B) could add an appendix on using DCRM(B) to catalog manuscripts.

I imagine this would be useful for typescripts such as screenplays, which present themselves formally and are mechanically reproduced. Though unpublished, they’re circulated by a corporate distributor. For example, you could end up with something like:
As you like it by William Shakespeare [manuscript] / screenplay by Kenneth Branagh.
Production draft.
[S.l.] : HBO Films & Shakespeare Film Company, 14/03/05.

The appendix would be analogous to DCRM(S)’s projected appendix on manuscript serials, and DCRM(G)’s appendix on cataloging material with title pages as graphic material rather than as books.

francis.lapka@yale.edu said

at 10:20 am on Aug 19, 2013

1. The statement declares that the archival community is the “primary constituency” of DCRM(MSS). Is that really so? The guidelines bridge DACS and DCRM, but they are conceived as an adaptation of DCRM, not DACS.

2. I generally agree that, for material within the scope DCRM(Mss), user tasks are better fulfilled with devised or supplied information in data elements where DCRM normally calls for transcription.

3. If we concede that it better serves our users to devise such information, I think we still need to stiffen the requirements for specifying that the data is supplied, not transcribed. In the current draft of DCRM(Mss), the guidelines instruct us to note that information is supplied only “if considered important.” I think this is inadequate when describing manuscripts within the DCRM umbrella; the record *must* declare whether an element is transcribed or supplied.

4. Whichever course we take, I think it’s important to maintain consistency across resource formats. If we decide that manuscript description works better with supplied information, then we need to reevaluate whether there really are format specific reasons to prefer transcription for manuscripts in other format types.

Deborah J. Leslie said

at 11:34 am on Sep 7, 2013

Thanks to the DCRM(MSS) editors for their statement.

According to DCRM(MSS) III.2.3, "There is no such thing as a typical manuscript." Yet, it seems that the editors are leaving out of their consideration an entire category that _are_ self-describing, such the screenplay that Erin pointed out. Transcription is significant for unpublished resources with formal titles.

I wonder, too, about creating descriptive rules that equally encompass bibliographic records and finding aids. Wouldn't it be adequate to either create an appendix or provide alternative rules for finding aids, to allow the main rules to focus on bibliographic description? That approach should allow for more consistency, or at least more clarity, with MSS and between MSS and the other DCRM's.

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