[open-bibliography] New BNB sample data available

Mon Feb 7 08:40:13 UTC 2011

Considering these variant preferred labels as "language forms" is not exactly the best way of looking at it. In AACR2, the form of, e.g. a name of a corporate body, is almost always based on the language of the body itself. Therefore, the heading for the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts is set up in Hungarian. We can see this at work very clearly in VIAF, which attempts to bring varying national forms together: http://viaf.org/viaf/130785279/ We also see that not everyone follows such a rule.

But when it comes to international bodies, variants really go crazy, since the AACR2 rule is to set it up in English when available. Naturally, this applies for each cultural group and each will set up names in its own languages. So, for the World Health Organization, we see this: http://viaf.org/viaf/135618969/ where there are all kinds of preferred forms.

It gets even crazier with other international corporate bodies, e.g. The Commonwealth of Independent States, http://viaf.org/viaf/131775197/ which is an international body with different official languages, none of which is English, but because of our rules, the form is set up in English anyway. Other cultures use different forms.

Concerning personal names, the rules become still more complex, but forms are remain based mainly on the form of the name of the author on the item(s) they publish. So, we have Tolstoi, Nikita Ilich http://viaf.org/viaf/9962566/ (Russian form), but for Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 http://viaf.org/viaf/96987389/ he is set up in an anglicized form because he is more famous, so other rules kick in. 

In any case, this should show that "language form" is a bit dubious when discussing the preferred forms. Also, it shows how vital are the cross-references for a U.S. art student trying to find exhibition catalogs from Budapest. Still, just these few examples demonstrate how the VIAF has already become such a wonderful and incredibly useful tool. I hope that it may point the way forward, somehow.

James Weinheimer  j.weinheimer at aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
fax-011 39 06 58330992
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
-----Original Message-----
From: open-bibliography-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:open-bibliography-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Diane I. Hillmann
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 10:44 PM
To: Antoine Isaac
Cc: List for Working Group on Open Bibliographic Data; Deliot, Corine; public-lld
Subject: Re: [open-bibliography] New BNB sample data available

  Antoine:

In a previous life I served on a MARBI task group considering the 
problem of language in authorized headings.  The problem here is that 
the AACR2 rules allowed for the creation of 'mixed' headings, e.g., 
heading strings that included portions (usually separately subfielded) 
in different languages.  The group was trying to figure out how these 
separate parts could be separately identified as to language, but 
eventually we gave up on the task--MARC just wasn't set up to do that, 
and in fact every accommodation for the varieties of language and script 
used to 'patch' MARC up in some specific circumstances create their own 
particular problems down the line.

So what we have here is yet another 'holy grail' (compatibility) which 
may not be achievable.  Any default attribution of language will be 
wrong in some unknown percentage of cases.  I really think that our only 
hope is to separately identify what has been cobbled together for use 
within card catalogs, and move towards a faceted approach, perhaps the 
one that FAST has taken.

As for the separate choices made by BL and LC, I'm not entirely sure 
that agreement is required or even optimal, particularly given the 
differences in spelling everyone insists on retaining!

Diane

On 2/4/11 9:35 AM, Antoine Isaac wrote:
> Now, on having a language tag or not, I see your issue, but personally 
> I'm ok with originally Spanish labels being considered as English 
> ones, if there's no English translation for them.
> Anyway, the core issue to me here is that this language tag dilemma 
> also applies for LoC, which made the opposite choice. Ideally if you 
> publish data on LC concepts, it should be compatible with what LC 
> has--"compatible" in the formal but also informal way: whether there 
> is an inconsistency or not, a data consumer may still be extremely 
> puzzled why LC and BL can't agree on their concepts' prefLabels! 

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