Date:         Tue, 22 Jul 2003 07:12:12 -0800
Reply-To:     Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
From:         Bruce D'Arcus <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: New schema and citation changes
Comments: To: Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
In-Reply-To:  <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 07:51:34 -0700, "Karen Coyle" <[log in to unmask]>
said:

> > 4) This is a little extreme, but I've run into it:
> >
> > Does MODS have all the facilities to deal with an unpublished letter,
> > with an unknown author, with an only vaguely known ("cerca") date?  I
> > remember the issue of the last came up awhile back, but does it make
> > sense to distinguish between "anonymous" authors and unknown authors,
> > either in cataloguing or in MODS?
>
> Again, that's a cataloging rules question. There is a difference between
> an item that has no author (usually works of collective authorship) and
> one that is written by an individual who chose to remain anonymous.

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 07:51:34 -0700, "Karen Coyle" <[log in to unmask]>
said:

> > 4) This is a little extreme, but I've run into it:
> >
> > Does MODS have all the facilities to deal with an unpublished letter,
> > with an unknown author, with an only vaguely known ("cerca") date?  I
> > remember the issue of the last came up awhile back, but does it make
> > sense to distinguish between "anonymous" authors and unknown authors,
> > either in cataloguing or in MODS?
>
> Again, that's a cataloging rules question. There is a difference between
> an item that has no author (usually works of collective authorship) and
> one that is written by an individual who chose to remain anonymous.

..and one that is written by an individual, but for some reason, it is
impossible to determine who that individual is (maybe the document is
damaged or incomplete, for example).

So there's anonymous and unknown, and I can see coding MODS records as
such.  I guess I'm just wondering if there can and should be a more
explicit way to code this.

This comes up in bibliographic applications like Endnote, where you have
rules of what to do with records with blank author fields. It is
possible, for example, to automatically add "anonymous" in those
circumstances, which doesn't seem a very good idea to me, given the
above. For another example, I often enter a magazine or newspaper article
that is unattributed, and so the author is left blank. In these sorts of
records, the periodical title is often used in place of the author in the
citation.

So this leads me to wonder if a record without a name element can simply
be assumed unattributed, truly anonymous works (in which the author
chooses to be unknown) just become <namePart>anonymous</anonymous>, and
unknown (or in your example Karen, unsure) authors get coded with a
special attribute?  Per previous discussion, I really would hate to see
stuff like this in MODS records:

<namePart>[Smith, John?]</namPart>

...and the already-mentioned:

<date>c.1657</date>

Can't we qualify this kind of stuff via an attribute switch?

Bruce


--
http://www.fastmail.fm - I mean, what is it about a decent email service?