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Oral History template #9

Closed AnnP007 closed 4 years ago

AnnP007 commented 4 years ago

Some comments and suggestions on the Adlib - Oral History Template and associated Oral History Creator / Author Artist Breakdown

  1. title. Advice is to devise a brief title to include name of interviewee, form (e.g. oral history interview) and date of interview. However inclusion of the date of interview is not supported by RDA (although it is in IASA and OH Cataloguing Manual). I would suggest that inclusion of the date should not be mandatory unless for the purposes of distinguishing between otherwise identical titles e.g. for interviews with an interviewee conducted on separate occasions. I would agree that it is important to provide the date of an oral history interview, but this the function of the date field. To make a comparison with another format, the date of a photograph with the title ‘View of Sydney Harbour’ is an important component of its metadata but will not usually be included in the title. The OH Cataloguing Manual is extremely prescriptive in its instructions (and was also published over 20 years ago) and while it offers some valuable advice I would prefer to rely on RDA in areas where DACS does not provide enough detail.

  2. dimension.free. Advice is ‘Do not place full stops after abbreviations unless to indicate the end of the statement’. RDA Appendix B.7 is given as the source, however this does include full stops after every abbreviation. I would suggest that, for consistency with normal practice, the forms used should be ‘hr’ and ‘min.’ and where necessary, ‘sec.’. I would also suggest that seconds should usually be rounded to the closest minute, unless the duration is under one minute, in line with previous practice.

  3. dimension.free. I’m not sure where audio files appear in the template (when they are not a part of an online resource). I’m thinking of when they might be emailed to the Library as an attachment or given on a USB stick, for example. We don’t want to record the extent as 1 [physical carrier] but as the number of audio files.

  4. dimension.free and dimension.free.phys_characteristics. I think some of these have been transposed in the template, so a few of the rows might need amending.

  5. creator – Oral History Creator/Author Artist breakdown. ‘For a single oral history, or a single interview recorded over a number of sessions… No Creator entry’ AND ‘For a collection of oral histories where all interviews are conducted by the same interviewer… Interviewer is Creator’. I can’t see that there is a valid reason not to have a creator entry for a single interview – whether it is the interviewer or interviewee could be debated and both seem to be supported by RDA Appendix I 1.2.1. I also have trouble with the concept of a project being the creator – is there a source for this?

DACSAdlib commented 4 years ago

Hi Ann, Thanks for taking the time to look through this.

  1. Have changed to read:

If a manifestation has no title, and none can be found in any other sources, devise a brief title, that includes: a)The name of the interviewee b) The form (e.g. oral history interview)

If considered important, also include: d) the name of the interviewer (if not already evident from the record hierarchy) e) The date of the interview f) a reference to any associated project ( (if not already evident from the record hierarchy)

2. Agree - apologies; I was looking at the abbreviations for fps and ips as a reference, which do not include full stops. I have amended.

  1. Not sure I understand what you mean here. RDA provides the following examples at 3.4.1.7.5.

_For other types of files (e.g., audio files, video files, data files), specify the number of files. Use one or more terms listed at 3.19.2.3 to indicate a file type.

EXAMPLE

The RDA definition of online is: A carrier type consisting of a digital resource accessed by means of hardware and software connections to a communications network.

The term 'distributed via the Internet' was intended as a coverall for material published online but also files sent to the Library via email. Suzette and I discussed this previously, and we decided that if the Library discarded the carrier, then the resource was necessarily 'online', as the file can only be accessed by way of a networked computer, regardless whether this is public or not.

I have not made this very clear in the template and I have changed this to read:

The term 'online resource' should only be applied to material that is primarily accessed via a networked computer. For example, media files that have been distributed via the internet or email, or files whose carrier type has been discarded and are now only available for access via a networked computer.

  1. Have amended - file characteristics was confused with file size.

  2. Have amended per agreements in today's meeting.

Cheers, Glenn

AnnP007 commented 4 years ago

Regarding use of the term 'Online resource' as a unit of extent (Point 3 in the comments above):

I have read the relevant sections in RDA but do not see how this translates to a useful measure of the extent of a unit of description. This might be best explained by an illustration. Imagine that we have a digital recording of an oral history interview which was conducted over several hours in the morning and afternoon of a single day. You are proposing that the extent would be entered as, say, '1 online resource (3 audio files)'. After listening to the interview, the cataloguer determines that it is in fact 2 separate interviews, because the topics are completely different and they were in fact only recorded on the same day for convenience. Does the extent then become, say, '1 online resource (2 audio files)' plus '1 online resource (1 audio file)'. The total extent has appeared to double to 2 online resources, but it is actually just due to a change in describing the intellectual content. The total number of audio files, and also the total duration, remains the same - a true measure of the extent. Speaking of duration:

Where do you propose that duration be recorded for 'online resources'? It is a significant component of the extent field and is also recorded as a statistic for every sound recording catalogued - both analogue and digital - to be published in the annual report. Currently it is recorded in the extent field in parentheses after the number of audio files or audiotape reels, etc.

In addition, do you propose that the term 'online resource' should be used in the extent field for all digital material, including text files and image files? If you do, then it will require significant changes to the cataloguing procedure for all formats. If not, then why should it be used only for sound recordings?

Finally, it would help to be able to see how other institutions have incorporated 'online resource' into the extent field of their catalogue records. Do you have any examples to illustrate the usage in practice?

Thanks, Ann

DACSAdlib commented 4 years ago

Hi Ann (CCing @Suzette-B )

The term 'online resource' was suggested as a cover-all term to apply wherever there is no physical carrier, or the original carrier is discarded, and thus access is provided via a networked computer. It seemed like a good way to minimise confusion, I couldn't imagine a scenario where such files would not ultimately be accessed via some kind of network. Perhaps I'm being simplistic?

Here are some of the documents I referred to when considering this, as they deal with RDA and also address various access scenarios:

Looking at what other institutions are doing, there seems to be various different approaches here, so there is some potential for confusion.

State Library of Western Australia refer to numerous files in each record. The online access version and its corresponding file (presumably the archived version) are given separate extent statements:

Some smaller libraries are only giving the term '1 online resource':

In these records from the State Library of South Australia only duration is provided:

The National Library is providing the numbers of files as extent, with no 'online resource' reference - so more along the lines of what you are suggesting:

In the scenario you mentioned in your question, depending on how the material was presented, and depending on how it was catalogued, the extent would either be '1 online resource (X files)' for a single oral history or 'online resource (XX files)' for multiple histories.

Regardless, re. the Oral History Template, I'm happy to include an extent example with 'audio files' and without 'online resource' if you think that there are still reasons for this.

Thanks, Glenn

AnnP007 commented 4 years ago

Hi Glenn,

The use of the term 'online resource' as a measure of the extent of sound recordings still concerns me. When you use the term in your comments, it seems that you are referring to the way the Library will provide access to the material rather than its extent, and this seems to be borne out in the SLWA example. The SLSA example uses 'online resource' as a carrier type, not an extent.

I have also looked at the British Library and Library of Congress - examples below:

British Library

Item duration: 2 hr. 22 min. Recording note: 9 audio files WAV 48 kHz 24 bit stereo

Library of Congress

Medium: 1 sound file (wav) (00:55:48) : digital, sound

Neither of these institutions appear to use 'online resource' as a measure of extent.

DACS is to be our primary standard and it has the following at 2.5.10 and 2.5.11:

Statements of Extent for Electronic Records 2.5.10 Electronic records may be described in terms of size (kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes) or in terms of structure (digital files, directories, items, etc.). If desired, both may be used. 700 Megabytes 3 file directories containing 48 PDF files 23 digital files (1 Gigabyte) approximately 275 digital image and audio files (12.4 GB) on 1 portable hard drive

2.5.11 Optionally, descriptions of electronic records may include file format type as well as size. The file format type is normally the file name extension (.doc, .pdf, .ppt, etc.). This is especially recommended where the description includes a link directly to the record. PDF (88 Kilobytes)

Why would we not use this standard?

Regards, Ann

Suzette-B commented 4 years ago

Hi Glenn, Ann.

Our focus is DACS with supplementary info from RDA but considering Adlib doesn't have the appropriate fields to record the additional information (337-computer ; 338-online resource; 344-sound characteristics; 347-digital file characteristics). I think we should focus on the digital files (audio , video, text) in the extent field Example: 20 audio files; 20 video files; 20 text files

The born digital oral history is original and in 99% of cases created on recording devices then copied onto a disc, usb, hardrive or cloud for delivery to the Library. There is no intention for any of this material to be kept as a physical carrier and in the few cases where the oral histories have the original carrier retained then the description is based on the physical carrier itself not the files.

We should also consider that CEP is still in development and that fields for online resources etc will be part of that development?

regards Suzette

Meredith007 commented 4 years ago

Finally had time to look over the Oral History Template. These are my suggestions:

Square brackets

  1. Title [Title proper] [DEVISED TITLE]

It is confusing to see the RDA instruction 'Enclose the whole title in square brackets' when the linked example sheet does not include square brackets.

Advice should refer to DACS Title 2.3.3 'Do not enclose devised titles in square brackets'.

  1. Date(s) (free text) [UNPUBLISHED]

Advice says 'If these dates are not found with the resource, supply the date in square brackets, make a note of the source'.

DACS Date 2.4 does not include square brackets in examples for estimated dates.

Punctuation

  1. Extent [TANGLIBLE CARRIER - DURATION]

Please remove dot after hr in the following columns:

Example: 3 audiotape reels (approximately 2 hr.) Advice: Record, in parenthesis an exact or approximate duration. Use abbreviations for durations 'sec.', 'hr.',' min.'.

  1. Extent [ONLINE MANIFESTATION] - file size

Example: 6.6 MB

Should file size be enclosed in parentheses after the number of audio files? e.g. 10 audio files (6.6 MB)

Content keyword

Content keyword person/institution – Name type. We no longer use this. Names as subjects are entered in the Thesaurus database as subject term type. This is explained in the local procedure 'Adlib - Creating name authorities'.

Suzette-B commented 4 years ago

Hi Meredith, File size could be enclosed in brackets. However in 99% of cases you would never know the file size Suzette

Meredith007 commented 4 years ago

Yes, file size should only be used if known and considered useful. I was just making a suggestion about the use of brackets. Glenn's example of file size didn't have brackets.

DACSAdlib commented 4 years ago

Hi All, Thank you all or your comments.

I think it is worth while having a separate meeting about this. So I will suggest this at the next meeting.

Concerning Suzette's comments

I had spoken with Jo and Lynne about the technical information to include. Lynne has asked me to work on the basis that the Recommendation Handling field will be public - So I have thus given the advice:

Concerning Ann's comments : Further examples Perfect - I suggest that we discuss in a separate meeting, so that we stay on track with DACS/Adlib.

Concerning Ann's comments : Extent/ carrier type I've added 'audio file' as an extent example to the template - per your advice. As you have noted, we'll need to discuss 'online resource' as an extent type.

Re. your comment about carrier type and extent in the SLSA examples - all of the examples I provided, with the exception of NLA, have 'online resource' as a carrier type. Interestingly enough, the NLA records I have seen for OH do no list a carrier type, which is very unusual for MARC records, especially as this is CORE in RDA.

To be a bit reductive, the carrier type replaces the old AACR2 General Material Designation (along with content and media type) - RDA advises (I'm paraphrasing) to use in the extent field whatever carrier type you have selected (RDA 3.4.1.3) So this is, at least in part, where I am coming from when suggesting 'online ...' as an extent for computer files without carriers. There is no 'audio file' carrier type listed in RDA under computer carrier: -Computer carriers

However, RDA does give you the option at 3.4.1.3. to:

So, 'audio file' is totally valid as an extent type. Again, my intention in suggesting 'online ...' as an extent has been to avoid confusion, however, it seems I'm just adding to it at this point.

Concerning Meredith's comments Please refer to the email I sent today I updated the file I shared with Boris, and the online template.

Thanks, Glenn

DACSAdlib commented 4 years ago

Hi All, Just spoke with Lynne - She has confirmed that the extent for audio files without carriers should be 'audio file' and that 'online resource (audio file) should not be recommended for use.

I've added this to the agenda for the next meeting, so all is confirmed.

I will amend the template.

Thanks, and apologies for dragging this all out for so long. Glenn

DACSAdlib commented 4 years ago

Closing this - The template has been amended as discussed and the new procedure should essentially be treated as the source of truth.