Friday, October 11, 2013

JSC responses to proposed RDA treaty instructions available

In May 2013, John Hostage, the AALL representative to CC:DA, issued a 36-page revision proposal for RDA's instructions for treaties (http://alcts.ala.org/ccdablog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/aall2013-1.pdf). John's proposal clearly and thoroughly documents the problems law catalogers have with the RDA treaty instructions and suggests revisions. In anticipation of the November 2013 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA, JSC constituents' responses to the proposal have been made publicly available at: http://www.rda-jsc.org/working2.html#6ala23. LC's response (http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/6JSC-ALA-23-LC-response.pdf), while generally supportive of the proposed revisions, questions whether the element "Signatory to a treaty" would still belong in chapter 6 ("Identifying Works and Expressions") if the proposed revisions were to be implemented. LC's response also includes some suggested changes to the proposal and a number of questions concerning the proposed revision to 6.19.2.7 and its recommendation to record as the preferred title "a short title or citation title used in legal literature." Stay tuned for developments in this important area of law cataloging.