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DATE: December 18, 2014
REVISED:
NAME: Recording RDA Format of Notated Music in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
SOURCE: Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM)
SUMMARY: This paper presents options for recording the RDA data element Format of Notated Music in the Bibliographic format.
KEYWORDS: Format of Notated Music (BD); RDA; Resource Description and Access
RELATED:
STATUS/COMMENTS:
12/18/14 – Made available to the MARC community for discussion.
01/31/15 – Results of MARC Advisory Committee discussion: The Committee agreed that this paper should return as a proposal. Regarding the questions, the Committee responded that: 1) Yes, the Format of Notated Music is a significant data element for finding, identifying and selecting resources consisting of notated music. A new field would improve indexing and facet searching. 2) Yes, precise coding of the Format of Notated Music would be useful in enabling retrieval based on these controlled terms. 3) Yes, there is a possible use case for including this element in authority records as well as bibliographic records because this element is at the expression level. 4) Though the German National Library representative asked the Committee to consider the option of defining field 655 to enable linking to an authority, most in the Committee favored the option of defining a field in the 3XX block (preferably field 348) to encode this data since fields in the 3XX block have been recently defined to encode descriptive data for RDA. CCM's proposal will reflect this preference with the additions of subfield $b for coded equivalents to terms and subfield $0 to enable linking to authorities. It was requested that the German alternative approach (using field 655 with links to authorities) be presented as part of the context section of the proposal.
The RDA/MARC Working Group did not propose that any specific coding be defined in the MARC 21 Bibliographic format to specifically accommodate RDA element Format of Notated Music (RDA 7.20). In the “RDA to MARC Bibliographic Mapping” in the RDA Toolkit, Format of Notated Music is simply mapped to field 500, the general note field.
In RDA, the Format of Notated Music element is an attribute of the expression entity and is defined as “the musical or physical layout of the content of a resource that is presented in the form of musical notation.” It is recorded using one or more appropriate terms from the list given at RDA 7.20.1.3, as follows:
score
condensed score
study score
piano conductor part
violin conductor part
vocal score
piano score
chorus score
part
choir book
table book
Because the format is a fundamental aspect of notated music, this element has an important role to play in assisting users with selecting a resource that meets their requirements, e.g. a score for a conductor versus a part for an instrumentalist. Although not core in RDA, Format of Notated Music is defined as a core element for LC/PCC.
One could argue that recording the Format of Notated Music element separately is not really necessary since the RDA element Extent of Notated Music (RDA 3.4.3.2), encoded in Bibliographic field 300 (Physical Description) subfield $a (Extent), which is recorded using the controlled terms listed at RDA 7.20.1.3, incorporates this information.
Examples of Extent of Notated Music:
1 score (38 leaves)
1 piano conductor part (8 pages)
1 choir book (240 pages)
1 table book (50 unnumbered pages)
1 vocal score (1 volume, unpaged) + 1 piano conductor part (2 volumes) + 5 parts
1 score (13 pages) + 1 piano conductor part (5 pages) + 29 parts
1 score (19 pages) + 5 parts
2 scores (9 pages each)
15 parts
However, because the terms used for the Extent of Notated Music element are recorded either in the singular or the plural as appropriate, and are accompanied by other pieces of information such as the number of units or the number and type of sub-units, Extent of Notated Music is not well suited for limiting searches or filtering search results. There is, therefore, a need to record the controlled vocabulary for Format of Notated Music in addition to the Extent of Notated Music element. In that regard, Format of Notated Music is similar to Type of Carrier for audio and many other types of resources, which is recorded separately in Bibliographic field 338 even though the vocabulary for Type of Carrier is used as the basis for recording the extent in field 300 $a.
Ongoing work to define distinct RDA elements for Extent of Expression as opposed to Extent of Carrier, in the context of providing machine-actionable data, supports the contention that Extent of Notated Music is actually a composite element built using the Format of Notated Music element and a general Extent of Carrier element for resources existing in sheets, volumes, etc. This manipulation would be facilitated by separate coding for the Format of Notated Music vocabulary, and preferably the encoding solution chosen should be extensible to other Extent of Expression vocabularies once these are identified.
The practice of recording the Format of Notated Music data in Bibliographic field 500 does not permit any separate or specific manipulation of this data. For instance, the data cannot be validated against the controlled list of values given at RDA 7.20.1.3, nor can specific display decisions be made for this data, independently of all other general notes. It cannot be used to create specific filters for refining searches, as some of the terms in the controlled vocabulary might easily appear in other free-text notes. In general, encoding a controlled vocabulary in a free-text note field limits its utility.
2.1. Relationship between the Format of Notated Music element and existing positions in 008 (Music)
In field 008 (Music), positions 20 (Format of music) and 21 (Music parts) would seem to have values corresponding to the RDA vocabulary for Format of Notated Music. In a series of proposals (2013-04, 2012-07, and 2009-01/2 section 4.5) the values for 008/20 were adjusted to improve their alignment with RDA Extent of Notated Music element. However, single-position fixed length fields do not allow recording more than one value and so cannot fully express the Format of Notated Music element which is repeatable. Also, the values defined in these positions are not at the same level of granularity as the RDA element. For instance, in position 20 value z (Other) is used for three of the terms from the Format of Notated Music element, part, choir book, and table book. Position 21 can be used to indicate whether the item being cataloged is, or contains, parts, but values for parts (d, e, and f) have narrower definitions than the RDA term “part”, distinguishing between vocal and instrumental parts.
The positions are defined as follows:
008/20 - Format of music (006/03)
One-character code that indicates the format of a musical composition (e.g., piano-conductor score). Unless otherwise indicated, the values apply to music written using graphic, symbolic (e.g., staff), or word-based notation.
a - Full score
b - Full score, miniature or study size
c - Accompaniment reduced for keyboard
d - Voice score with accompaniment omitted
e - Condensed score or piano-conductor score
g - Close score
h - Chorus score
i - Condensed score
j - Performer-conductor part
k - Vocal score
l - Score
m - Multiple score formats
n - Not applicable
u - Unknown
z - Other
| - No attempt to code
008/21 - Music parts (006/04)
One character code that indicates whether the item being cataloged is, or contains parts. This position is not used to indicate that parts may exist elsewhere.
# - No parts in hand or not specified
d - Instrumental and vocal parts
e - Instrumental parts
f - Vocal parts
n - Not applicable
u - Unknown
| - No attempt to code
2.2. Relationship between the Format of Notated Music element and existing field 254 (Music Presentation Statement)
Existing field 254 (Musical Presentation Statement) is non-repeatable. It is applied when following AACR2 or ISBD, where it corresponds to area 3 (Music format statement) for printed music. The definition of the Musical Presentation statement indicates that it should be viewed as a manifestation attribute, since it would generally be a transcribed statement taken from a preferred source, rather than a term or terms selected from a controlled vocabulary.
In RDA this manifestation data is treated as Edition data and encoded in field 250 (Edition Statement). Proposal 2013-03 addressed making field 250 repeatable specifically to accommodate complex and lengthy statements resulting from recording in a single field, data that under ISBD is separated into fields 250 and 254. Field 254 should no longer be applied in RDA cataloguing. The definition for field 254 is presented below for reference.
254 - Musical Presentation Statement (NR)
FIELD DEFINITION AND SCOPE
Musical presentation statement for printed or manuscript music that describes the format of the edition, which may differ from that of another edition of the same work.
For example, a string quartet published as a score, study score, score and parts, or a set of parts. The field is not used for sound recordings.
Indicators
Both indicator positions are undefined; each contains a blank (#)
Subfield Codes
$a - Musical presentation statement (NR)
$6 - Linkage (NR)
$8 - Field link and sequence number (R)
Various options for encoding the Format of Notated Music vocabulary within MARC 21 bibliographic records can be envisaged. At present, this information appears only in bibliographic records. A number of attributes of works and expressions have been encoded in MARC 21 data elements which exist in both the Bibliographic and the Authority formats (such as the 38X fields). Generally, there has not been an expectation that Extent of Expression and related attributes such as Format of Notated Music would be needed in the Authority format, but this issue needs to be considered.
3.1. 3XX block
A number of fields in the 3XX range have never been defined in either the Bibliographic or Authority formats. These include:
311, 312, 313, 314, 316, 317, 318
320, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328
330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335
341, 348
353, 354, 356, 358
361, 364, 367 (although in the Authority format the 36X block is associated with Complex see-also references)
387
Fields have previously been defined for RDA in the Bibliographic format 33X block (336/337/338) and also in the Bibliographic format 34X block (344/345/346/347). Field 336 is also defined in the Authority format.
For most resource types, it is the term for Type of Carrier, encoded in field 338, that is used in constructing the Extent statement encoded in field 300 $a. The rest of the 33X block is unused in both the Bibliographic and Authority formats; free fields include 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, and 335. This might be an area suitable for expansion to encode such Extent of Expression elements as the Format of Notated Music. Another possibility would be to consider defining field 348 in the Bibliographic format, contiguous to the newly defined fields 344/345/346/347. Field structure, as shown below, could be similar to field 338, without subfield $b for a coded equivalent to the term for the Format of Notated Music.
33X or 348 – Format of Notated Music (R)
Indicators
Both indicator positions are undefined; each contains a blank (#)
Subfield Codes
$a - Format of notated music term (R)
$2 - Source (NR)
$3 - Materials specified (NR)
$6 - Linkage (NR)
$8 - Field link and sequence number (R)
3.2. Bibliographic Format Notes block (5XX)
As mentioned in the Background section, in the “RDA to MARC Bibliographic Mapping” in the Toolkit, Format of Notated Music is mapped to the general 500 note field, which is not specific enough in scope to be useful for searching. Some undefined fields still exist in this range; a specific field could serve to accommodate both the element and details of it. The disadvantage is that it is unusual to encode a controlled vocabulary in a 5XX field. Additionally, should it be desirable to allow the possibility of including this element in authority records as well as bibliographic records, a field in the 5XX block would not be suitable in the Authority format where the 5XX block is reserved for see also references.
For reference, the following fields in the Bibliographic format 5XX block have never been defined:
528, 531, 532, 548, 551, 553, 554, 557, 558, 564, 566, 568, 57X (other than 570), 587.
Like Proposal 2015-06, this discussion paper is about an area special to music; how to parse and show extra detail needs to be studied.
5.1. Is the Format of Notated Music a significant data element for finding, identifying and selecting resources consisting of notated music?
5.2. Is precise encoding of the Format of Notated Music useful in enabling retrieval based on these controlled terms?
5.3. Is there a possible use case for including this element in authority records as well as bibliographic records?
5.4. If yes to 1-2) above, which options for encoding this element should be developed as a proposal?
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