RDA 4.0
RDA 4.0: Description
Description overview
One of the big differences between AACR2 and RDA is the notion of "key it as you see it." So when cataloging an item in RDA, you should not be abbreviating common terms as you would with AACR2.
MARS 2.0 utilizes several lists of commonly abbreviated terms so they can be expanded into their unabbreviated form.
One caveat to consider with regards to expanding abbreviations is with regards to headings under authority control. If an abbreviation is expanded in a controllable heading but the authority record still contains the abbreviated form, the heading in the bibliographic record would no longer match the heading in the authority record.
It is because of this reason that Backstage has divided up abbreviations and updates between Description (Step 4) and Access (Step 5). It could be that you wish to treat your descriptive fields differently than your access points and so we have separated the two types of updates in the profile.
Since an automated process cannot tell whether or not the term on the actual item was abbreviated, these options mandate that either all of a certain term are expanded or all are kept in their abbrevated form. Several reports are available that will list every abbreviation that has been expanded so you can review these to find any terms that should still be abbreviated.
Topics
- Step 4.1 - Music: 240 $o
- Step 4.2 - Title: 240, 245 fields
- Step 4.3 - Title: Records to flag
- Step 4.4 - Edition: 250 field
- Step 4.5 - Imprints: 260 field
- Step 4.6 - Convert 260 to 264
- Step 4.7 - Physical Description: 300 field
links
1.0 - 2.0 - 3.0 - 4.0 - 5.0 - 6.0
