On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Quoting Simon Spero <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> From a logical point of view, a bibliographic record can seen as a theory
>> -that is to say a consistent set of statements. There may be
>> records describing the same thing, but the theories they represent need
>> not be consistent with the statements in the first collection. The record
>> is the context in which these statements are made.
>>
>
> I think there is a big difference between the "database view" (store each
> unique thing only once and re-use it), the creation view, and what you do
> with data in applications. "Records" may be temporary constructs
> responding to a particular application need or user query. In terms of
> library data, a cataloger will appear to be creating a complete description
> (however that is defined); that description will look logically like a
> record, and it will need to look like that so that the cataloger can decide
> when it is complete. In response to queries, the ability to produce
> different records from the same data has some interesting possibilities
> because it allows for different "views" to be created based on the nature
> of the query. A geographic view would show resources on a map; an author
> view would show resources related to people; a topical view could be a
> topic map. At the individual resource level, what is included in the
> resource display ("record") could be different for each of those views.
I think I may not have explained myself clearly, as well as making an
overly obscure allusion to Quine's From A Logical Point Of
View<http://www.worldcat.org/title/from-a-logical-point-of-view-9-logico-philosophical-essays/oclc/1658745/editions?sd=asc&se=yr&referer=di&qt=facet_ln%3A&editionsView=true&fq=ln%3Aeng>
.
The point I was trying to make is not related to any kind of display- it is
about how the meanings of the statements derived from a record are only
required to be self-consistent, and that it is possible for there to be
inconsistencies between two correct descriptions of the same resource.
The reason for using FAST headings as an example is that, because they are
post-coordinate, and since there "the subject of the work" may not be
unique, as Patrick Wilson shows in Two kinds of
power<http://books.google.com/books?id=DePy_aazKI4C&lpg=PA20&dq=editions%3AISBN0520035151&pg=PA69#v=onepage&q&f=false>(see.
Chapter V in particular). There needs to be information linking
together all the assertions made as a single unit. I would claim that the
entity to which all these statements relate corresponds at least in part to
the concept of the MARC record as speech act.
Simon
