Forwarded with permission from another list.
=================================================================== I can see quite clearly how improved and simplified cataloging rules could have a great impact on simplifying and speeding up workflow and on a greater adherence by all players to standards. The fewer, clearer, more generally applicable the cataloging rules are, the easier they will be for people to apply -- even those youngsters who made it through library school without having taken a single cataloging course . I think there are those in the world of cataloging who prize our current approach to cataloging simply because it is complex and hard to master. (Remember the gratuitous movie quote, "If it was easy, anybody could do it" -- at least, that's how I remember it -- from the movie "A league of their own"?) My recollection of the path to RDA from AACR2 is that many in the cataloging community argued for a more expansive, better illustrated, and more easily learned cataloging code that could be applied more generally to all the forms of materials that libraries have to deal with today. (At least, that's what I wanted to see!) Somehow along the way, though, it was decided (hijacked?) that there should be the proverbial extreme makeover of the code. I have stopped trying to keep up with RDA and FRBR, but they seem to promise to take what we know well now and turn it into something unrecognizable. Instead of producing tools that new catalogers could learn and apply with fairly little training, the process appears to be on the verge of making it necessary to retrain even those of us who thought they had a good grasp of cataloging. Of course, it's very tempting to say that, if we're going to reexamine our ways, we might as well start at square one and revamp not only the rules, but the vocabulary, the MARC record, and every other aspect of cataloging. But that way lies the retrograde step of tearing down what we have and laboriously recreating it, when what we all wanted, I believe, was to fix the flaws of the current system and expand its scope into the future. So yes, changing the rules -- not scrapping them -- is what will prove the most practical avenue to improving the workflow and adherence to standards that James (and I) hope to see. Gordon Pew Head of Copy Cataloging and Database Management Harvard Law School Library 164 Langdell Hall 1545 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, Mass. 02138 (617) 495-4487 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
