15.02.2011 16:34, Weinheimer Jim:
I am being real. The plain text format of MarcEdit *absolutely cannot* do the same as MARCXML.
Sigh. I wasn't saying that. My point was and is that ISO2709 is not a point against MARC. There are many valid points against MARC, ISO is not among them. There is no necessity to confront end-users with ISO. Your statement "Browsers are built to work with XML, so right now, this second, any webmaster can work on the fly with XML using nothing more than a browser." has already been put into perspective by Jonathan, so let me just add that MARCXML does as much and as little towards understanding the content of a record as does MarcEdit plain text - the tags are essentially the same, only much much more voluptuous. And that is too bad, for in the long run only elegance can and should win. And it is inelegant if your packaging is lots heavier than your content. And language-based tags (which MARCXML presently doesn't have) would take up even more space. MARCXML must be seen as an add-on, it can be produced right now with little ado, on the fly, but it cannot and need not clog up our systems internally. B.E.
