17.03.2011 12:18, Weinheimer Jim:
Ultimately, I think it is the lack of a sound and reasonable business case in favor of RDA which is the real problem. This has been brought up over and over again, including in the report of the Working Group. Everyone is just supposed to accept that it makes sense to spend all this time and effort training people how to use the new rules, with the final result that abbreviations are spelled out and that N.T. and O.T. are not entered into their headings anymore. People will see weird dates and some relator codes here and there, but otherwise, they will see no changes of substance. Searching will be the same, the records will look the same, everything will be the same except for some details here and there that probably, no one will even notice unless catalogers point them out.
As was pointed out in another posting, there's the danger of a digital divide in the cataloging world. This cannot be in the intention of anyone concerned about improved access to library materials. The only way to prevent this, and prevented it must be, is to make the text of the rules open source. It is to be regarded like a law, and texts of laws are free for the good reason that people cannot be expected to abide by a law they have no access to because they cannot afford to buy it. Likewise, RDA will fail without this approach. The text must be made universally accessible to become useful.
Compare this with the ONIX Best Practices at http://www.bisg.org/docs/Best_Practices_Document.pdf and you will see that *each field* has an associated business case in its favor. Although I don't think this level is necessary for library cataloging rules, at some point something will have to be done, because otherwise the changes RDA offers seem completely random and strange with no overall purpose--at least this is how they seem to me and I am sure how they seem to many others. I still see *no tangible advantages* whatsoever and I cannot imagine that a non-library administrator would see any more than I do.
And this ONIX text - the equivalent of our rules - is free.
Third parties are welcome to make money with added value, like an introduction, a commentary, or a toolkit, but not with the text as such. One such instrument may then become the preferred one, but this should happen because of compelling quality, not because there is nothing else. B.Eversberg
