I suspect that "theoretical purity" was less of a motivation for excluding
open access to RDA than revenue streams. As far as I can tell, AACR and
AACR2 were cash cows for ALA, guaranteed sellers year after year from the
late 1960s well into the 1990s and waning only as library schools dropped
required cataloging courses. Perhaps I am being cynical, but I suspect
that this experience and the expectation of similar revenues is behind the
way access is limited to RDA.
The publishers have to recoup their investment, which is considerable
because they are using a relatively new form of publication for a VERY
complicated resource. If there had been less expectation of revenue,
costs (and complexity) might have been controlled better. As it is, the
cost of RDA may limit its influence to the digital "haves." Of course,
hindsight is 20/20 while foresight often cannot see the big E on the wall
chart.
--
Laurence S. Creider
Special Collections Librarian
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM 88003
Work: 575-646-7227
Fax: 575-646-7477
lcrei...@lib.nmsu.edu
On Thu, 17 Mar 2011, Mike Tribby wrote:
While I agree entirely with what Bernhard says about what should be done
to disseminate RDA if RDA is to be a success, it is not and never has
been the intent of the co-publishers to make RDA available for free or
anything like free. In fact I daresay it has been understood from the
beginning of this process that RDA was intended to pay for itself. It's
not a secret, though it's also not the first thing the RDA crowd
mentions when touting RDA.
Should cost of access and the possibility of universal access have been
concerns? I think they should have been-- but they were not. To perhaps
put it crassly: theoretical purity was a higher concern than access.
It's hard to blame the co-publishers very much since none of them are
exactly rolling in extra money, and this process has been expensive, but
some of us have been complaining about the assumed cost of subscriptions
to RDA for some time now.
